Consumer Safety & Awareness Part 17

Advance Fee Scams: Introduction

One of the most common illegal schemes is called the “advanced-fee” scam. It involves getting payment or a product before giving anything of value, then disappearing. There are two main formats, the simple get-the-fee-and-run technique, and the counterfeit rebate scheme. The second, originally a “Nigerian 419” scheme, revolves around receiving a check, depositing it, and sending part of the amount to the scammer. The check is stolen or counterfeit. We will look at this in depth later.

Advanced fee schemes can arrive in the mail, by e-mail, through phone solicitations, personal visits, in newspaper and magazine ads, and even through paid television and radio commercials. They can earn the scammers enough to quickly pay for their upfront fees, generate a nice profit, and provide them with get-away cash. They know how to cover their tracks well.

All such scams are uninvited. You do not contact them, they contact you. The mass mailing available to Internet spammers provides a perfect venue. Let’s start off by analyzing an actual e-mail that people have received.


AWARD NOTIFICATION: FINAL NOTICE

Attn: Winner,

We are pleased to inform you of the lottery result winners of Australian International Lottery Programmes held on the 30th of July 2007 from the Australian International Lottery programme. Which is fully based on an electronic selection of winners using their e-mail addresses. Your name was attached to ticket number; 675061725 9356460902 Serial Number 67749137002. This batch draws the lucky numbers as follows 2-9-23-35-46 bonus number 14, which consequently won the lottery in the second category. You are here by having been approved a lump sum pay of US$400,000.00 in cash credit file ref: ILP/HW 46704/03 from the total cash prize shared amongst eight lucky winners in this category.

Due to mix up of some numbers and names, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential until your claims has been processed and your money remitted to your nominated bank. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claims and unwarranted abuse of this programme by some participants. All participants where selected through a computer/mail balloting system drawn from Nine hundred thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania as part of our international promotions program which is conducted annually. This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomerate of some multinational companies and also the Australian Government as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base. Further more your details (e-mail address) falls within our European representative office in Amsterdam, Holland, as indicated in your play coupon and your prize of US$400,000.00 will be released to you from our regional branch office. We hope with part of your prize, you will participate in our end of year high stakes for US$2.3 Million international draw.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE: Contact our Claims Office under the African Payment Centre, where your winnings fell.
Contact Person: Mr. Alexzander Evans(RCA) Phone_+234_80 666 70849
Email: agentalex.australianlotto@yahoo.com

TO FILE FOR CLAIM: Please quote your Date of draw, Reference Number, Batch Number and Winning Number, which can be found on the top-left corner of this message. Also, you should give in your telephone number to help locate your file easily. For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize has been released to you and also to the public. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participant or unofficial personnel.

Note: All winnings MUST be claimed before the 30th of August 2007: otherwise all funds will be forfeited. Congratulations once again on your winning!

BEST REGARDS,
MR.DANIEL ROMAN
(LOTTERY COORDINATOR)

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT AT:
agentalex.australianlotto@yahoo.com

ANY BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY ON THE PART OF WINNERS WILL RESULT TO DISQUALIFICATION.

The catch is that when you call up or write to submit your claim, they ask you to pay a fee or to submit your credit card or bank account number to cover some expenses. It could be taxes, verification of identity, promotional costs, or some seemingly reasonable cause. Payment is usually through a money order, Western Union, or similar method that is not traceable to the actual scammers. They may not ask for gigantic sums. Occasionally, especially if they hope to con thousands, the fees may be a few hundred. They have been known to ask for thousands of dollars at a time.

Let’s analyze this letter.

1. It is called the “Australian International Lottery Programmes.” Google that phrase and you get around 200,000 hits. The first one may say “Congratulations, you have won, this is real.” All the others say that this is a scam. In fact, Goggling the phrase with “scam” after it leads to such sites as Fraud Aid, which contains a list of thousands of names used in scams.

2. “Your name was attached to ticket number; 675061725 9356460902 Serial Number 67749137002. This batch draws the lucky numbers as follows 2-9-23-35-46 bonus number 14” Too much detail. That is a technique scammers use. They believe that people will fall for official-sounding gibberish.

3. “US$400,000.00 in cash credit…from the total cash prize shared amongst eight lucky winners” Multiply that amount by the 8 winners and you get $3.2 million. Are you going to believe that the second place prize was that much?

4. “Due to mix up of some numbers and names, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential until your claims has been processed and your money remitted to your nominated bank.” Three things in this sentence. Any prize that asks you to maintain confidentiality is a scam. No questions about it. Secondly, this is a conglomerate of major corporations and the government. Would they get numbers and names mixed up? Last, they are already leading up to needing your bank account number. You give it to them and they can drain your entire savings.

5. “This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claims and unwarranted abuse of this programme by some participants” There are eight winners. Even if you include the first place and a few hundred minor winners, what are the chances their organization, especially since it was “promoted and sponsored by a conglomerate of some multinational companies and also the Australian Government” will be so disorganized that they cannot keep track of a few names?

6. “Drawn from Nine hundred thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania.” Why not Mexico and South America?

7. “Further more your details (e-mail address) falls within our European representative office in Amsterdam,” No North American representative? Seems unlikely.

8. “We hope with part of your prize, you will participate in our end of year high stakes for US$2.3 Million international draw.” Heads up! They are going to ask you to send money to play in this drawing before you get your prize. Interesting that their grand annual prize is $2.3 million, yet second place was $3.2 million.

9. “Contact our Claims Office under the African Payment Centre, where your winnings fell. Contact Person: Mr. Alexzander Evans(RCA) Phone_+234_80 666 70849
Email: agentalex.australianlotto@yahoo.com” Wow, there’s a bunch of give-away signs here. Why would someone in the United States, who has a “European representative” have to contact someone in Africa? Let’s Google that phone number. There are only a few results and the first screams “scam.” The second is written in Cyrillic letters, meaning the scam may have originated in a former Soviet Union country. International calling code “234” is Nigeria. Remember what we said earlier about this being a favorite of the “Nigerian 419” scams?

10. “Also, you should give in your telephone number to help locate your file easily.” How can they cross-reference to your telephone number when this was a random drawing using e-mail addresses? They do not have your phone number, but giving it to them will make it easier for them to scam you, or to sell the information to others who can try to trick you.

11. “We advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public” A second such warning. They know if you tell anyone you will be informed it is a scam.

12. “PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL” Because if you do, you will get a no-such e-mail return. They love using throw-away e-mail addresses. Use it once and then delete it. The same is true for using a “Yahoo,” “G-Mail,” “Hot-Mail,” or any other form of free e-mail service. Your contact is agentalex.australianlotto@yahoo.com. Agent X? And a Yahoo account? You would think that a bona fide lottery would have its own domain.

13. “ANY BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY ON THE PART OF WINNERS WILL RESULT TO DISQUALIFICATION” In case you did not catch it the first three times.

This is just an example. There are many other types of advanced-fee scams.