Foreign Lottery Spam: How To Deal with Fake Lottery Emails

I won the British Lottery! If you are like me, you have received an email telling you that you have won a lottery in some other country. I have received emails telling me that I have won the Mexican, Australian, and even some lottery in South Africa. For someone who has never been to any of these countries, I sure do win a lot of lotteries.

Anyone with an email address is subject to receiving spam. Spam, once only referred to a canned meat, is now a household word when it comes to the internet and emails. Some sad soul with nothing better to do either creates an email with an advertisement for something you have no interest in, or they get more creative or tell you that you have won some money.

It is difficult for me to believe that someone, somewhere out there could actually fall for those emails promising you lottery winnings. It occurs to me that at least one person has fallen for it or they would quit sending those stupid emails. Let's take a common sense approach to this. If you receive an email telling you that you have won a lottery, especially one from another country, ask yourself a few questions. The first question should be something like, "Have I ever been to this country?" If your answer is no, you might have spam. For someone who has answered yes to the first question the next question you should ask yourself is, "Does this country even have a lottery?" If you do not know the answer to that, ask yourself if you purchased a lottery ticket while you were in this country. You might also ask yourself how the lottery "officials" received your email address.

It is pretty safe to assume that any email that tells you that you are a lottery winner is spam. Do not be lured in to this trap. In many cases, they only want your credit card number so they can steal your identity. In other cases, they want to involve you in what is known as a check-kiting scheme. They will send you a check; you cash it, keep a portion, and send them the balance.

Another popular spam that people receive is one from another country telling you that some rich person has died and they had no heirs. This email says it is from an attorney who does not want the government to end up with all the money. They want you to pretend to be the long lost heir to this person to receive the money. SPAM! Do not be sucked in to anything you read in an email. If they email is not from someone you know, or someone you have requested information from, have some common sense.

Sadly, there are many people in the world who are out to take advantage of others. Do not let these ridiculous schemes suck you in. No matter what the email says, if they want you to cash a check, send them your credit card number for a "processing fee" or want your banking information so that they can send in your winnings, hit the delete button.

Use some common sense and the reasoning skills that the good Lord gave you. We probably cannot wage an effective war on spam, but we can hit the delete button and keep them out of our in box.