WARNING: THE EMAIL MENTIONED IS A FAKE AND MAY CONTAIN A VIRUS!!!
Scottish Football supporters (Dundee United supporters in particular) are being targeted by conmen in a new email scam.
Supporters receive emails titled “Congratulations, Youve Won”, which claim to be from the official club website.
The email tells you that you’ve won an automated Dundee United internet lottery, congratulating you on winning around £100,000.
It goes on to claim that your email address was obtained from the clubs database of personal & business email addresses, but it’s probably using email addresses found on football websites or by stealing email addresses out of your friends email software.
You only have to reply with a few personal details to claim your winnings, but the email address provided is fake and the information received may be used to commit identity theft.
If you actually do reply to an email, its likely you will receive a request to pay a small fee to confirm your prize winnings.
As with similar email scams, it uses the promise of large amounts of money to con you into sending in smaller amounts to garuntee your winnings – but its money you will never see again.
Millions of people fall for similar scams each year, with £35m lost to internet fraud in the US during 2002 alone and the annual figure has increased dramatically every year since.
Dundee United’s official website is www.dundeeunitedfc.co.uk, but these conmen are using the domain www.dundeeunitedfc.com to make it appear like the emails are endorsed by the club.
Some of the emails arrived during the early hours of Sunday 17th December and appear to also contain an email virus, an email worm – which once it gets into your computer can replicate itself and send copies to all other emails in your address book.
Supporters of all Scottish football clubs are warned to be on the look out for similar emails, and should not email back with any personal or sensitive information – and also to make sure their virus software is uptodate.
The email even contains a photograph of Dundee United chairman Eddie Thompson, and also the official Dundee United lottery logos to back up its claims it’s a genuine email.
However – like the old saying goes – if it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is!!!
The full text of the email is as follows:-
OFFICIAL PRIZE NOTIFICATION
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the just concluded annual final draws of the Dundeeeunited lottery. This is to inform you that you have been selected for a cash prize of £100,000 (One hundred thousand, Great Britain Pounds) , International programs .
The online draws was conducted by a random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of 29,031 E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet. However, no tickets were sold but all email addresses were assigned to different ticket numbers for representation and privacy.
The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection machine (TOPAZ) from a database of over 250,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world. This Promo is approved by the Gaming Board and also Licensed by the The International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR). This lottery is the 3rd of its kind and we intend to sensitize the public to begin the processing of your prize you are to contact your claims officer through our accredited Prize Transfer agents as stated below:
=====================================
Mr. Gregory Carter,
E-mail: dundeeunitedfc@dundeeunitedfc.com
Contact him, Kindly provide him with your Secret pin code (7573753543), Amount won (£100,000) and your Reference number (BT:474278838/21).
You are adviced to provide the underlisted claims requirement to the transfer agent.
Claims Requirements:
1.Name in full:———————————————-
2.Address:————————————–
3.Nationality:————————————–
4.Zip:—————————-
5.Age:—————————————–
6.sex:———————————
7.Marital Status:—————–
8.Occupation:————————————–
9.Phone/Fax:———————
10.Present Country:————————————–
======================================
NOTE: All winnings must be claimed within 14 days from today. After this date all unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake.
Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence with your claims agent.
You are to keep all promo information away from the general public especially your reference numbers. (This is important as a
case of double claims will not be entertained).
Members of the affiliate agencies are automatically notallowed to participate in this program
*Winner under the age of 18 are automatically disqualified.
*Staff of DUNDEEUNITEDFC are not to partake in this Promo.
Accept my hearty congratulations once again!
Yours faithfully,
Sir. Henry Hills
dundeeunitedfc@dundeeunitedfc.com.
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I dont use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express as my email program, which might be the software the virus is targetted at.
I use Firefox, which isnt so prone to virus attacks (well at the moment anyway)
As soon as you open the email, its probably going to infect your email account, unless you have uptodate virus software – so update yours asap.