From: "Samsung Online Promotion" <info@samsung.com>
Reply: samsungpromotion35@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 06:03:04 +0800
Subject: WINNING NOTIFICATION
congratulations your account was luckily selected by a systematic online
programmed machine in the just concluded Samsung open happiness online
promotion where you won the sum of $250,000.00 Usd (Two Hundred and Fifty
Thousand United States Dollars) and a brand new Samsung galaxy s10 Phone in
the Samsung open happiness 2020 promotion.
For claims procedure please contact us via
Email : samsungpromotion35@gmail.com
Congratulations Once Again.
I received exactly the same message but on my Instagram page.
Even the bank “Wells Fargo Bank ” was sending and responding to my emails. They sent me wire transfer receipt but it’s 2 weeks now ,I still have not received anything. They said I have to send over $2k USD to activate my account as it’s active for local transactions only, then and only money tranfered will reflect in my account.
Unfortunately, we are not in a position to offer individual advice. All we offer is a database of scam Emails with the hope of educating the public on how these work, and how nor to be fooled.
We can say the the above email was spammed to thousands of people. No one has won 1/4 of a million.
The big warning flag is the use of a Gmail account – Something of this magnitude you would expect to deal with an official of the company using a @samsung.com Email Do not be fooled by the easily faked from address – The reply address is the important one, plus they repeat the Gmail address within the message.
You would also need to do a reality check. Why would Samsung randomly give a random stranger, not necessarily a customer a huge sum of money and a phone? What is in it for them?
A genuine promotion encourages sales of their products. You would normally be expected to participate in something first, you would know you are in a competition.
The poorly written English is another giveaway. A large amount like that is just not given away. If it was real, lots of planning would have gone into it. The letter would be checked by people in marketing and legal departments before it was sent.
Would they really just transfer 1/4 million to you without any publicity. Remember, a promotion is to increase sales, no one just gives away money. A real promotion would have a large public event where the winner is presented with an oversized cardboard cheque.
So we can be confident that the Email we received is intended to initiate a scam, where the scammer will try and get you to pay some sort of “admin” fee. And guess what – you lose the admin fee and never see your prize.
Well the scammers contacted me via whatsapp informing I had won usd 80,000 from 234 706 152 9205 a couple of days ago. I politely declined the “prize” telling them I live a relatively peaceful life and didn’t need the unwanted attention that such an amount of money would bring. We have to be very careful of these lazy people who would rather trick you out of your hard earned money instead of finding some honest work to do.
So this real are a scam