Monday, October 31, 2011

Please Don't Fall into This Trap

I  have received a mail from some Burton who calls himself the Google Promotion Agent and tells me that my e-mail account has won 5,00,000 GBP. He says that my e-mail id has been short listed for the prize to celebrate the 13th anniversary of Google and the that i am being rewarded for using google mail for last so many years. I checked up by searching his name in the google search engine and found out that there were numerous Gmail users like me who have received such mail calling them winners. The modus operendi seems to be to ask you to come to a fictitious address in London or if you are staying in some far away land on this globe and can not come to London (which most probabaly must be the case while selecting the victims by the senders) then you will be asked for your bank account details and then either your account balance will be syphoned off or you will be asked to first deposit some money as International Transfer commission in his bank and then you will never hear from him. Earlier many citizens have been defrauded by some fraudsters who used Reserve Bank's Logo on the mail and asked them to deposit cash in some bank account. My sencere request to all my friends is not to fall into such traps.

Can Google check up that who is sending such mails on thier behalf and take appropriate action ??

The text of the said mail is reproduced below in green clour for distinction. I could not capture the Google Logo and the Watermark received in the mail while copying this document on my blog as it was in Microsoft Word Format :-


©2011 Giveaway Promo Team



Belgrave House, #76 Buckingham Palace Road London SW1W 9TQ.


Tel: +44 702 4084626, +44 702 4064514,


Fax: +448704710767, +44 700 597 8372.


Office Open 7 Days, 8am-6pm.






DEAR GOOGLER (WINNER),


13TH ANNIVERSARY PROMOTIONs.


I'm pleased to inform you that your email address has been checked and it falls among our ten (10) lucky winning email addresses for this year promo draw. On behalf of all team, I'm happy to inform you that you actually emerged a winner of £500,000.00 GBP (Five hundred thousand Great British Pounds) under Category (A), which is part of our 13th Anniversary promotional draws. No purchase of Tickets were required for this draw, all Participants (email addresses) for this draws were randomly picked from a worldwide range of Gmail users, web searchers (our Google Search Engine users) and other Google ancillary services through a computer ballot system and this was how your email was picked. This promo is organized by Google UK Organization to mark her 12th year of existence in the UK which also aimed to say "Thank you" to our numerous customers/users of our search engine and other ancillary services who have in one way or the other made us what we are today.


OPTIONS OF CLAIM (MODALITIES):


1 - Personal prize Pickup:


All winners are required to come down in person to personally pickup their prize at any of our disbursement locations (cash pickup centers) here in LONDON.


Requirements for personal prize pickup are:


(a) A printed copy of your Winning Notification (the first mail you received from us)


(b) An International Passport or Drivers license


(c) A tax clearance certification.


(d) Birth Certificate or Affidavit of age Declaration


(e) Police report attesting your patriotism and crime free citizen of your Country (Note: You are only required to present the above documents only when visiting us in person)


NOTE: Claim deadline for this option is exactly 30 working days from the receipt of this mail.






In receipt of these requirements your cash will be made available to you after 24hrs. This option is basically for winners who can easily visit us in person with the above stated pickup requirements. Scan copy of your Flight Ticket should be forwarded to us one week before your flight to UK to enable us assign delegates who would welcome you at the airport


Inability to meet up with this stipulated date either due to none availability of some claims documents above, none availability of travel documents etc. may result to loss of winnings as funds will be re-used for other upcoming draws. This option is recommended by the Google lotto management to clear doubts and unnecessary thinking as regard this Promo. This is because we have had series of complaints from individuals that people are using our company name for various forms of indecent acts. Thus, as part of verification/confirmation; our 10 lucky winners are advised to come and pickup their reward in person from our disbursement centre here in UK.






2- On-line Swift Telegraphic Bank Transfer:


Your £ 500,000.00 GBP which you have won will be transfer to your bank account via swift bank transfer. Condition: You shall be responsible for the international transfer commission what will be charged by our paying Bank since no tickets were sold for the promotion. This option is basically design for winners who are not resident of UK and winners who cannot visit our payment office in London.






Kindly fill the FORM below with the required data and send it back immediately either via email or Fax. To fill in your detail in the form, just click on the provided space “box” and fill in your data.


WINNERS PRIZE RELEASE ORDER FORM


Prefix (Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr.):


First name :


Middle name :


Last name :


Date of Birth:


Occupation :


Address :










City/State/province


Country :






Telephone number(s):


Mobile number(s):


Email Address 1&2:


Amount won / Date of notification


Ticket number / Lucky numbers


CGPN Number


Payment Options (tick on any of the payment option, the one that you find most convenient) Personal prize Pickup.


Online Bank Transfer.








I expect you to fill and return the Release Order Form above within 24hrs upon receipt of this message so that appropriate arrangement can be put in place. Congratulations to you once again!!!


Sincerely,


MR. PAUL BURTON


Verification/ Payment office









5 comments:

Reflections said...

Hahaa...I received something like this from Microsoft or was it Nokia....no no i think it was from Pepsi;-D

Thanks for sharing!!!!!

Balvinder Balli said...

Nancy, good that you even forgot the name of the company on whose behalf someone sent you the fake mail. On the other hand, many of the unsuspecting receivers of such mails jump with joy and in the bargain loose hefty sum of money.

Renu said...

I keep getting such mails and smses regularly:)

BK Chowla, said...

Well, I have been receiving such communication for last two months.

Kit-Kat said...

I just got another email from the google giveaway team saying I won yea I figured it was a scam.