Pretexting and Investigating Scam

In the search of treasure, it comes to mind that the Internet is an avenue where people of same proximity, conglomerate to achieve a particular goal. People surfing the Internet daily is a macrocosm of the world's population where the good, bad and the ugly rush in and rush out on daily basis; this gave room in the activities of fraudulent and scam.

This gesture led to the impromptu mails received by individuals who didn't subscribed to a particular site. On September, 2005, a friend of mine got a mail indicating that he has won the sum of $1,000,000(one million US dollars), which he didn't play or participate in. This guy was amazed and also furious; what comes to his mind was, how could he have won when didn't play in the lottery. They gave him a phone number and also an address.

The lottery organization indicated in that email that he should confirm his winning notification by resending the numbers to a named person and a particular email address. All the instructions instructed by the former, was carried out successfully by the later. Eventually he was told, to fill a form which includes: Names, Age, Sex, Nationality, Interest, Occupations etc.

In respect of the form filled by the claim winner, the organization sends a bill of payment that should be made to facilitate the post of his cheque. He briefs me of what was going on, about the notification and money that he has to pay. He was given a phone number to called in case of enquiries; he called as indicated by the lottery firm. In order, for the organization to prove their competence, they gave him a phone number to a person that has won before.

In anxiety, he called the person (the last winner) to clarify the statement made by this organization. The person also confirms that the organization (lottery organization) is saying the truth and that they are genuine. The drama started how to get the sum of $1000 (one thousand Us Dollars) was the problem. came with a plan. It involve making a called to the organization, pretending to be men of the FBI, telling them to tell us their business involvement and how they could raise such sum of money.

The plan was carried out successfully, and they gave us full details of their operation, they look smart! But, we decided to asked them a very simple question that if they could give such large sum of money, they should be able to pay the freight post of the mail. The organization has their office in London as said by them; or should send the prize through papal or international bank transfer. But they insist on sending the prize through a mail post.

Furthermore, we waited for a reply that took almost two weeks to come. At the end, a reply came saying: we have to pay the amount they requested. We have to send another mail which, include a pleading note for them reduce the cost of sending the mail because, we were student. They reply and said we should pay part of the money, we were convinced and decided to send the money to them.

In trying to get the money, we got another mail from another lottery organization that we have won other $1,000,000(a million US dollars), and that we should call a particular number to contact a named person. Meanwhile, the first number given to us was a UK number, but this other is from Italy. We called the Italy number, for us to find out that the same voice answered in the UK lottery organization, was answering again in Italy, how come!

Finally, this unravels the mystery that some people living outside the UK metropolis could have a UK residence phone number. I would like use this as a medium to educate people worldwide to be very sure on whom they transact business with.