Here is another scam used by scammers to get their victims to send them their personal information. The scammers will then use the information to scam the same victims or they may sell the information to other scammers. Do not send your personal information to everyone who requests it in an e-mail message.
The "Winner for Microsoft/Blackberry Promo 2013" scam
Subject: WINNER FOR MICROSOFT/BLACKBERRY PROMO 2013
Sender: MRS MATILDA MIRIDIS
Reply-To: matildamiridis1960 @yahoo.co.jp
Dear Email Winner,
Your Email ID has WON(800,000.00 GBP)in the MICROSOFT/BLACKBERRY PROMO 2013 COMPANY.send your info.
1.Name.
2.Add.
3.Nationality.
4.Age.
5.Occupation.
6.Phone.
To our claim Officer information below to enable him process your winner prize and instruct our winner paying bank to release your winner prize to you through bank check Claim Officer:
Jerry Best
E-mail: jerrybest367 @yahoo.co.uk
Sincerely,
Matilda Miridis
A very important thing to remember is, legitimate organizations like Microsoft or Blackberry, do not or should not use free e-mail service like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail or others. Once you are asked to send information to these free e-mail service accounts that should raise a red flag.
Anyone can create an e-mail account at these free e-mail service providers and use it for malicious purposes.
Legitimate organizations should use e-mail addresses like "something@theirOrganizationName.com".
Example:
Our information e-mail address here at Online Threat Alerts is info @onlinethreatalerts.com instead of something like "onlinethreatalerts@yahoo.com".
Finally, if you receive an e-mail message claiming you are the winner of some prize and didn't take part in a raffle, promotion or any other betting games, this is a scam.