'Mega Millions International Lottery' Scam
Fraudsters are using the promise of million-dollar prize winnings as a hook to get unsuspecting victims to contact them. The misleading operation begins with the dissemination of lure emails posing as official communication from 'Mega Millions International Lottery.' The subject of the fake email is likely to be something similar to 'CONGRATS YOUR EMAIL ID HAS WON.' Naturally, users should be extremely skeptical of any unexpected email that they receive and not take any of the claims seriously without doing the necessary due diligence.
In this case, the lure messages claim to be coming from a claims agent named Elizabeth Lyons, who is working for the Mega Millions International Lottery. The recipient's email has supposedly been picked as a winner and is entitled to a portion of what is described as an 'unclaimed prize' amount. The winners were apparently picked over two months ago from the date of the fake email, and each one can claim an award of 1 million dollars. Of course, the entire text of the email contains a lot of statements that don't make much sense. Apparently, the emails for the lottery are 'extracted from the Internet,' there are multiple unspecified categories, and, more importantly, there are no instructions on how to receive the supposed winnings. It seems that the con artists expect users to contact them by simply replying to the message.
Typically, tactics such as this one contain phishing elements, with users being asked to provide various personal details - names, emails, phones, addresses, etc. Victims also can be asked to pay bogus fees as a requirement for receiving the promised prizes. In reality, none of the claims made in the lure emails are true, and any money sent to these people is likely to be completely lost.
