Is this for real?

• You won $200,000.00! Yahoo! Mail congratulates you! Yahoo! Mail Messenger CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON $200,000.000! Dear Winner, Yahoo! Mail gives members random cash prizes. Today, your account is randomly selected as the one of 12 top winners accounts who will get cash prizes from us. We are happy to inform you that you have won a prize money of (TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND USD($200,000.00) for the New year Promotion which is organized by yahoo.messenger.com this year, Kindly visit http://lottery.yahoo.com/ . Yahoo! collects all the mail ID of the people that are online on yahoo! mail, among the millions that subscribe to msn mail, we only select five people every month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying,we are congratulating you for been one of the people selected. All participant were selected through a computer balloting system drawn from Nine hundred thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania as part of our international promotions program which is conducted annually. This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a Group of some multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base. Further more your details (e-mail address) falls within our West Africa representative office in Lagos State Nigeria, as indicated in your play coupon and your prize of $200,000.00 will be released to you from this regional branch office in NIGERIA. We hope with part of your prize, you will participate in our end of year high stakes for US$1 Million international draw. HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE These are your identification numbers: Batch number....................... 09445 YLB Lotto number........................ 09446 YLB Winning number................... 09447 YLB To begin your claims, kindly contact the Claims Manager Mr Marc Tommy Email: [email protected] Phone: +234-80-82-92-91-52 You are required to forward him with the following details: 1.FULL NAME 2.COUNTRY OF ORIGIN 3.PRESENT ADDRESS 4.SEX 5.DATE OF BIRTH 6.AGE 7.OCCUPATION 8.TELEPHONE NUMBER 9. FAX NUMBER(IF ANY) 10.MARITAL STATUS 11.WINNING NUMBER, BATCH NUMBER AND LOTTO NUMBER. 12. AMOUNT WON? As soon as you contact him, he will advise you on what to do in order to get your prize money. Note: Remember you must contact your claims manager not later than 48hours of Notification. After that all funds will be returned as unclaimed. Congratulations once more!! For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this pro gramme by non-participant or unofficial personnel. Yours Sincerely, Dr WILLIAM GERRI LOTTO CO-ORDINATOR. http://lottery.yahoo.com/

• Answer:

  This a SCAM. Check out the below link for confirmation of several email scams hitting the internet, including the famous Yahoo/MSN lottery scam and how to report them: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/lotteryscam_Yahoo05.php Unscrupulous thieves have sent you this email and they are trying to part you from your hard earned cash. They will often ask you to call a premium rate number and keep you holding on whilst you rack up a huge phone bill. They are then paid a large proportion of this phone bill. They may ask you to divulge personal information about yourself or ask for your bank or credit card details. Do not divulge any such information under any circumstances. It is surprising how many innocent victims have been duped by these types of emails. Just remember the thieves who send them are very clever and extremely convincing. I suggest you delete the email and send it into cyberspace, hopefully along with the thieving scumbags who send them. Check out these sites for further information : http://www.scambusters.com http://www.hoax-slayer.com/