El Gordo de la Primitiva Lottery International Promotions Programmes
Encyclopedia
El Gordo de la Primitiva Lottery International Promotions Programmes is a lottery scam
Lottery scam
A lottery scam is a type of advance-fee fraud which begins with an unexpected email notification that "You have won!" a large sum of money in a lottery...

 e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

 or letter, which comes with a payment processing or registration form.

"La Primitiva" and "El Gordo" are legitimate Spanish lotteries
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...

, not sweepstakes
Sweepstakes
The United States consumer sales promotion known as a sweepstake has become associated with marketing promotions targeted toward both generating enthusiasm and providing incentive reactions among customers by enticing consumers to submit free entries into drawings of chance...

, and are endorsed by government.

But the letters and emails that consumers receive are fake and commonly known as advance fee frauds or Nigerian scams.

The letters and emails use various plays on the words "La Primitiva" and other terms related to legitimate lotteries. Thus scams are typically called "Primitiva Award Notice", "El-Mundo de la Primitiva", "International Lottery de la Primitiva", "El Gordo La Primitiva International" and "Loteria La Primitiva".

The names might vary but the method of operation is the same.

The intended victim is often told their name or email address was selected through a random computer ballot and sponsored by a marketing company.

In order to claim their so-called winnings, the victim is asked to provide their bank account details and other personal information. The victim is asked to contact the claims agent or award department.

Once the “transfer process” begins, the victim is informed of various delays requiring the payment of transfer fees, taxes, anti-terror fees, insurance fees, claims agent fees, and other administrative costs that they must pay before the prize can officially be collected.

The victim is asked to send money by wire transfer to various individuals claiming to be lawyers and/or bank executives. Contact can be made by email, fax or phone.

The scammers will do anything to gain the victim’s trust and get them to reveal their personal and financial position. This enables them to know how much money to request without scaring off the victim.

Advance fee frauds are very sophisticated operations and the operators are experts in convincing victims that they are legitimate.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK