FIFA World Cup Lottery Scam

The FIFA World Cup is scheduled for 2010 in South Africa and scammers have already started using this news to trick people into giving out their personal details.

Targetting peopleA new scam email is sent to people telling them they won a lottery. The email is full of interesting things to catch people’s attention such as a large dollar amount ($850,000) and social tricks such as asking them not to tell anyone about their winnings.

At the end they ask the recipient to send them a few personal details, which the scammers then use to steal money from your bank accounts.

The email uses broken English and is full of "official looking" random letters and numbers.

Below are some quotes from the scam email. If you receive this email just delete it.

South Africa FIFA World Cup 2010
Government Accredited Licensed!!
Online National Lottery South African
2009/REF:EAASL/941OYI/04&
Batch: 12/25/DC34 RE:LOTTO

Your email have luckily won the sum of USD$850,000.00

Which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category i.e. match 5 plus bonus. You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of $850,000.00 USD… In cash credited to file KPC/9080118308/02. All participants for the online version were selected randomly from World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 union associations and corporate bodies that are listed online this promotion takes place weekly.

Our agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact him. For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program your request to fill the information below.

And it goes on and on.

Some people who fall for these things have never entered a lottery, but they want to believe it so much that they don’t stop to consider why they were selected.

Now you might be wondering who could possibly be so foolish to fall for lottery scams. In fact, a large number of people fall for these things. In Australia alone (and with a small population of 21 million) 329,000 people lost money to lottery and phishing scams in one year. 3.6 million people fell for these scams in USA. Imagine how many people worldwide fall for these things.

Not everyone in the world reads Fraudo.com. You can help by talking to people about lottery scams, making them aware of what they are and how they work (there’s more information here). Help educate people, especially those who are less tech savvy or might be desperate for money. You could also help them subscribe to Fraudo.com – get them to enter their email address in the top right corner of this page, sometimes email is an easier way to receive these updates.

Keep the wolves at bay

7 thoughts on “FIFA World Cup Lottery Scam”

  1. THERE SHOULD BE A WAY TO SUE THESE PEOPLE. PEOPLE LIKE MY SELF ARE DESPERATE AND ANY AMOUNT OF EXTRA MONEY WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR LIVES..TELL ME WHO DO I SUE..I AM SERIOUS SOMEONE NEEDS TO STRIKE THESE PEOPLE WITH THE WRATH OF THE NEEDY SUCH AS THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH AFRICA…PLEASE RESPOND WITH WHO WOULD WE SUE AND WHEN CAN WE GET STARTED.

  2. I love your enthusiasm! I don’t think suing is possible, but if you have information you can contact the authorities in your country.

    The best solution I can think of is to make people aware of the scams. If everyone knows about it then it can’t work. That’s why I started Fraudo.com.

  3. this is address to the people doing these wrong things.surely they will GO TO ” HELL”. congratulation to them for they are much welcome to FIRES of HELL

  4. RECEIVED SMS ON SELL PHONE-CONTACTED SENDER BY E-MAIL-REQUESTED ME TO APPLY FOR BANK ACCOUNT IN THE UK(CHIPPS INVESTMENT BANK)-SUPPLY THEM WITH BANK DETAILS SO THEY CAN TRANSFER 5000POUND-INTO THIS ACCOUNT-THE INFO-FIFA-2010/UK NATIONAL LOTTERY PAYMENT-REF UK231/SA1492-BATH NO FIFA-SA/40/UK-4329-IS THIC LIGIT

  5. Hi, we have received something very similar, but via normal mail. The letter looks official, with stamps, FIFa world cup logo, olympic association logo and many other stamps. It makes me mad, that these people are just sending letters and getting away with it? Can’t anything be done about it?

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