As soon as I saw this appear in my inbox, the red flags went up. See if you can spot the obvious signs that this is not a real win.
“Your email has emerged winner of $1,000,000 USD in the Chevron Texaco Lottery for claims contact us with your name occupation country to email:[email protected]”
Where do I start?
How 'bout that bad grammar? Do real sponsors make typos and grammar errors? Yes, real sponsors do make mistakes, but not of this calibre. Real sponsors definitely use punctuation, which is completely lacking in the notice above.
Another big hint. If Chevron really was awarding a giant prize like that, you would think an organization of that size would have its own email. Always be wary of an unbelievably large win that comes from a web-based email account like yahoo, hotmail, or in this case, live.co.uk.
I didn't enter any Chevron sweepstakes, so it is impossible for me to have won such a large one. Despite what these notices may try to tell you, no one is out there entering your name into sweepstakes. If you didn't enter yourself, no one else did it for you.
When you are lucky enough to win a big prize, the sponsor is likely to ask you to fill out an affadavit. If you have never seen one, it is usually a one or two page document that you will need to sign and probably notarize. The notice's request for me to supply only name, address and country is a poor subsitute. Had I been foolish enough to reply, I suspect I would have been asked to supply my bank account next time.
There are plenty of real sweepstakes out there – be alert and don't fall for the fake ones.