Outline
Messages purporting to be from Facebook claim that users have won a large sum of money in a supposed Facebook related promotion, lottery or award.
Brief Analysis
The messages are scams designed to trick users into sending their money and personal information to Internet criminals. There is no such thing as a Facebook Lottery. Any unsolicited message claiming that you have won a large prize in a promotion organized by Facebook should be treated with the utmost suspicion and is almost certainly a scam.
Example
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS FROM FACEBOOK!CONGRATULATIONS FROM FACEBOOK!So We are pleased to inform you of the result of the NEW YEAR DRAW held on (28th Feb 2017) by Facebook Company in cash Promotion to encourage the usage of Facebook users world wide, your Name and Email was among the 20 Lucky winners who won $600,000:00 USD (Six Hundred Thousand United State
Dollars) each on the Face book promotion Award Attached to Ticket Number (5647600545189), Ref No (2551256002/244) and Serial Number (55643451907).
To avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your Ticket, Reference and Batch Numbers in all correspondences.The online draw was Conducted by a random selection of email you where picked by an Advanced automated random computer search from the Facebook in other to claim your $600.000.00 USD the lottery program which is a new innovation by Facebook, His aimed at saying A BIG THANK to you all our users for making Facebook your number one Social Networking to hook up with their families and friends all over the World.
This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants and Scam artists All participants were selected through a computer ballot system with their email addresses and names from all over the world.
Thanks to the FBI and the Software Company corporation to block few individuals web site and email addresses.
You are required to contact our dispatch dept via email (fbclaimdepartment2@gmail.com)
Furthermore, if there is any change in email address please contact us on time.
If you are not interested please do not bother to reply and CONGRATULATIONS ONCE AGAIN FROM FACEBOOK!
Thanks,
[Name Removed]
Detailed Analysis
Advance fee scammers often create scam messages claiming to be from high-profile companies such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes, or Microsoft. And, these days, Facebook is often their company of choice.
An increasing number of advance fee scam messages purport to come from Facebook. Typically, the messages claim that the ‘lucky’ recipient has won a large cash prize in a promotion, lottery or award organized and managed by Facebook. Some are quite crude. Others are more sophisticated. A few even claim to come directly from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself.
Some arrive via email. Others may be distributed as private messages from within Facebook itself, often via hijacked or cloned accounts.
Details in the messages may vary. As may the method by which they are distributed. But, all claim that ‘winners’ can collect their unexpected prize by contacting a designated agent or department.
Those who make contact as instructed will soon be asked to pay various upfront fees, ostensibly to cover unavoidable expenses such as bank fees, tax payments, insurance, or delivery costs. The criminals will claim that these fees cannot be deducted from the prize itself for legal reasons or company policy.
Alas, no matter how much money victims send, they will never get the promised prize, which never existed to begin with. And all of the money they send will line the pockets of the greedy criminals running the sting.
And, if victims supply enough personal and financial information during the course of the scam, the criminals may also manage to steal their identities as well as their money.
Users should be very cautious of any email claiming that they have won a large prize in a lottery, promotion or award that they have never even entered. If you receive such a message, do not reply. And do not click any links or open any attachments that it contains. The best way to deal with these scam messages is simply to hit the delete button.
Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/facebook-promotion-lottery-and-award-scams/