There are many ways when a hacker would try to scam you into receiving a file etc, so that you will take the bait and help him with the trojan/virus installation on your hard disk drive. If you need just one way to stop being hacked, the best way is to install an all-in-one solution with anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware solution.

Updated: Latest updated scam, see attachment. We are getting alot of feedback on this scam (2010 version). Please pass around - I mean, warn others...

Hot Scam Specifications (old):

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Dr (Mrs) Edith Barth, Rev. Albert Time
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Transfer Amount: 84,500 GBP
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: "Appears" to be UK
Scammer Email: Walla.com, Hotmail.com

This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of (200,000.00 GB Pounds) for the June 2009 International E-mail Draw which is Organized by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

SPDC collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo, Aol, Walla, Gmail, Russian Mail and Hotmail and few from other e-mail providers. Six people are selected Monthly to benefit from this promotion and you are one of the Selected Winners.

FROM THE DESK OF MRS. CAROLYN SCHMITT
8TH FLOOR, 39 WOODLANDS CLOSE GOLDERS
GREEN LONDON NW11 9QR UNITED KINGDOM
HEADING :{AWARD RESULT 2009}

 
From World Education Foundation in Association with Readers Digest®,
we happily announce to you that you have won award of $750,000.00 at
China Payment Center.

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mrs Teresa Harris, Edward C.Johnson
Offer Type: Someone is donating money to You. Wow!
Winning Amount: US$ 7.5million (divided to 10 lucky recipients)
Storyline: The objective is to make a notable change in the standard of living of people all around the Universe (From America to Europe, Asia to Africa and all around).
Scammer Location: UK
Scammer Email: deliveries@streetwisecourieruk.com, mrsteharis@live.com, info2office@gmail.com, fidelity@lottery.org

This website offers tips on how he made more than a million dollars online.

"Unlike other "work at home" sites that rely on bogus testimonials and fake screenshots to try to get you to buy their junk, I've given you something they can't - real live video proof. And no, I'm not doing this to try to make a name for myself as some Internet marketing "guru."
I don't have any eBooks, courses or "membership sites" to sell you.

The truth is, the only reason I'm showing you this is because I know that if you don't trust me you probably won't take advantage of what I'm offering you - and then we both lose.

So now that you know I really can help you make money online, let's get right down to business.
And don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those mind-numbing 25 page "salesletters" ...
... and I'm not going to ask you for a dime. What I am going to do is ..."

If you receive an email like this offering puppies for free, it is a puppy scam. This offer is too good to be true and the scammer will eventually provide reasons for you to pay for something. If you love dogs, he will exploit this weakness after drawing you in for a "free deal" which turn out isn't free.

Do not fall for it. Check out all our visitors comments below. Many have experienced such scams either through email or online classifieds. Some are even approached by strangers.

-----Attached-----
From: Tony Brown <revtonybrown@gmail.com>
Subject: About my Yorkie babies
Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 5:19 PM
*Greetings to you from the house of the lord,

We received an email asking if a job offer by Bahamas Agent is a scam.

16 Dec 08 Update:
We have updated this article and apparently the offer came from a scammer who uses a free email address.

The offer in this email is a scam, and is not from Bahamas Agent.

There is a job offer with the following requirement. Is this a scam?

Your job will be to print our invoices and ship them using US mail.

- Working from home.
- No investments from your part.
- Flexible program-2 hours anytime on the day.
- No selling; No telemarketing; No hot calls.
- Checking e-mail, printing invoices, ship the invoices.

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: Lottery Scam (419 Scam variant)
Fake Names: Mr David Correlas
Lottery Name: RANGE ROVER AUTOMOBILE LOTTERY
Lottery Winnings: 500,000 GBP
Scammer Location: United Kingdom
Scammer Email: davidcorrelas01@live.com, gemexpress.service@live.com

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam
Fake Names: Hon. Barrister Michael John Agudo, Dr.Nnamudi Paul
Offer Type: Money Transfer
Transfer Amount: $4.5million
Storyline: You have a going-to-expire cheque worth $4.5million out of nowhere, and its with some Courier company waiting to rip you off by asking you to pay fees before you can collect the money that was cashed from this cheque.
Scammer Location: Benin, and might redirect anywhere in Africa depending whether they have money mule.
Scammer Email: servicecompanydiplomaticcourier@yahoo.com, barr_michael03@msn.com

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam
Fake Names: Mrs Patricia Lawrence, Mr Anderson Davi
Lottery Name: UK MICROSOFT JACKPOT LOTTERY NOTIFICATION
Lottery Winnings: £27,500,000
Scammer Location: Another mail getting mixed up with HK and UK.
Scammer Email: andersondaviclaims600@yahoo.com.hk, elmontex@iol.cz

We received a question like this:

IGoMogul and Exodus Web
Question/Comment: I was wondering if you know anything about the validity
of this company: IGoMogul.com. They also have sites, writezilla, and
postzilla, and purport to build/support web site development for people who
pay a $200 start up fee. I've read many complaints on
http://www.complaintsboard.com/, and I am unsure what to think.

We receive a comment asking about this website getprofits.biz. If you consider what they promise you, the simple job requirements and the need to pay them to sign-up, we would classify this as a scam.

Never pay any fees for Lottery (anyway, all emailed lottery mails are scams)
Never pay any money to get a job, especially one that sounds too good to be true, such as this:

SIGN-UP AND PAAAAY $40 ONLY, AND YOU GET TO EARN UP TO $8,000 (OMG!!!)  A WEEK!!! (i.e. $32,000 a MONTH!!!)

In short, they are telling you that by paying $40 as a member, you can earn as much as the CEO in some big companies, just by typing some online forms everyday, its nonsense. If life is that simple, there wouldn't be any poor people on earth.

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mr.Dennis Rod-Man (lol), Mrs Carol David (this is 2007 version, checkout the 2008 version in 2nd page)
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: 1million GBP
Storyline: You won the fake 50th Anniversary Lottery this year again!
Scammer Location: Claims to be UK
Scammer Email: oxfordannual_ltd@hotmail.com, gmarzella@optonline.net (new emails in 2008 version!)

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Putte Van Overhoon, MRS. Susan Hof 
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: 1 million euro
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Seems to be Netherlands, based on the phone. But it might be a diversion...
Scammer Email: sponsorlott23@netscape.net, sponsorlott207@yahoo.de
Scammer Phone: 0031-622-618-335

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mrs. Vanessa White Scott, Mrs. Dolly Michaels
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: £500k (out of £2.5million)
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Seems to be UK, but see the email address below (.hk??)
Scammer Email: info@yahoo.co.uk, verificationunit231@yahoo.com.hk
Scammer Phone: 887-13-865-37-10-83

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mr. Well Paulson, Mr.Joseph, Raymond
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: GBP 600,000
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Claims to be London, UK
Scammer Email: rsjoseph@bsu.edu, overseasclaimsoffice@strompost.com

Its nice to receive contribution like this.

From Debbie:
Just wanted to alert you to, what I believe, may be a different turn on a traditional scam.  Yes, through an online dating site, he started a chat with me, which proceeded to yahoo chatting.  We have/had been chatting for over 7 months ( which I was dupped to begin with).  I always figured the scammers were in a rush to make their kill and then move on to the next.  Oh, by the way, I have worked in the electronic financial industry for many years, so I do keep on top of money fraud & checks, etc...

We received this report but are unable to authenticate at the moment as we are busy. For your information please. As promised, reporters identity are withheld.

=====Attached=====
You can verify all of this with the press articles, blogs and posts on rip off website.  The community activist in Singapore who helped co-ordinate the mass refunds can be contacted at anph@rvmediaworld.com  Her name is Ann Phua
 
I hope you warn the Australian Community about this Pyramid/Ponzi Scheme.

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Sir Scholl Arnold
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: USD250,000
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Claimed to be... WEST AFRICA
Scammer Email: plpepsi4@verizon.net, agentriggs2007@yahoo.it

A scammer uses the name of Chinavasion, a legal company based in China, to conduct scams.

How the scam works:
1) Scammer sends you checks.
2) You will deduct 10% from the check amount as your commission.
3) Then you remit CASH to his other account.

What happens is that the check that would be sent to you will be fakes. And if you send him CASH thinking that the check will be cleared, that is a big mistake.

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Dr. David Moore
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: $250,000 GBP
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Claimed to be Ireland
Scammer Email: desmond_ani07@yahoo.co.uk, info@microsoft.com

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Dr. Carl A. Moore, Mr.James Collins
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: $541,022 GBP
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Claimed to be UK
Scammer Email: info@toyotacustomercare2007,  toyotacustomercare2007@hotmail.com

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mr. Anthony Moore, Mrs Mary Jones
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: US$1million
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Nigeria
Scammer Email: windsweptcat4@adelphia.net, ecowas_financialgrantsunit@yahoo.it

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mrs.Mel Walterson, Mr. Edland Hayes
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings
Winning Amount: 700k GBP
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Claims to be UK
Scammer Email: hot77@adelphia.net,
asia_lotterypromo_2007@yahoo.com.hk

Hot Scam Specifications:

Scam Type: 419 Scam (Lottery Scam)
Fake Names: Mr David Oliver, Mrs Linda Rose
Offer Type: Lottery Winnings claiming to be from "Microsoft AOL"
Winning Amount: US$1.267million
Storyline: You won a lottery which you did not join
Scammer Location: Claims to be from UK
Scammer Email: micro_aolpromo@netcabo.pt, ams_agency00@yahoo.com.hk