'Mega Millions International Lottery' Scam Uses Weak Bait

Yet another Internet scam is making the rounds, distributed again through malicious spam emails.

The scam uses email addresses, probably from online databases, to send spam with a very weak hook. The email claims the potential victim was selected at random in a "hot pick", even though they never bought a ticket for the fake lottery in question or participated in any other way.

The email contains a lot of fluff about a made-up lottery but doesn't even include a link for the victim to click. It seems the scammers expect the victim to reply to the email, so that the scammers can then engage with the active addresses who are still operated by a real person.

Sadly, a scam email with a premise that is so silly and far-fetched and without an active link for the potential victim to click, is usually not one that results in much illegal fallout for the scammers.

The full text of the scam email reads as follows:

Subject: CONGRATS YOUR EMAIL ID HAS WON

Dear Email User

We noticed that some prize remain unclaimed and your email ID appeared to be among the lucky winners who have not filed for the claim of their award prize.

Your email ID won during the Mega Millions International Lottery, Megamillions, Monthly Play, Thunder ball, Hot picks which is an internet giveaway program whereby email addresses extracted from the internet, and the winners selected from a ballot draw.

Note, that tickets are not sold anywhere for this program; hence, your e-mail address subsequently won you in the 3rd category, i.e. match five plus bonus.

You have been approved for over two months to claim a total sum of One Million United States Dollars, credited to file GOLDEN/9GM/327752.

Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Lyons
Mega Millions International Lottery
International claims agent.