We have seen an awful lot of scams that claim that the receiver has won a lot of money. Most of the scams seem to use large corporations as a hook into the scam. For instance, a recent one that we saw said that Microsoft Corp has set up a lottery fund, is giving away lots of money, and that YOU are the lucky winner.
Firstly, why would a company like Microsoft Corp give away all of that money? Even if they did, why would it not be to a huge worldwide fanfare with the Microsoft marketing department at full tilt and spreading the word across the world.
A number of our customers have phoned me asking if these scams are real or not. Of course, my answer is always to shred the letter. However, some of them have been called first by a mystery woman who tells them what is going to happen. This seems to be a step up from the normal scattergun approach and it would appear that these people are actually targetting potential victims.
A good website for checking out a lot of these scams is http://www.scambusters.org/
It has a lot of good information about each scam or hoax and tells you straight away whether the mail is true or not.
Be warned!
