It makes me furious to find sucker-trolling email in my inbox.  The latest piece of potentially dangerous junk comes from someone called Angelique Correa from a url that I traced to the University of Paris Est Marne La Valle.  It’s a come-on to click a link and compete to become one of, “lucky individual “(their spelling error) to divide “1.million dollars,” (again their  punctuation error).  There’s a sob story and the pitch to greed. You can read the email below.

Email spells trouble

But the bottom line for all of us is that emails like this one spell trouble. First of all, if you click on the link, there’s the possibility that malware will automatically download to your computer.  The second part of the horror show would require you to send them bank information so they can deposit your winnings. They get your bank information and they can clear out your account.  Maybe they’ll ask for your social security number, too. Then they can open credit cards in your name and ruin your credit rating.

Delete. Delete.

Don’t even think twice about this kind of email. Just delete.  This appears to be a combination of the foreign lottery and phishing scams.  Despite the French connection a lot of these scams are run out of Montreal, Canada.  I’ve interviewed investigators with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  It  has a squad dedicated to the scams and frauds that spring up as quickly as they are shut down.  The detectives offer this advice: Don’t get sucked in. Don’t enter into any kind of communication with the scammers.

Internet scammers are very difficult for investigators to track down and once your money is gone, it’s gone.

What you can do is pass the email on to the Federal Trade Commission  https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov,  or the Canadian fraud center info@antifraudcentre.ca and perhaps if they have enough complaints they’ll investigate.

“Dear Sir/Madam,