Two Manchester Students Arrested for Lottery Scam

The City of London Police has detained two students, aged 21 and 22, in suspicion of their involvement in a £300,000 lottery scam after the search of their Manchester home.

Details about the scam indicate that Detectives from the force's (the City of London Police) Economic Crime Directorate are supposedly looking into several mails and letters sent by hackers to people informing them they had won a Canadian lottery. It is said that the hackers then convinced the users to pay the administration fee in order to get their winning prizes.

The Police informed that records from systems captured during the investigation highlight that several people had paid around £20,000 a month, as per the news by bbc on May 27, 2010.

Detective Superintendent, Bob Wishart, the City of London Police, states that they have unveiled a sophisticated crime triggered by an international organized crime group which has exploited the recent mass-marketing technique on the Web to attack innocent users. Wishart adds that they will continue to hit groups who operate in the UK and disturb their activity, as per the news by menmedia on May 28, 2010.

As per the Police, since mass-marketing scams have become more refined and credible, they have issued some cautionary measures to web users to avoid such scams.

The warnings state that in case users have been hit by a scam or lost money, they should immediately contact the Action Fraud by visiting its website or calling its helpline number.

Further, users are told to keep in mind that they cannot win any prize if they have not entered a competition. Moreover, any genuine enterprise will never persuade any user to claim the winnings.

In addition, users are advised never to give money to unknown people or reveal their private or monetary details to strangers. These kinds of unexpected e-mails usually contain spelling and grammatical errors; they are signs of a bogus enterprise.

Finally, users should remember that websites can be bogus too and anyone can claim to be from a reputed company. Therefore, users should see carefully before taking any step.

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