A mere four months ago I discovered, through email, that I had won part of a 1.3 billion dollar international lottery. While my part was only $1.6 million (yeah, I thought I won the whole 1.3 billion), I was still able to get pre-approved for five brand new townhomes in downtown Baltimore along with a couple new Bentley Arnage's. So today, when I found out I won the Irish/English Sweepstakes, I pictured how I'd purchase a mansion or two to go with my cute little townhomes. Let me share my joy with you...

Date: 8/11/2005 13:45:23 +0200
From: irishenglishsweepstakes@nectarine.it
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: ONLINE LOTTO WINNINGS

Irish/English Sweepstakes
P O Box 657
London, United Kingdom
(Customer Services)

NOTIFICATION OF ONLINE LOTTO WINNINGS:

We happily announce to you the draws of Irish/English Sweepstakes
Lottery, an International Online Sweepstakes Program held on Monday 1st
August, 2005. Your email address attached to ticket/serial number
IE6098-05, with serial number IE535-29 drew the lucky numbers:
1-15-24-37-42-50 (bonus no. 33), With Ref. Number: IES/376O05/77, Batch
Number: 05/507/IES360 and subsequently won the lottery in the 1st
category.

I was a first category winner! I've never been a category 1 winner and in fact, in high school, I was told many times I was a category 1 loser. I can't wait to get a few Lamborghini Diablo's and drive them by my high school. Man, I'll have so much money I'll just drive them up to the school and set them on fire!

You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of £880,000.00
(Eight hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling) in cash credited to
file ISPR/7563409218/05. This is from a total cash prize of
£8,680,770.00 shared amongst the first nine (9) lucky Winners in this
category.

All participants for the online version were selected randomly from
World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from
over 154,000 Unions, Associations and Corporate Bodies listed online.

In view of this, your £880,000.00 (Eight hundred and eighty thousand
pounds sterling) would be released to you by any of our payment
offices.

Wow, wow, hold on ... I only get £880,000.00??? I guess my plans for a mansion (or two) and a handful of Lamborghini's may be out of the question. These European lotteries always do this to me... I think I win millions and instead only get hundreds of thousands (at least it's pounds sterling!). At the current exchange rate, we're talking $1,586,149.77 - which should be enough to pick up a couple nice cars.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

Thanks!

For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information
confidential till your claims is processed and your money remitted to
you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part
of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted
abuse of this program. Deductions from WINNING SUM are not allowed
until WINNING SUM has been handed over to the winner. Please be warned.
To file for your claim, please contact our fiduciary agent:

Irish/English Sweepstakes
P O Box 657
London, United Kingdom
(Claims office)
Email: irishengsweepstakes@katamail.com

All prize money must be claimed in ten working days. After this date,
all funds will be returned as unclaimed.

Hmmm... again this confidentiality thing again just like last time. I doubt they'll ever read my blog so I'm safe writing all this. I'm confused why the claims office uses a @katamail.com address but their awards office uses a @nectarine.it address.

NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please
always remember to quote your reference and batch numbers in every
correspondence with your claims agent. Furthermore, should there be any
change of your address, do inform your claims agent as soon as possible.

Please include your private telephone and fax numbers while replying.

Congratulations once again from our team of staff and thank you for
being part of our promotional program.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Helen Woods
Lottery Coordinator

Helen sure was nice. I'll definitely be sending her a telephone and fax number so she can get me my money as quickly as possible! I thought the email would end here but it keeps going...

150MB of disk space, Webmail over SSL with address book, calendar,
and organizer. Access thru Imap, Imap-SSL, Pop3, Pop3-SSL and Smtp.
5 different domains, antispam (spamassassin, bayes, razor, dcc) and mime filter,

Up to 200mb per outgoing message.
All free, is your current email having this functionalities ?
Check http://www.nemail.it for registration and more info.

This message is added automatically, for any information or support
contact: support@nectarine.info; if it is spam dont hesitate to report it.

I was pretty surprised to see that the Irish/English Sweepstakes uses a free email service to send out winner notifications but I suppose they're trying to cut down on costs. Plus, if you're going to be sending out all these emails you'd need some good antispam tools otherwise you're liable to get spam, we wouldn't want that. :)

I can't wait for my money!!!

THIS IS A SCAM!!! To avoid this scam and others, check out my post about avoiding phishing scams... and enjoy this cartoon: