BS: Irish Sweepstakes

Subject: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: GUEST,Millionaire
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 05:47 PM

I never recieved one of these before. Should I respond or trash?

The Irish Lottery
P O Box 1010
11 G Lower Dorset Street, Ireland

This email is to inform you that your email emerged you a winner of
£700,000 in the Irish Online Lottery draws which was played on the 11th.
of July 2007 with Ref: # (I deleted this part, friends. You'll understand).

For further information about the claims and processing of your
winnings,contact our Fiduciary agent with the following contact
details.

Mr Richard Woods
[e-mail]
+447-----

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 05:57 PM

Did you buy a ticket? Do your numbers match the ones drawn on that date? If the answer to either question is no, than feel free to trash it. If the answer to both questions is yes, send some to support Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 06:04 PM

Spam

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 06:13 PM

They have the same kind of "sweepstakes" in Nigeria...

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 06:30 PM

Assuming that you entered and assuming that you did win, don't you think that they'd have an email address other than Hotmail?

Scam. I've gotten lots of similar things.

(I don't think that the Irish Sweepstakes are run anymore.)

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 07:13 PM

If I had a pound for every "You've Won" E mail I've received in the last five years , I reckon I would have a new car !

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: GUEST,Not a millionaire
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 07:38 PM

No, I didn't buy anything. I just got this email. It says "your email emerged you a winner." So that could mean they draw from billions of email addresses and I got lucky. The thing sounds like a translation though. And yes, a hotmail address is kind of suspect. Oh well.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 09:37 PM

If you want to take the trouble there is a way to trace an email back to its source server.

I did that on one that purported to come from some place in California -- I tracked it to a server in an industrial park outside of Cairo, Egypt.

This is done by a WHOIS lookup of the IP addresses in the header.

I did it for the newsletter on crime prevention the local cops publish. Normally I just delete the damned things.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: GUEST,Maybe a millionaire
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 10:17 PM

Yeah, I've done that. Suppose I should on this before giving up. Worth a little effort for a million bucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 11:13 PM

If the text of the message sounds like it may have been written in some other language and translated into English using Babelfish or a similar utility, trash it.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: GUEST,The Droop
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 09:46 AM

The Irish Sweepstake has been history for many years, Irish people now play the Lotto, bin it.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Sweepstakes
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 11:09 AM

Note that the 'verification address' is a .co.uk domain - British! Heh!

If you haven't entered the Lotto, you won't have won, sorry about that. If you have won, you can check on the Irish National Lottery page: www.lotto.ie

This is a common spam.

By the way, the Sweep is long gone.

The Lotto is regarded as a tax on stupidity. Irish people with any sense invest instead in Prize Bonds, a government bond that enters each number in a lottery. The prizes are smaller (maximum €100,000, I think), but the likelihood of winning is much higher.