Microsoft and Yahoo to the rescue

ALMOST ALL of you will have won huge amounts of money on the lottery – or at least you’ve been told so by a badly written email.

Well thanks to these lottery hoaxes – which someone out there must be fooled by otherwise they would die the slow painful death they deserve – Microsoft and Yahoo have had to form a coalition to warn customers about the scams.

These two giants have teamed up with Western Union, and The African Development Bank to educate Internet users about the stupidity of responding to these emails.

You know the ones, "congrats you’ve won loads of money, only it’s thousands of miles around the world so you’re going to have to give us all your personal and private details so we can get it to you."

Of course, we all hand over our banking details and within a couple of weeks are millionaires.

If only.

However, although this hoax does seem to be something quite ridiculous that no one with half a brain cell would usually fall for, with the current economic crisis the way it is more people are likely to be tempted by the “winnings”.

So, Microsoft and Yahoo have stepped up to the plate in order to save these lost and confused souls.

The statement about the coalition was made at the sixth German Anti-Spam Summit in Wiesbaden at the same time as the Microsoft-commissioned research on lottery scams in Europe.

4,930 people were surveyed, out of these a shocking 113 people admitted that they had actually lost money to internet scams in the last 12 months while 27 percent said they thought they would fall for it at some point.

Well, not that any of you will be the ones to warn, but for all those you know who would do something like this – spread the word...

If you didn't buy a ticket, you have not won the lottery. µ

L'Inq
CNET