True or False? You won $820,000.00! Yahoo! Mail congratulates you!?

• Got this email. Lots of YaHoo officially oriented trademarks, symbols, pictures, etc., attached to it. It sure does look official. Here's the email: You won $820,000.00! Yahoo! Mail congratulates you! Messenger YAHOO INTERNET LOTTERY CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON $820,000.00! 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 (Eight Hundred And twenty Thousand US Dollars) ($820,000.00) for the month of April Lottery win promotion which is organized by yahoo.messenger and window live.com every month. YAHOO and WINDOW LIVE! collects all the mail id of the people that are online, among the millions that subscribe to the world email 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 conglomorate of some multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the commmunities where they have operational base. Further more your details(e-mail address) falls within our Spanish representative office in WEST COAST OF AFRICA REPUBLIC OF GHANA, as indicated in your play coupon and your prize of $820,000.00 USD will be released to you from this regional branch office in ACCRA GHANA, HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE These are your identification numbers......... Batch number.................... .Lwh 09445 Lotto number.......................Lwh09446 Winning number.................Lwh09447 Serial number................. ...Lwh009482 To begin your claims, kindly contact the Fiduciary Agent Mr. Ralph Winter of YAHOO/WINDOWS LIVE LOTTER BOARD ACCRA GHANA on email address: [email protected] You are required to forward Them 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 NUMBERS/CELL 9.FAX NUMBER(IF ANY) 10.MARITAL STATUS 11.WINNING NUMBER, BATCH NUMBER AND LOTTO NUMBER. 12 THE MONTH YOU WON................. 13 AMOUNT WON..................... As soon as you contact your agent, he will advise you on what to do in order to get your prize money. 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 programme by non-participant or unofficial personnel. Yours Sincerely, Dr. BARRY KNIGHT (PHD) LOTTO CO-ORDINATOR. The Yahoo.com staff http://www.yahoo.com WOW!!!! I AM SO LUCKY!!! Only one problem. If I won from YaHoo, why is someone with an IP address of @orange.nl by the name of Samuel Dele contacting me? Shouldn't they have a YaHoo email address? Dang, I think this is a Phish. Shouldn't the sender have a YaHoo email address be contacting me? And wouldn't a PHD have something better to do? Guess the PHD part is to make it look like the person is official. Dang it. I didn't really win $820,000 from YaHoo?!? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

• Answer:

  All the above answers are correct! This is a major scam where this organisation is phishing for your details and as they haven't asked you for any bank details it is obvious that they want the info they are asking for in order to set up false identities! There are several basic rules to remember and for dealing with scams: (1) NEVER reply to them. (2) NEVER open any links that there may be in their email as this can activate viruses that can track your every move on the keyboard. (3) As soon as you get them, delete them - there's probably little point in reporting them as there are so many that the authorities just don't have time to look into them all - if any!! (4) Note the email address from where this one came and then go into your Spam page and type it into the box that blocks all future emails from this address. (5) NEVER give any information of ANY kind in response to emails like this as NO respectable company EVER sends out emails of this type. (6) As has already been said - IF IT LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE - IT ALWAYS IS!!!