Today I received this email from “Graphic Fortune Lotto” letting me know that I was lucky enough to win 1.5 Million pounds. With this sort of money I would be pretty set, unfortunately I’m not this lucky. Not lucky enough to win a lottery that I never entered. (I have left the content intact, but have emphasised certain points
From: The director of the Prize Award Department Reference number: EG/38807886091/05 Batch number: 340/1608/RDL
Re: Award Notification Of Final Notice
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the GRAPHICS FORTUNE LOTTO brits sweepstakes lottery International promotion UK programmes held on the 7TH NOVEMBER 2005. Your email address attached to the ticket number 033-1146993-750 with serial number 13-15-16-21-34-36, which consequently won the lottery in the 3rd category.
You have therefore been awarded the lump sum of 1.5MILLION (ONE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND BRITISH POUNDS STERLING) in cash credited to file number EG/38807886091/05.This is from the total cash prize off 150,000,000.00(ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION BRITISH POUNDS STERLING) which is being shared among Ten international lucky winners in this category. Your funds are deposited with a security company, which will be insured in your name once you contact us.
All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 25,000 email addresses from all over the world as a part of our international promotional program, which we conduct twice annually. We hope that with a part of your prize, you will take part in our end of year high stake 3bn lottery. All prize money must be claimed no later than 14days from the date of this notice, as after this date, all funds will be returned to GRAPHICS LOTTO INTERNATIONAL as unclaimed. To file for your claim, please contact our financial agent:
MR. MAC OWEN CLAIMS MANAGER. Email:graphicslotteryuk@mail.com ALTERNATIVE EMAIL:graphicslotteryuk@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 0044 703184 8477. Fax: 00442-07-900-3621. International:0044 703184 8477. For Further Assistant please call your international Directory in your country (GRAPHIC FORTUNE LOTTO)
First of all. 150,000,000 pound shared between 10 people would be 15,000,000 pound each. They are ripping us off of 13.5 million pound!!! And you have to love the urgency suggested by the 14 day deadline. Oh, the headers:
Received: from borland.com (tpr-165-239-46.telkomadsl.co.za [165.165.239.46]) by pbf.org.au (Postfix) with SMTP id 7BC741284C6 for
; Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:51:54 +1000 (EST) From: it@pbf.org.au To: it Subject: AWARD NOTIFICATION X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Reply-To: it@pbf.org.au mime-version: 1.0 content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=“qzsoft_directmail_seperator” Message-Id: 20051107075154.7BC741284C6@pbf.org.au Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:51:54 +1000 (EST)
What country is that? Zambia. Running a UK lottery, and using Yahoo! and Mail.com accounts to toke information from the winners. I don’t think so. That and setting the from to look like it came from me was just plain stupid!
When will these scammers actually start to take pride in their work? When will they purchase proper domain names and create entire websites to support their cause. And when will their maths improve?
Of course this was also identified by Spam Assassin:
Content analysis details: (9.40 points, 7 required) BASE64_ENC_TEXT (1.6 points) RAW: Message text disguised using base-64 encoding SUBJ_ALL_CAPS (1.1 points) Subject is all capitals RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET (3.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in bl.spamcop.net [RBL check: found 46.239.165.165.bl.spamcop.net.] MISSING_MIMEOLE (0.5 points) Message has X -MSMail-Priority, but no X-MimeOLE PRIORITY_NO_NAME (0.5 points) Message has priority setting, but no X-Mailer NIGERIAN_BODY (2.7 points) Message body has multiple indications of Nigerian spam
Poor effort indeed.