Maybe it’s real.
Well, it could be.
OK, I need honest people here: Raise your hand if, only for one second, you gave a whiff of thought to actually responding to this e-mail or one like it:
“Loteria Informations.
“We are glad to inform you of the result of our EURO MILLIONES lottery program that was conducted on the 8th of June. 2009 in which your e-mail address was attached to REFERENCE: 97 8/9065/EUM, Batch: 534-658-08EUM,”
You get the idea.
The long and short of it all is, I have somehow won 550,000 euros. The e-mail sent to my work account further instructed me to “kindly” contact an agent to file for my claim.
Yes! I am a rich man.
And I am obviously a lucky one, too, since the e-mail right below it informed:
“Attn. winner, Your e-mail address has won 777,364.79 EUR by EuroMillions Intl computer balloting system drawn. Congratulations!!! Contact your claim agent within 24 hours, Adams Fernando Mr.”
Just for the fun of it, I was going to call Adams Fernando Mr. and demand my 777,364.79 euros, but he is reachable only at a telephone with an overseas number.
I decided instead to await my euros in the regular mail.
At my old job, I used to get these maybe once every three months. Over these last three months, though, I’ve been getting them at least four times a week.
Now, I can be an idiot — the first television I ever purchased, I bought off the street. Where a picture tube and the other electronics should have been, there was a large rock.
Today, even I know I wouldn’t get back so much as a rock if I followed up with Adams Fernando Mr. and his ilk.
Yet more than a few of us remain believers.
Wanting to know how many suckers today still fall to the Adams Fernando Misters of the world, I called Craig Butterworth, a spokesman for the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. He referred me to IC3’s latest report covering 2008.
Complaints of online crime hit an all-time high in 2008, it said, totaling 275,284, in which scam artists made away with $265 million of the unsuspectings’ cash.
My inbox, he said, is just one of tens of thousands being targeted every day by scammers worldwide.
“Since the first of this year, we have seen a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in online scams, from the Nigerian letter to the EuroMillions lottery and every scam in between,” Butterworth said.
It coincided with the tanking of the economy, he said. The Adams Fernando Misters of the world know people are as vulnerable as they ever will be.
“People who are falling victim are simply desperate,” Butterworth said. “They are desperate to provide for themselves and their families, so their guard drops.”
I never want to know being so desperate that I would reply to Peter Wong’s May 27 request that I help him bring $20 million here from Hong Kong — I would get half — if I would put up a few thousand.
Butterworth has heard it all.
“Even the old scams are now getting traction because a good percentage of the American public is new to the Internet,” he says — and the poor syntax and spelling of the e-mails aren’t even acting as a warning sign.
“People are casting caution to the wind. Caution may be in the back seat now, but desperation certainly has taken firm control of the steering wheel,” Butterworth said.
Sorry, Adams Fernando Mr.
This winner has done his homework.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
