In keeping with my desire to continually provide updates of the latest scams on the internet, I have another one for you. This one claims that I have won a lot of pounds in a fraudulent and non-existent promotion by the Pepsi company. Here is the message exactly as I copied it from my inbox

Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 9:59:24 -0700
From: “PEPSI BOTTLING GROUP PLC. ANNOUNCEMENT”
Subject: YOUR EMAIL WON £750,000 IN 2007 FA CE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO

13/10/2007

Attn: Winner,

The pepsi-Cola Company is on a journey inspired by our simple desire
for sustainable growth, and fueled by our deep conviction that
collectively we can create anything we desire.Our motive this year is not to
be using only well know stars for our advert e.g.Football stars,movie
stars and performing artist.

As part of our appreciation to our esteemed customers all over the
world,the Microsoft,Yahoo and Aol company decided to randomly select
distinguished customers for the 2007 FACE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO
which we are happy to announce to you the draw (#921) of the online
selection held on wednessday 10th of Oct, 2007.Your e-mail address attached to
TICKET NUMBER: 1322-4712-640 with SERIAL/BATCH NUMBER: 2177-16 drew
the LUCKY DRAW NUMBERS: 21-18-8-28-05 (bonus No. 20), which subsequently
won you the promo i the 2nd category i.e match 5 plus bonus.

All participants for the online version were selected randomly from
World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from over
100,000 unions, associations, corporate bodies and individual e-mail
addresses that are listed online. This promotion takes place yearly.You
have therefore been approved to claim the total sum of £750,000.00{Seven
hundred and fifty thousand Great Britain Pounds} in cash credited to
file and a Contract to be the FACE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO with a
chance to Travel to any part of the world or country of your choice
for visit or permanent stay.
Your lucky winning number falls within our European booklet
representative office in Europe as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this,
your £750,000.00{Seven hundred and fifty thousand Pounds) will be
released to you by any of our payment offices in Europe.

Our European agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate
the release of your funds as soon as you contact him. For security
reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till
your claim is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever
manner you deem fit to claim your prize.This is part of our precautionary
measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program.
Please be warned.

For your best interest, you are to file in immediate claims upon this
notice To the fiduciary agent allocated to you winning file. He is going
to brief you on the entails to receive your funds. You are advised to
work with his guideline hence he will ensure your winning hits the
designated account to be provided by you within 7-10 working day upon the
receipt of his notification.

To file for your claim, Please contact our Fiduciary Director from the
address bellow:

MR. CHRIST DONALD
Fiduciary Director,Office of Communication,Payment and Legislative
Affair Unit.
Globe House 4 Temple Place
London WC2R 2PG
Official Email: legislativeaffair_unit@pepsibottlingcompanyplc.com
legislativeaffair_office@yahoo.pl
Phone +447011140681

Endeavour to contact him with the following information:

1). Full Names:(2). Contact Address: (3). Telephone Number:(4).
Age:(5). Sex: (6). Nationality:
7). Country:9. Occupation:10. Monthly Income,(11). Annual Income:
Winning information,
(12). Ticket Number.(13). Lucky Draw Number:(14). Serial/Batch Number:

Congratulations from the Controller and members of staff of the PEPSI
COLA BOTTLING COMPANY PLC and WORLD FOOD BUSINESS
ASSOCIATION.Participants are advised to keep their entry details/information from the public
to avoid fraudulent claim pending.Participant under the age of 18 is
automatically disqualified.

Regards,
MRS. Veronica Banks
Online coordinator for FACE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO,
On behalf of the Office of the Controller General.

Remember that it is a scam. DO NOT provide the information requested should you get this same email. Simply mark it as spam and delete it.

Press Release
February 14, 2007

We all, at one time or another, have gotten e-mails from the so-called Paypal website, from the so-called eBay site, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and more. What kind of e-mails am I talking about? The ones that tell you something is wrong with your account and that you need to submit some info about yourself to prevent it from being closed down. We all know, though, that the real sites would never send such a request via e-mail. Well, there is a new one out, this time claiming to come from e-Gold. Below is the message I got over the weekend, which I am asking all to look out for:

To: [my e-mail address]
Subject: Your E-gold account will be suspended
From: “Costumer Service E-Gold” [support@e-gold.com]
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 05:01:05 -0500

[e-gold logo]

Dear E-gold customer

We regret to inform you that your E-gold account could be suspended if you don’t re-update your account information. To resolve this problems please click here and re-enter your account information. If your problems could not be resolved your account will be suspended for a period of 24 hours, after this period your account will be terminated.

For the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. We may also take these actions if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us.

Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are prohibited from using E-gold in any way. This includes the registering of a new account. Please note that this suspension does not relieve you of your agreed-upon obligation to pay any fees you may owe to E-gold.

Regards,Safeharbor Department E-gold, Inc
The E-gold team.
This is an automatic message. Please do not reply.

What is interesting, as usual is that the part that says ‘click here’ never points to the real website. In this particular e-mail, it pointed to a website at http://www.scholarswithoutborders.in/images/egold/index.html (you donnot have to click on the link to see that it goes there. Just hover you mouse pointer over ‘click here’ and you will see it). Beware of this e-mail. It is NOT from E-gold.

The prevalence of Information Phishing online today is quite alarming. Many of us have received emails that are supposedly from a particlar individual or company requesting that we take a particular action involving submitting personal information to them. But before we continue, let us define Phishing.

A direct quote from webopedia defines it this way: Phishing is “the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.”

So, to make these phishing e-mail messages look even more legitimate, the scam artists may place a link in them that appears to go to the legitimate Web site, but in fact it actually takes you to a phony scam site or possibly a pop-up window that looks exactly like the official site. Another name given to these copycat sites is a “spoofed” Web sites. Once you are at one of these spoofed web sites, you might unwittingly send personal information to the con artists who are running the scam.

How can you tell if an e-mail message is fraudulent. Microsoft offers this advice:

Here are a few phrases to look for if you think an e-mail message is a phishing scam:

“Verify your account.”
Businesses should not ask you to send passwords, login names, Social Security numbers, or other personal information through e-mail.

“If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed.”
These messages convey a sense of urgency so that you’ll respond immediately without thinking. Phishing e-mail might even claim that your response is required because your account might have been compromised.

“Dear Valued Customer.”
Phishing e-mail messages are usually sent out in bulk and often do not contain your first or last name.

“Click the link below to gain access to your account.”
HTML-formatted messages can contain links or forms that you can fill out just as you’d fill out a form on a Web site. The links that you are urged to click may contain all or part of a real company’s name and are usually “masked,” meaning that the link you see does not take you to that address but somewhere different, usually a phony Web site.

Be proactive and look out for e-mail messages that may be part of a phishing scam. I hope that this post has served as a guide to help you protect yourself from fraudulent e-mails.

Press Release:
November 30, 2006

The following is an email I received on the 29th of November. I saw right away that it was a scam. The sender did not even know my name and my email address was not in the “TO” line. Notice the poor grammar and spelling as you go along (please note that I cut and pasted the email as-is, i.e. exactly as I received it):

DATE: 11/29/06 7:42 PM [ SIZE: 3.672KB ]
FROM: African Development Bank
TO:
SUBJECT: Re Your Fund Release

African Development Bank,
(WWW.AFDB.ORG)
Ecowas Building Matama
Federal Territory
Abuja Nigeria
Official Email:mrdonaldkaberuka@presidency.com

Subject: You’re Fund Release

I am Mr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development bank, I am writing this message to inform you that my office has Taking over all the money Transaction originated from any part Of Africa and Europe counties as Contract payment, Fund Inheritance or Lottery Winning due to excessive demand of up Front payment by corrupt officials of Apex banks and some Security companies as reported by the International Community,

Subsequently, the World Bank Group has Mandated the African Development bank via my office to release funds to approved Fund beneficiaries through a certified International Cashier’s Bank Draft, Hence Your Name/Email address appears as one of the approved fund beneficiaries whom their fund was Successfully cleared recently from Terrorist and Money laundry, therefore your money will be Released to you through An International Cashier’s Bank Draft on Your contact to our Account Officer, Rev Kampson Lars through his Telephone Number: 234 8055760492 ext 212 Email revkampsonlarsaccan@accountant.com

On this process you are advised to forward your direct telephone numbers, complete name and mailing address to Rev Kampson Lars for immediate release of your money to you, Note that Ten Million Dollars Only (US10,000,000.00) was allocated to you, Be also informed that the Fund Approvals and authorization document Including Antiterrorist Clearance Certificate was issued in your name and has been handed over to Rev Kampson Lars to Authorized him Issue the International cashier’s bank
Draft in your name and send to you through a faster courier company Preferably DHL,

Finally, You are advised to dissociate from any way you may have been working to receive this money no matter your commitment to avoid Mis information and excessive demand of upfront payment, The account officer Rev Kampson Lars is standby to receive your communication and release your fund to you through International Cashier’ Bank Draft without further Delay, Make your contact directly to Rev Kampson Lars through
Telephone Number: 234 8055760492 ext 212 mail:revkampsonlarsaccan@accountant.com
Thanks for Your Cooperation.
Mr. Donald Kaberuka (President)
www.afdb.org

Anytime you see an email like this, please disregard and delete it. In most cases, you will be asked to send money for them to release your “funds” to you. It is a scam and you will only lose your money. You will never see the ‘Ten Million Dollars’ they claim to have for you.

PRESS RELEASE:
November 19, 2006

Ever so often we come across scams on the internet that have robbed persons of millions of dollars. The scam I am about to talk about does not have an upfront cost. In fact, you don’t have to pay anything at all. All you need to do is find link directories for a specific product or service, send them the info. and then you get paid. Well, the part about getting paid never happens. So, you end up wasting valuable time doing ‘charity’ work.

Here is how it all started. I saw an ad online that stated persons could get paid for finding link directories, i.e. the exact page where you would place the links (reciprocal or not) to your site for a particular category. So, I wrote to the email address listed and go this response:

From: ELinkadia@aol.com
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 12:24:54 EDT
Subject: JOB POSITION: Included is your Category.
To: [My Email Address]

Thank you,
US MARKETING CORP
Operations Manager
Jake Jaffeth
Elinkadia@aol.com

So, as a test, I did just as the guy requested and even submitted more than the required 50 links. Guess what? I never got a reply from this Jake guy and up till this day, I have not received any money. And as you clearly see this is from September 1, 2006, more than two months after submitting the information.

Look out for fraudulent emails or ads claiming that you will get paid for finding link directories. People like Jake Jaffeth (provided this is even his/her real name) are only out there to use people to, in my opinion, do their work for them while they collect the money. This scam is obviously a case of the person who sends out the ads getting paid by someone who they agreed to do work for, but who in turn use others to do all the work while they sit back and collect the cheque.

Beware of ads that say you will get paid for finding link directories, especially the one mentioned in this Press Release.