Official Notification Letter.
Dear Google User.
You have been selected as a winner for using Google services,attached to
this email is Our Official Notification Letter for your perusal.
Find attached document for claims
Claims Agent: Dr David Drummod drwilliasgibson@dr.com
Sincerely.
MD. Matt-Brittin.
Chairman Of The Board and Managing Director Google UK Ltd.
©2015 Google Corporation.
Mark read the e-mail again. He had seen far too many of these types of messages,this one had all the signs of a scam artist. Misspelled words, a random draw for a contest he had never entered, for a lottery he had never heard of, and for which he had definitely not purchased any ticket, the name of the claims agent he was to contact was different than the one in the e-mail address given. Alarms bells went off in his head.
Usually his spam filter caught messages like this, but for some reason this was delivered to his inbox instead, he moved the mouse and was about to click on delete. He paused for a moment, looked over the message again. He looked at the very official "Award Letter Powered by Google.pdf" attached at the bottom of the message. He saw the numbers ₤550,000 in numerals and written out as ₤ Five Hundred Thousand. He was uncertain about the exact exchange rate but estimated that was about $825,000 US.
He moved the mouse from Delete to Reply and clicked it instead. A new e-mail opened up, Mark highlighted the address in the e-mail body, copied the claim agent's contact and pasted it in the To: field below the reply address in the header.
He clicked in the body and began to type:
Dear Dr. David Drummond, (or Dr. Willias Gibson) or whoever your are.
I received your e-mail advising me that I had won a large sum of money for using Google services.
Normally these types of messages go straight to junk mail, the rare one that gets past my filters is deleted immediately by me. I have read too many articles and seen many reports on the internet of people scammed out of their life savings by messages exactly like this. Instead I find myself responding to you, in the vain hope that this may be true, that it may answer to our prayers.
My daughter Samantha is eight years old, and suffers from cystic fibrosis. The doctors tell us her disease is so far advanced the only hope for her is a double lung transplant, if a suitable donor can be located. If we cannot operate on her, it is likely she will die within a year, at best maybe she will live for two.The costs for her operation will be almost $800,000 and the HMO has declined to pay for it, claiming her sickness is a preexisting condition, that she had it before we were insured by them, and is ineligible. We are unable to raise that amount of money on our own. Unfortunately we do not qualify for any aid to offset the costs.Her mother and I are forced to try ease her congestion as best we can, and pray for a miracle. Please let this Official Notification be real.
Yours in hope,
Mark Reed
He hovered the mouse over the send button, let out a sigh, and clicked. As the bar showed the progress, he thought to himself the worst that can happen is he just confirmed his e-mail address to a spammer, and it would get sold to other spammers. But a faint hope, a tiny spark made him want to believe it was real, that he had actually won a contest he had never heard of, and had never entered.
He signed out of Gmail, turned off the computer, switched off the desk lamp and walked down the hall to Samantha's room. He could hear her labored breathing, the sound of the humidifier running, his wife Jolene's voice as she comforted her softly, "It's OK Sammie, we will find a way to pay, somehow." Mark took a deep breath, entered the bedroom and asked Jolene, "How is she Jo?", as he sat on the bed beside his daughter. "I have this strange feeling everything is going to be OK."
© 2015 NoelHC
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I was searching my Gmail Trash looking for a message like this to use as the typical scammer's baited hook, but I had not received one since the last time I emptied the junk mail. While I was searching the internet for typical wording, I saw I had a message in Spam. I was surprised and pleased to see the message quoted at the top of this piece had just arrived.
Kids, do not try this at home! There are some bad guys out there, and they are devious in parting unsuspecting victims out of their hard earned money. Do not reply to any messages like the one I just received.
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