Please do not forward your spam emails to us. We have enough on our own ;)
If you came to this site while searching parts of a spam email you received, you really should ask yourself how legit your contact is. Would someone legit simply bulkmail hundredthousands of people with some kind of business offer? If something sounds too good to be true, it most likely is too good to be true...
Have a look on the recent letters tracked down. Look how often we win the lottery or are offered one lifetime oppertunities in just 24 hours.
Do you want to hear our opinion what you should do? Delete the email and in no case reply to it.
However, notice that the informations listed on this site are presented as received. Names of persons and companies you see here have been abused by the fraudsters. So simply use your brain when reviewing the listed information.
The following list gives you an overview and explanation of the most likely scam schemes flowing around:
Heck, did you even played a lottery? How likely is it that you/your email address won a lottery? This scheme works mostly in the way that you would have to pay an agent or represantative some sort of fees until your prize could be released. It works like a classic advance fee fraud.
Also note that in most countries lotteries are regulated by the state and it is highly unlikely that a large company runs a lottery. If the later isn't the case be aware that even if the sender of your prize notification claims to be with a real lottery agency, you should note that none of them do email lotteries.
A large sum of money is held in a bank account or security company that is ready to be transfered out of the country. In most cases the victim only needs to provide a bank account where the money (that simply doesn't exist) could be transfered. For that the victim is normaly offered an amount around 10%-20% of the whole sum for his 'compensation'.
Also often the victim is asked to act as the next of kin for a deceased person to 'inheritate' the money. The scam itself works in the way that the victim needs to pay for some sort of fees before the money can be released to his account. There will be fees for the 'security company', fees for certificates like money laundring or drug clearing documents or for gifts/bribes for customs/bank staff whatever the scammers can imagine. When one fee is payed, their will be another and another and another.....
This might be the most disgusting sort of scam that is around the internet. Do you really think, that a legit charity like the red cross would contact you via a SPAM mail?
Those impersonaters and might even present you a faked website where you can do donations. In example for the victims of the large tsunami in Indonesia, hurricane Kartina, children or another cause that most people would give their money for. The request to help for medical treatment of a (often rich) person has also been seen many times.
You have a large amount of money that you want to be prevented from someone stealing it? So what can you do? Sure thing, you simply put a large bucket of black/red ink all over it....
But now you a problem - you can't spend it, right? In that scheme a victim can participate on the money if he helps purchasing a 'cleaning fluid' used to clean up the bills to their original state. There is of course no money at all, the victim might get a demonstration with some prepared bills (or while the demonstration the black paper is exchanged against real money). All you would get your hands on is a large bunch of black paper and some bottles of acetone for just some thousand bucks.
Hey that is cool. Those people just want to use my bank account to forward money and I get something around 5% of the money.... Look, this scheme is either run in the way that you receive faked checks, you pay into your bank account or you would receive money from phising victims whose bank account data has been compromised.
The problem with the checks is that they will first clear, so you would indeed get some money into your account that you can forward to the scammer. But after some weeks the check would bounce and most likely you can expect a visit from the police. Also you should be aware that even if you get real money into your hands, what you would do is simply laundring money, nothing else.