Nelson Mandela Foundation Warns of Fake E-mail Lottery Scam

The fake "Nelson Mandela Foundation FIFA email lottery" is very much in, tricking the Internet users. The foundation had raised the warnings about the lottery scam over two months ago for the first time.

Reportedly, people are still receiving an e-mail asserting them as winners of "Nelson Mandela Foundation/FIFA World Cup Lottery Draw". The fake e-mail also contains an attachment that has instructions for the recipients which they should follow so as to claim their lottery prize.

As a result, the foundation decided that they will once again inform the public to be aware of the fake lottery scam, as reported by iol on May 7, 2009.

According to the foundation, there does not exist any lottery draw of such sort and more importantly, Nelson Mandela Foundation has no involvement in any lottery draw.

In past also, the name of the foundation has been used by phishers to trick people via e-mail scams. In November 2008, the Internet users were asked to be cautious of an scam in which an organization, asserting itself as "Mandela Promotions" or "Nelson Mandela Promotion", was organizing a competition that claimed to be endorsed by "Nelson Mandela Foundation", "Mandela Square (Sandton)' and the South African government.

At another instance, in January 2009, scammers once again abused the name of the foundation to draw maximum user attention. The fraudsters contacted people through online promotion, announcing them as the winners of "NMF 46664 Certificate Award" and asked them to pay administration charges of R450 so as to claim the draw prize.

Besides this, some selected people received a further e-mail from a Johannesburg-based organization, Jeff Williams and Associates Legal Chamber, suggesting foreigners that the fees asked is to open their non-resident account in the country (South Africa), wherein the prize money is to be deposited. This fake e-mail came from Mr Andrew Leigh, Head of Operations, Nelson Mandela Foundation, and the e-mail also revealed false contact details.

Meanwhile, warning the people about the scam, the Nelson Mandela Foundation has stated that using the name of the organization in any fake lottery scam is completely illegal.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/18/2009