2010 FIFA World Cup E-mail Scam Targeted Nelson Mandela Foundation

The Nelson Mandela Foundation warned general public about an e-mail lottery scam circulating on the web and associated with the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

More details of the scam disclose that people receive an e-mail apparently from Nelson Mandela Foundation telling them that their mail address has been chosen as one of the winners of lottery draw of FIFA World Cup. The e-mail also contains a link which gives instructions on how to claim the prize.

Spokesperson of the Foundation, Sahm Venter, states that there is no such lottery draw and the Foundation is not associated with any such kind of campaign, as reported by news24 on February 27, 2009.

Security experts also said that e-mail scams related with 2010 FIFA Cup lottery tickets have been circulating on the web since the starting of 2009. Earlier in 2009, a user of Nelson Mandela Bay (a South African government website) also got a mail telling him that he had won South African Lottery FIFA 2010 World Cup Bid, but the mail was fake.

Further, security experts have suggested some precautionary steps on how to spot lottery scams. As per these precautionary steps, the lottery scams have many spelling, punctuation and syntax flaws.

In addition, hackers write low level of English. As they are non-native English speakers, they quite often use surnames before the first name like "Mr. Smith James", in place of "Mr. James Smith", along with some use of full stops and spaces. The precautionary steps reveal that authentic lotteries proofread their mails and appear more professional.

Security experts also claimed that authentic lottery never sent a mail to inform the winners. Further, authentic lotteries rely on publicity. They do not keep anything hidden as the publicity makes people to purchase more tickets. But hackers want the user to keep it secret as they do not want police hear about it.

Therefore, security experts said that users should be careful and think that how can they win any prize when they have not even participated in the lottery.

Related article: “Loopholes did not cause online banking thefts”: ICBC

» SPAMfighter News - 3/9/2009