"Equity Investment Limited" lottery scam still around after more than a decade

Scammers can be really stupid. Take these guys who are running a non-existent UK National Lottery / FIFA Brazil 2014 World Cup scam..

The scam is purportedly from a "Mrs Hilda Adams" references a fake company:

Equity Investment Limited
132 Blackburn Road
Bolton
BL7 9RP
England
UK
Tel: 00447924556231
Email: uklclaims@mail.com

Some key parts of the email are:
Reference: EKS255125600304
Ticket number: 034-1416-4612750

But search for "Equity Investment Limited" on just about any search engine and the first hit you will get is an article I wrote way back in 2003 about a lottery scam using a company of exactly the same name.

The email address is a throwaway free email account, the telephone number looks like it is British but in fact it a forwarding number provided by Cloud9  which could potentially forward calls to anywhere in the world. This type of "follow me anywhere" number is often abused by scammers. As for the address.. well, it's unlikely that whoever lives at that address is anything to do with this at all.

Luckily, most people who run lottery scams have the intelligence of a box of rocks. And it seems that quite a few of their victims have heard of a thing called a search engine..

Weird scam mashup makes little sense

This is a weird mashup of an FBI scare scam and a lottery scam, spelling out very clearly that it is really an advanced fee fraud. It makes no sense.. why would the FBI be informing you that you had won the lottery in the UK anyway? Bin it.

From: Federal Bureau Of Investigation <soundsit@btconnect.com>
Date: 2010/8/13
Subject: *Alert*
To:

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Anti-Terrorist and International Fraud Division

601 4th Street NW, Washington, DC 20535

Attn: Beneficiary

RE: AUTHETICATED LOTTERY WINNINGS

This is to officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you legally won the sum of $850,000.00 US Dollars from a Lottery Organization in the United Kingdom. During our investigation we discovered that your e-mail won the Lottery from an online balloting system and we have authorized this winning to be authentic and paid to you via a Certified Cashier's Check. Normally, it will take up to 15 business days for an International Check to be cashed by your local bank. We have successfully come to an agreement with this organization on your behalf that funds are to be drawn from a registered bank within the United States of America so as to enable you cash the check instantly without any delay, henceforth the stated amount of $850,000.00 US Dollars has been deposited with Chase Manhattan Bank.

We have completed this investigation and you are hereby approved to receive the winning prize as we have verified the entire transaction to be Legitimate, Safe and 100% risk free of scams and frauds of any nature, due to the fact that the funds have been deposited at Chase Manhattan Bank you will be required to settle the following bills directly to the lottery claims agent in-charge of this transaction whom is located at the liaison office of the Lottery Organization in Washington, DC. According to our records, you are required to pay for the following:

(1) Deposit Fee's (Fee's paid by the organization for the deposit into Chase Manhattan Bank)

(2) Cashier's Check Conversion Fee (Fee for converting the EFT into a Certified Cashier's Check)

(3) Shipping Fee's (The charge for shipping the Cashier's Check to your nominated destination)

The total amount is $349.99 (Three Hundred & Fourty Nine United States Dollars & Ninety Nine Cents). We have tried our possible best to have the lottery organization deduct the $349.99 from your lottery winning but the funds have already been deposited at Chase Manhattan Bank and cannot be accessed by anyone apart from you the winner. Therefore you will be required to pay the needed funds to your lotto claims Agent in-charge of this transaction. The payment will NOT reflect at the Chase Manhattan Bank with the given transaction code (US8976-003) until you have covered the processing fees needed.

In order to proceed with this transaction, Click Here (ericaclain@gala.net) to contact your claims agent Mrs. Erica Molin .You may be required to call her for verbal verification and e-mail her with the following informations:

FULL NAME:

LOCAL ADDRESS (INCLUDING CITY/STATE/ZIPCODE):

AGE/GENDER/OCCUPATION:

CONTACT PHONE NUMBERS (CELL & HOME):

You will also be required to request details on how to pay up the required $349.99 in order to immediately ship your prize of $850,000.00 USD via Certified Cashier's Check drawn from Chase Manhattan Bank, Also include the following transaction code in order for her to immediately identify this transaction: US8976-003. This letter will serve as proof that the Federal Bureau Of Investigation is authorizing you to pay the required $349.99 ONLY to your claims agent via the information in which she shall send to you upon your request, if you do not receive your winning prize of $850,000.00 US Dollars we shall be held responsible for the loss and this shall invite a penalty of $3,000 which will be made PAYABLE ONLY by you (The Winner).

Robert Anderson, Jr.

Special Agent in Charge

NOTE: In order to ensure your check gets delivered to you ASAP, you are advised to immediately contact Mrs. Erica Molin (ericaclain@gala.net) via contact information provided above and make the required payment of $349.99 to information in which she will provide you.

MICROSOFT WINDOWS-2010 lottery scam

A French language advanced fee fraud scam email with a colourful PDF file attached. The PDF does seem to be free of viruses, but you should never open unsolicited Acrobat documents from untrusted sources as they often carry a virus.

Subject: BONJOUR Mr/Mme
From: "DOMINIQUE LOVERS"
Date: Mon, April 19, 2010 10:44 am

BONSOIR Mr/Mme

Nous sommes heureux de vous annoncer que vous faites partie des heureux
gagnants de la loterie MICROSOFT WINDOWS-2010, veuillez prendre connaissance du message en pièce jointe, ensuite contacter l'huissier de justice du Maître JEAN MICHEL .
E-MAIL: jean-michel.brousseau@live.fr

Veuillez surtout lui faire parvenir votre numéro de lot et vos informations
Ci-dessous en vue de vous donner la procédure de retrait de votre gain.
Recevez nos sincères félicitations.

Bonne compréhension à vous

MICROSOFT WINDOWS
Direction Marketing
Mr WEI ANDRE