Jenny Woo at Large

I just won the lottery.....well sort of

Jennifer Woo

The email announced a big lottery win of just over $1 million dollars.  I am scratching my head thinking "What lottery?"  Jenny did not participate in any online lottery.  Then I see the following:

All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from
only Microsoft users from over 20,000 company, and 30,000,000.00 individual email addresses and names from all over the world.

Seeing that this could have somehow been tied in with Microsoft, I decide to give my specially appointed fiduciary agent a call, Mr.Kelly Lee the Foreign operation manager of the appointed company, LUCKYDAY  INTERNATIONAL B.V.

This is great!  I am very close to quitting my job here at Sports911.com.

I provided Mr. Lee with my home address, whereby he sent me a claim to verify my identity.  

Once I submitted my driver's license and passport information to Lucky Day International, Jenny had three choices of how to have the $1 million dollars transferred into these greedy little hands. 

I could have the money wired to a bank account, I could open an account with a specified bank, or I could pick up their winnings personally (normally from Amsterdam).

Of course I wanted winnings transferred into my personal bank account. Unfortunately this turned into one of those high return money market accounts where you stick in $5000 and end up with $1000 after two years.

Most people want their winnings transferred into their bank account. This involves upfront fees for taxes, insurance or even legal fees. Victims transfer money as requested via Western Union. If they do not want to pay upfront fees, they can open an online account with a specified bank, who’s ‘policy’ requires a deposit of around US$3,000. This bank is fake. Alternatively, victims are able to pick up their money personally by travelling to Amsterdam, where they are required to pay a release fee in cash, and receive their winnings in counterfeit currency.

Jenny Woo got wooed into something she'd later come to regret, but thousands of decent intelligent people like myself get suckered into these scams every year.  Forget the money that got stolen from me, the primary concern is that of identity theft.  These scammers now possess my passport and license information.  Some Russian mail order bride is probably coming over to the U.S. as I write this with 200,000 rubbles she'll be withdrawing from my own personal bank account.  

Lucky Day is just one of a few hundred lottery scams believed to be in operation today. These fraudsters are after enough information to commit identity theft. They will request information such as personal contact details, address, workplace, and next of kin details. They will also request copies of passports and drivers licenses. When they have all this information, they are then able to commit Identity Theft using all the personal information obtained.

If they only have your email address and telephone number, then you are not at risk. If you have provided a majority of the above information, then you are at risk of becoming a victim of Identity Theft. 

If you have already lost money to these scammers, good luck getting it back.  That just won't happen.

The following is a list of around 100 suspect banks and investment companies used in lottery scams. It is important to note that some company names may be genuine, but have been hijacked by the fraudsters and used with fake web sites.

Whilst we maintain our efforts to shut these web sites down, the fraudsters will often take the website to be hosted by another web hosting company. This is a continual effort to work against the fraudsters.

Originally published on June 28, 2004 (9:42 pm EST)