E-mail hoaxes

Lottery scams: Everybody dreams of winning big at least once in their life – millions of pounds are spent each year in the search for that elusive golden ticket. But what happens when you receive an e-mail claiming you're a winner when you haven't spent a penny? Lottery tricks are on the rise - but as long as you remember a few simple facts you can win too.

Like a lot of these scams the sender's identity will always be assumed or false - they might pretend to be a  representative of a global lottery organisation, or,  a recent trend is to imitate a big company like Microsoft. This is done in the hope of gaining your trust and to appear credible, but don't be fooled, the lure of the prize fund is merely a hook. The aim of the scam is the extraction of your personal information and you will never see a penny of the alleged prize-fund.