The following is your classic attempt in getting an unsuspecting person to think they have won the lottery and in trying to claim their winnings, expose their personal information. This particular approach is better than some as it doesn’t immediately ask for banking information, but that is sure to come after any kind of reply.

We will be replying to this unsolicited spam email posing as someone thinking that they have indeed won the lottery. We will post the results as they come in.

To avoid such a situation yourself look for the obvious clues. First, why would a Canadian be entered into a UK lottery? Why would someone be entered into a lottery without asking for it? Where would they have gotten your information from to begin with, and if they already know who we are to enter us into the draw, why do they now need our personal information to pay out the funds?

Next notice the email address for the ”claims” department. Would a ”National Lottery” as they proclaim be using a free yahoo email address? Of course not, it”s a feeble attempt to hide the con man behind a thin veil of anonymity. There is also no website provided, and a search on the search engines shows no such organization exists anywhere in the world, including the UK as they suggest.

ATTENTION: WINNER,

You have been Selected in the UKONL 2007 Lottery Program. Our lottery program selection has finally been performed today which was held at the Marina office. UK Promotion is a joint Euro/America private lottery registered and organized in accordance with the World Lottery Regulation act. We the The National Lottery organizing committee are pleased to officially notify you of the status of your email application.

An official notification of winning is hereby issued to you as your email promotionticket randomly drew for the Lucky Numbers: 31-17-8-28-55 [08] Bonus Ball ,which selected your email as the 2ND winner of our lottery program you have consequently won the lottery program in the first batch. Suffice to say here, We have officially approved a sum payout of £750,000.00 GBP to you as the lottery winner.

FIDUCIARY DEPT:
NAME: GRAY MOORE.
(CLAIMS OFFICER)
Email:claims_tonyukagent3@yahoo.co.uk

VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE FORM
SURNAME:
MIDDLE NAME:
AGE:
SEX:
ADDRESS:
COUNTRY:
WINNING EMAIL ADDRESS:
MARITAL STATUS:
OCCUPATION:
PHONE NUMBER:
FAX NUMBER:
LUCKY NUMBER :
REF NUMBER:

Congratulations from all our staff for being part of UK 2007 LOTTERY PROGRAM.
Sincerely,
Marian Jones(Mrs)
Zonal Co-ordinator

We only edited the solicitation for presentation purposes, everything else is as it came – for example – missing carriage return or extra space between words.