According to this email , which purports to be from software giant Microsoft, you are the lucky winner of nine hundred and fifty thousand Great British Pounds Sterling. Supposedly, your email address was selected via an ‘e-mail beta draw’ as the winner of an annual Microsoft promotion. The message claims that the promotion is designed to encourage the use of Microsoft products and its software services.
To claim your unexpected windfall, you are instructed to email your details to the Microsoft Program Administrator/Coordinator.
But, alas, you have won no prize, the supposed promotion does not exist, and the email is most certainly not from Microsoft.
Instead, the message is a typical advance fee scam designed to trick you into sending your money and personal information to online criminals.
If you were to send your details as instructed, you would soon begin receiving requests for money. The scammers will claim that, to receive your prize, you must first pay various expenses associated with the transfer of the funds. They will ask you to send money to cover various expenses such as tax fees, bank and accounting costs, and legal bills. If you comply and send money the first time, the scammers will continue to request further fees until you run out of money or realise that you are being conned. The scammers will then simply disappear with all of the money you have sent and leave you waiting forlornly for a prize that will never arrive.
And, to make matters even worse, the scammers may have collected enough of your personal information during the course of the scam to steal your identity.
Advance fee lottery scams like this one have been around for decades and predate the Internet. Nevertheless, they still manage to find many new victims every year.
Be wary of any unsolicited message that claims that you have won a large prize in a lottery or promotion that you have never even entered. Legitimate companies or lottery organisations do not give away large swags of cash to people based on the random selection of their name or email address.
Example:
MICROSOFT ® CORPORATIONCardinal Place
80-100 Victoria Street
London,SW1E 5JL
United Kingdom
Winning No: MSFT/5975/107/2015
Ticket No: MSFT/3081/039/2015
MICROSOFT YEARLY ANNIVERSARY WINNING NOTIFICATION
We wish to congratulate you on this note, for being part of our selected winners in our just concluded internal promotion draw this year, this promotion was set-up to encourage the active users of Microsoft products and its software services.
Hence we do believe with your winning prize, you will continue to be an active patronage to Microsoft products and its software services. Microsoft Corporation develops and markets software, services and hardware that deliver new opportunities, greater convenience and enhanced value to people’s lives. We ran an online e-mail beta draw which your email address won Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great British Pounds Sterling (Ј950,000.00). We wish to formally announce to you that you have successfully passed the requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report Test conducted for all online winners.
A winning check will be issued in your name by Microsoft Promotion Award; for the sum of Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great British Pounds Sterling (Ј950,000.00) and also a certificate of prize claims will be sent alongside your winning check cashable at any bank.
You are advised to contact the assigned Microsoft Program Administrator/Coordinator with the following details to avoid unnecessary delay and complications:
VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE FORM
(1) Your Contact Address/Private Email Address:
(2) Your Tel/Fax Numbers:
(3) Your Nationality/Country:
(4) Your Full Name:
(5) Occupation/Company:
(6) Age/Gender:
(7) Ever Won An Online Lottery?
(8) Comments about Microsoft:
Philippa Snare
Chief Marketing Officer, Microsoft UK
E-mail: microsoftaward019@163.com
Fax No: +44 8447 749 891
Microsoft values your right to privacy! Your information is 100% secured and will be used exclusively for the purpose of this award only.
The Microsoft Promotion Award Team has discovered a huge number of double claims due to winners informing close friends relatives and third parties about their winning and also sharing their pin numbers. As a result of this, these friends try to claim the lottery on behalf of the real winners. The Microsoft Promotion Award Team has reached a decision from its headquarters that any double claim discovered by the Lottery Board will result to the canceling of that particular winning, leading to a loss for both the double claimer and the real winner, as it is taken that the real winner was the informer to the double claimer about the lottery. So you are hereby strongly advised once more to keep your winnings strictly confidential until you claim your prize.
Congratulations from the Staffs & Members of the Microsoft interactive Lotteries Board Commission.
References:
Advance Fee Lottery Scams – International Lottery Scam Information
Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/microsoft-yearly-anniversary-winning-advance-fee-scam/