How do I find out if an email is legitimate or a scam? Or how do I check on a web site to make sure its real?

• Ive received an email from Canada Lottery Super 7, saying my email was chosen in a lottery winning totaling $650,000.00...How do I find out if this is too good to be true or for real...??????....They want me to fill out a W-9, but have not asked for my ssn or bank account #....I have done nothing yet...

• Answer:

  It's fraudulent. You shouldn't open unsolicted email from unknown sources. Often what happens is that when you open up spam, it sends back a trigger to the originating source indicating that a valid email address has been found thus subjecting you to even more spam down the road. Even using the preview pane in email products sends web beacons back to spammers.( http://helpdesk.gwu.edu/mailfilter/spam.html ) However, in this case since you have already opened up this email which is a probably a variant of the 419 Nigerian phishing scheme, display all headers and send it to Fraud Watch International. The email address is in the link to the webpage below. http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/lottery/ There are a couple Yahoo pages dedicated to the 419 Fraud Yahoo Lottery Fraud http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/abuse/abuse-63.html http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/abuse/abuse-110240.html Microsoft also has a similar webpage http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/lottery.mspx