Lottery winner!

Yesterday my email brought me a scam email announcing that I’ve won the Econo-Global E Lottery. Kind of a cheapo lottery though—I only won $500,000.

Econo-Global Lottery
programs 45 Western Avenue
Lagos - Nigeria
Ref. Number: 87K4/336/T071/006
Batch Numbe: 468911521-Bc87

Sir/Madam,

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the
Econo-Global E-Lottery programs 2006.

Your e-mail address attached to ticket number
27522465896 6433 with serial number 3772-554 drew
lucky numbers 942-20-23-28-45 which
consequently won in category 2E, you have therefore
been approved for a lump sum pay out of FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND U.S. DOLLARS.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
We ask that you keep your winning information
confidential until your claims has been processed and your money Remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claims and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.

All participants were selected through a computer
ballot system drawn from over Twenty Million
companies and Thirty Million individual email
addresses from all over the world. This promotional program takes place every three years.

This lottery was promoted and sponsored by software companies and eminent personalities, we hope with part of your winning, you will take part in our next three years Fifty million USD International Promotion lottery.

To claim your winning, please contact Dr. ChukwunyeEgo the coordinator Econo-Global Lottery programs with the following information only on this E-mail address

xxxxx@yahoo.co.uk

(1) FULL NAME OF BENEFICIARY:
(2) REFERENCE NUMBER:
(3) COUNTRY:
(4)AGE: 
(5) SEX: 
(6) OCCUPATION: 
(7) TELEPHONE NUMBER:

Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically
disqualified.

Sincerely yours,
ELLIOTT
Secretary.

_____________________
SERVIZIO VOICE: TELEFONA e INVIA SMS dal tuo computer a tariffe vantaggiose!
Scopri come telefonare e videochiamare gratis da pc a pc.

http://voice.repubblica.it

I thought it was interesting that the email was routed through Italy, though it apparently originated in Nigeria, and with a Yahoo.uk response address. How global, indeed. I looked up one of the email routing addresses in the headers, on Google, which then led me into the world of 419 scams. And the serious new internet hobby called scambaiting.

These 419 scammers are criminals who manage to bilk innocent/ignorant/gullible/etc. people out of hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) each year. Some of their victims actually do travel to contact points throughout the world to meet with ‘representatives’ of said scam and, not infrequently, end up dead or kidnapped for ransom. It’s an ugly hard core business. But the scambaiters are, in many cases, even more creative and devious than the scammers.

Aside from the obvious allure of scamming the scammers, the scambaiters feel that the more time they spend tying the scammers up in knots, making them jump through increasingly bizarre hoops in the belief they’re really going to get their illgotten gains, the less time they’ll have to spend on successfully scamming innocent/ignorant/gullible/etc victims. I don’t know how effective it is, but it does appear to be a quickly growing hobby guaranteed to keep a lot of scammers busy.

One such scambaiter was written up in a BBC article, in 2004: Turning the tables on Nigeria’s e-mail conmen. From what I’ve read about scambaiting and on a few of the scambaiting forums, this is a fairly representative story, save for the exchange of cash by the scammer. That happens, but not often. Even criminals can be gullible.