The Bank of Namibia (BoN) has exposed a scam in which unsuspecting people are being conned out of money after being informed by email that they have won N$17 million and a ticket to the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
The World Cup will be held in Brazil from June 12 to July 13.
“The Bank of Namibia has become aware of scams aimed at defrauding unsuspecting people of their hard-earned income and wishes to advise the public not to fall victim to these illegal scams,” the central bank said in a statement release yesterday.
The statement continued: “One such scam has been randomly sending fraudulent messages to email addresses, announcing that the recipient has won a ticket to go to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The recipient is also told that s/he has won the sum of £1 million (N$17.7 million) through a so-called computer ballot, which the scammers say is jointly organised by FIFA and Microsoft Network.”
Apparently the recipients are then requested to complete an electronic form, as well as to send their payment details to a so-called claim agent in South Africa.
They are further asked to indicate whether they would like to receive their cash award by bank transfer or by cheque. The email address of the “claim agent” is provided.
In a further attempt to make their scam look legitimate, the criminals have pasted a Brazil 2014 World Cup logo and a photo of FIFA President Sepp Blatter onto their promotional material. BoN said: “However, as with most scams, it is expected the fraudsters will use a variety of promotion techniques.”
It advised the public to be alert to emails, phone calls and text messages claiming that they have won a price and asking them to either first pay a specified amount of money in order for the price to be released or asking them to divulge their personal information, especially their banking details, to unauthorised third parties.
“Furthermore, the promoters of these scams, including persons who are circulating these emails in Namibia are warned to cease such activities with immediate effect,” the central bank said.
Category: