Mail scam - traditional scams still prevalent

The Ins and Outs of a Mail Scam

If you think that the only way scammers can target you is through the internet, you’re sadly mistaken. Scammers can target you through your very own mailbox! Mail scams have been popular since the mid 80’s, but due to the staggering advances in technology, most scammers took their mail scam online and began to run internet based mail scams (email scams). However, there are still mail scams going around in the current times. If you’ve ever received a “Congratulations, you’ve won $5,000!” letter in the mail, you’ve received a mail scam. Read below to get a description of what mail scams are.

What are Mail Scams?

Though it may be hard to differentiate, there certainly is a difference between direct mail pieces and a mail scam. Direct mail pieces try to convince you to purchase a legitimate product or service. However, mail scams lie to you in order to convince you to send them your hard-earned money. Mail scam operators typically rely on two tactics to convince you to fork over your cash. The mail scam may convince you that you’re in financial trouble with the government and you must send an immediate payment to the specified address to avoid incarceration. Another favorite tactic for mail scam operators is to convince you that you’ve won an international lottery. But, you’ll be told that you must pay several thousand dollars in transaction fees in order to receive your cash (which you never will). Most mail scams will use a variation of the two tactics.

Mail Scam Operators

If you do receive a mail scam, know that you most likely weren’t a specific target. Mail scam operators simply send out a mass mailing and hope that a few victims will take the bait of their mail scam. Notice that your name will never appear on the mailing itself. Don’t you think if you truly did win a lottery or were wanted by the federal government that they’d at least have the courtesy of acknowledging your name? If you do receive a mail scam in your mailbox, contact the FTC or the IC3, an FBI operated organization.

          

You fool! Don't celebrate...it's an email lottery scam

Identifying Email Lottery Scams

Disregard emails which notify you of your winning ticket in an international lottery; it’s just one of the many email lottery scams targeted towards unsuspecting internet users. The email was sent by con artists who make their money by operating fake lottery scams online. Most seasoned email users won’t fall for email lottery scams because they’re used to the junk mail piling up in their email accounts. However, there are a few users that are more susceptible to falling prey to email lottery scams.

Questions to Ask About Email Lottery Scams

The email users that are more susceptible to email lottery scams are fairly inexperienced email users. The elderly and young teens particularly fall into this pool. Having a high spam guard in place is one of the main ways to prevent receiving email lottery scams in your inbox. The fake lottery scams will simply land in your Spam or Junk mail inbox. But, if you do happen to open up a few email lottery scams, all you need is a bit of common sense to decipher that the “lottery” is indeed a fake lottery scam.

The questions you must ask yourself in order to decipher whether it is indeed an email lottery scam are as follows. Did I sign up for this lottery? Am I even eligible for an international lottery? How did they get my contact information if I didn’t willingly sign up for this lottery? Why don’t they know my name? If this is legitimate, why would they not contact me by phone, snail mail or schedule an in-person meeting? By simply taking three minutes of your time to analyze the answers to these questions, you’ll quickly realize that it is indeed an email lottery scam. Don’t just sit back and do nothing when you receive email lottery scams in your inbox; report email lottery scams to Fraudwatchinternational.com

          

2 good 2 b true? Probably a Lottery Email Scam

Don’t think there’s something special about you if you’ve been targeted by a lottery email scam. The geniuses behind the lottery email scam collect random email addresses and mass email thousands of email users. The lottery email scam artists hope that at least a handful will reply to their lottery email scam with interest and do exactly what they’re asked.

What do Email Lottery Scams want?

A lottery email scam is after your money. The guys behind the lottery email scam will stop at nothing to get the money of victims of the email lottery scams. Typically, the lottery email scam operators will pressure you into providing them with your bank account info and SS number. If provided with this information, the lottery email scam artists will drain funds from your bank account and may possibly steal your identity; stealing your identity is more profitable for the email lottery scams.

If you’ve received email lottery scams, simply disregard the messages or report the scam fraud emails to the FTC. Use common sense when discerning whether its part of the email lottery scams. As a rule of thumb, if you haven’t entered a lottery or sweepstakes, consider it to be an email lottery scam.

          

Nigerian lottery scams are flooding the inboxes of unsuspecting email users throughout the world. Nigerian lottery scams target random email users and promise that they’ve just won a large fortune from a random lottery drawing. The Nigerian lottery scam is streamlined, but when people ask how they’ve won a lottery without willingly entering, things start to unravel for the con artists behind the Nigeria lottery scam. Nigerian Lottery scam artists may get inventive by sayings, “we’ve partnered with AOL and they provided the email addresses of our target demographic.” But, it isn’t typical for the Nigerian lottery scam artists to become violent and threaten that the Nigeria lottery scam “winners” must participate, or else…

Facts behind Nigeria lottery Scams

Typically, the Nigerian lottery scam artists pretend that their Nigerian lottery scam is in fact based out of Europe or the US. So, these poor Nigeria lottery scam “winners” are conned into believing that they aren’t dealing with a Nigerian lottery scam, but just an international lottery. The Nigerian lottery scam artists make their money by prompting the “winners” to send a check of several thousand dollars to cover supposed transaction fees. But, in fact, this money is just going into the pockets of the Nigerian lottery scam artists.

This is where many winners fall out of the game. The Nigerian lottery scams will ALWAYS tell their victims to keep strict confidentiality. Nigerian lottery scam artists know if these victims speak of the winnings to their friends, family or local lottery organizations, they’ll be uncovered for the Nigerian lottery scam that they are running. If victims of the Nigeria lottery scam break the confidentiality and start asking questions, they’ll most likely never hear from these Nigerian lottery scam artists again.

** If you’ve received a Nigerian lottery scam email, contact Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Bureau of Investigation to report your thread of the Nigeria lottery scam.