I’ve just received a letter - not an email but an actual letter, complete with hand-affixed stamp - from the ‘International Lottery Commission’ saying I’ve won a shedload of money in a Spanish lottery run by ‘La Primitiva’.
Trouble is, I never entered a Spanish lottery.
Trouble is, they’re using the U.K. National Lottery logo.
Trouble is, the offices are in Madrid, but the letter’s been sent from Malaga.
Trouble is, I plugged the names into my usual search engine and, well, was less than surprised to learn that it’s a scam.
And in the “Turned Out NOT to be a Scam” category: A couple days ago, I got home to find a message on the answering machine from some guy saying he was from my VISA card security department. I was to call them to ensure that my VISA did not get shut down. There was a phone number on the caller ID matching the number he wanted me to call, but the caller ID also said the name was UNKNOWN. So I called my credit union and talked with a rep who assured me repeatedly, in no uncertain terms that this was a scam, I haven’t even used a tenth of my credit limit, there’s nothing wrong and DON’T call that guy back.
The next morning, I get another phone call from the same rep at the credit union. “Umm, that turned out to be our security department, and you DO need to call them.” OK, so I call them and find out they were alarmed by a contribution to the Australian Red Cross coming from rural Missouri. Ahem, you guys DO hear the news from the great southern land about their fires, don’cha? Yes, that was me making that charge. Anyway, in the end, no harm, no foul.