Worldwide E-Mail Scam Claiming Olympic Ticket Winning

The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG), online security firms, and the Metropolitan Police are cautioning e-mail recipients that crooks across the globe are attempting at capitalizing on the much sought after 2012 Olympic tickets. Metro.co.uk reported this on May 24, 2011.

Apparently, in scamming Olympic fans, the criminals tell victims that they're winners of National Lottery cash. Accordingly, they're distributing e-mails worldwide soliciting personal details from the recipients. Following this, another message is being sent to the victims telling them they've set news as winners of the "Olympic Lottery for 2012 in London."

But then they can claim their reward only by providing additional information, especially banking PIN codes. Moreover, those sending the e-mails assert that they're the sponsored beneficiaries of UK's National Lottery Board.

However, Camelot the operator of the National Lottery cautioned that Internet fraudsters occasionally used its name while executing their malicious campaigns. LOCOG added that it wouldn't ever request for anyone's financial or other personal information through e-mail. Mirror published this on May 25, 2011.

Says Norton a computer security company, the fraudulent electronic mails represent traditional phishing scams, crafted for duping the public into divulging personal and other financial details. Thus, the attack procedures aren't particularly new or surprising. However, according to Norton, since there's an elongated time-frame of doubt as to whether the public has received the tickets, scammers have managed to easily defraud people.

States Simon Ellson of Norton, for people who've been sufficiently fortunate in acquiring tickets there mayn't have been immediate pilfering of funds out of their accounts, since this can occur on any day prior to June 10, 2011. He elaborates that online-crooks can utilize this opportunity for making fraudulent transactions via the public's accounts, hoping the latter won't verify the details. Metro.co.uk published this.

Ellson further says that consumers mustn't reply to any electronic mail that seeks extra banking information for securing the upcoming Olympic tickets. What's more they mustn't enter personal information while browsing any website which doesn't have an SSL-certified security. And to check if a related correspondence is authentic, users must contact the LOCOG, Ellson adds.

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» SPAMfighter News - 6/1/2011