$1.2 million text. Scam.

Mearings

Today I got a text message from +3538949***** informing me: "Your CELL# has won $1.2Million USD,It was Randomly selected USA POWERBALL DATABASE PROMOTION" It also included a ref. no. & email address (usa.com) to inform them "your Name,Age,to claim".
For the benefit of others who may receive this good(?) news below is a copy of advice given on Mega Millions & Powerball website:

Did you get a letter claiming that you won a big prize? First, we'll let you know that your letter is definitely, absolutely, positively a scam.
It's really a shame that we have to consume space on our web site for this topic, but these scams are getting so prevalent that it is necessary for us to make this clear.
The scams are getting more and more clever, and prey on your desire to win a big prize.
There have been people who have lost their entire life savings, because once the scam artists make a little money off of you, they keep coming back for more.
How do the scams work? Very simply, the first thing they send you is a letter or e-mail stating that you've won a big prize (see sample letter below).
Often, the scams will put USA Mega or some other recognizable name or logo on the paper to make it look official.
If you get the scam through e-mail, sometimes they will even make the e-mail address seem as if it has come from USA Mega, such as "USAMegaPrizes@yahoo.com". Rest assured, that is not our e-mail address!
Also, most times the scam artists will also include a very real-looking check for a few thousand dollars. Keep in mind, the check is not real — if you went to cash it, the check would be worthless. But it looks real, making you very excited at this point that you've actually won something.
The scams always boil down to this: they want you to send them money. Most of the time, they claim that you need to send them the taxes on your prize. After all, they sent you the check, so why not just deposit the check, and then send them the money from your account via Western Union?
That's the key. They are trying to get you to send your real money from your bank account, in exchange for their fake check that they gave you.
Don't Be Fooled!You cannot win a prize for a contest you did not enter. REPEAT: You cannot win a prize for a contest you did not enter.
Because many of these scams originate from outside of the United States, English is often not their first language, and typically there will be misspellings and strange wordings in the letter.
For example, you may see congratulations spelled as "congradulations". Or you may see a strange wording such as, "We are most joyous to bring you good news!"
When you get an e-mail, note the e-mail address it came from, and where they want you to reply. A real lottery would never use a "Yahoo" or "Hotmail" e-mail address — they would always use a real dot-com domain name after the "@" sign.


https://www.usamega.com/lottery-scams.asp

mordeith

Who even believes this nonsense?

Digital Solitude

Old people mainly, my own granny nearly fell for one.

My auntie did fall for it, ended up €500 in the hole, the spanner

coylemj

Wow, scammers active on the internet - what next? Thanks for the 'heads up' OP.

Mearings

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Old people mainly, my own granny nearly fell for one.

My auntie did fall for it, ended up €500 in the hole, the spanner

I'm a septuagenarian. Spot on.

D0NNELLY

coylemj wrote: »

Wow, scammers active on the internet - what next? Thanks for the 'heads up' OP.

Digital Solitude

Mearings wrote: »

I'm a septuagenarian. Spot on.

I'm not sure if you've taken offence and are being sarcastic or agreeing with me?

degsie

And in other news....

vibe666

everyone is so cynical these days, how can you be sure it's not genuine?

Mearings

Digital Solitude wrote: »

I'm not sure if you've taken offence and are being sarcastic or agreeing with me?

The reason I mentioned my age group was I could understand those of a certain age being caught out. No sarcasm intended.

riclad

i got new sim card last week ,only 3 or 4 people have my no,
I got this scam text yesterday ,you may have won 1.2million usa powerball ,
I wonder how they got my no.

punisher5112

riclad wrote: »

i got new sim card last week ,only 3 or 4 people have my no,
I got this scam text yesterday ,you may have won 1.2million usa powerball ,
I wonder how they got my no.

Auto dialer /texter

degsie

riclad wrote: »

i got new sim card last week ,only 3 or 4 people have my no,
I got this scam text yesterday ,you may have won 1.2million usa powerball ,
I wonder how they got my no.

Did u post your number on the internet?

IamMetaldave

A pal of mine works for a company that do market research and they use a number randomiser for picking numbers to call. Your number doesn't need to be anywhere to get one of these calls.

FanadMan

IamMetaldave wrote: »

A pal of mine works for a company that do market research and they use a number randomiser for picking numbers to call. Your number doesn't need to be anywhere to get one of these calls.

Slap your friend, slap your friend really hard. Just so he can pass the slap to the managers of the company that he works for :mad:

riclad

No. 4-5 people have my no now,i did not post it on the web .
i did not register it with my phone company.