Coalition formed to fight lottery scams

Microsoft and Yahoo have teamed up with Western Union and the African Development Bank to clamp down on email lottery scams. The coalition of internet giants and financial institutions intends to raise awareness of the online hoaxes. Typically lottery scams begin with an unsolicited email and surfers are deceived into paying money upfront for a fictitious prize. Most emails end up in junk mail folders, but some do find their way to unsuspecting surfers. "Lottery scammers prey not on software, but on the hope of their victims and with scams that can be so creative and plausible, internet users simply dont know whom they can believe," said Tim Cranton of Microsoft. A recent study carried out by Microsoft on European surfers found that one in 44 had been defrauded by an internet scam, with individual losses ranging from less than 100 to more than 5,000. "Its a common perception that only naive and extremely gullible people fall victim to lottery scams. However, it can happen to anyone, especially those who are experiencing financial pressure," said Christopher Fischer of Western Union Financial Services. Victims of lottery scams can report cases by sending reports to the following addresses: lotfraud@microsoft.com and spoof@westernunion.com. http://antispam.yahoo.com/phishingtips