John writes:
I received an email that said that I won a prize from Microsoft and I am concerned that others may fall for this scam. Can't anything be done about these types of scams?
The Microsoft Lottery scam is a fraudulent email that claims that you have won a lottery, a prize, a sweepstakes, or another kind of award. The goal of this phishing scam is to convince you to send money to claim your award or to turn over personal information.
Learn more about scams that use the Microsoft name fraudulently.
There is no Microsoft Lottery. If you receive an email like this, you can delete it or you can report it.
How to report an email scam
You can use Microsoft tools to report a suspected scam.
You can also download the Microsoft Junk E-mail Reporting Add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook.
ON JUNE 12 I GOT AN EMAIL ,I WON YAHOO, MSN, LOTTERY..... MY EMAIL IS RNRNANA@HOTMAIL.COM AND dwbceb4@yahoo.com . i never herd hmmm another scambacjavascript:WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new%20WebForm_PostBackOptions("ctl00$content$ctl00$w_49824$_b43d85$ctl00$ctl00$ctl00$ctl05$bpCommentForm$ctl05$btnSubmit",%20"",%20true,%20"BlogPostCommentForm-ctl00_content_ctl00_w_49824__b43d85_ctl00_ctl00",%20"",%20false,%20true))k
My wife and I are both hotmail users. She has recently opened an e-mail which was purportedly sent by her close friend in america as a private message. when opened, this has frozen her account and caused no end of worry, as it shows that her account has been 'hacked'. We are very worried as we have numerous personal details in this account. Why hasn't the hotmail security prevented this.
Read carefully the next to last sentence in your message below (third paragraph), then correct your Website by deleting the final word:
There is no Microsoft Lottery scam. If you receive an email like this, you can delete it or you can report it.
G’day can we report a scam to you , people ring us and they ask do we have windows software they want to take over the computer, sell stuff, it’s obviously fraudulent and it will give Microsoft a very bad name and do damage to your worldwide Brand and your windows clients, they ring from a number in Sydney probably masked , but it’s 02 8014 7459 if you can advise receipt of this that’d be great thanks Ryan