Be careful…

We have heard or read reports of how people get cheated online and yet such things seem to happen again and again. For instance, I received this email just the other day:

BP Promotions Office: The BP Promotions Division
50 Piccadilly London, United Kingdom
Reference Number: BPZ/0031/2012
Batch Number: BTS89/14004

Dear Sir/Madam,

Winning Notification

The management of the BP Promotions division is pleased to confirm that you are a winner of
our Web Mail Sweepstakes Program held on the 27th of May 2012 as part of our on-going
Global out-reach project which was launched in 2010 to quell the negative publicity from the
“Macondo blowout” suffered by BP.

In an effort to be global, BP Promotions selected participants from a database of one billion
web mail subscribers without the sales of lotto tickets and winners were obtained after a
random selection by our “Automatic Quick-Pick E-ballot System” which assigned number
sequences to all participants.

Note that you have been approved for a lump sum pay out of £750,000.00(Seven Hundred and
Fifty Thousand Pounds Sterling) because your web mail account was assigned one of the lucky
winning number sequences [22-14-32-43-26-45] Bonus (14). This is from the total promotional
budget of £12,000,000.00 (Twelve Million Pounds Sterling) which is to be shared amongst the
winners.

Write to project2010@luckymail.com to start claims and give the details below for registration:
1. Full Name:
2. Address:
3. Gender and Age:
4. Occupation:
5. Ref No and Batch No:
6. Phone No and Cell No:
7. Alternative web mail account:

A Claims officer will assist you in redeeming your Prize.

Congratulations!
From The BP Promotions Team

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Claims should start within five days of receiving this notification.

It certainly looks and sounds genuine, doesn’t it? Well, greed is one of the seven deadly sins and has always been one of man’s greatest downfalls and never mind if this is real or a scam, I am not disclosing any of my personal details to anybody I do not know…and anyway, born losers like me can’t possibly be so lucky. Tsk! Tsk! The same goes to any email or sms from the banks or anybody, for that matter…or even phonecalls – I understand there are a lot of those going around and many have fallen victim to those.

And talking about honesty, when I see a sign like this, I would simply get the impression that if I buy more, it would be cheaper…

I don’t know whether this is a scam or an attempt at deceiving unsuspecting individuals but I must admit that I have fallen victim to something like this at the market. I guess I only have myself to blame for not being careful and after buying more, when I did some mental calculations upon reaching home, I realised that it would cost the same, never mind if I had bought a few or more…and if I had known, I would have bought less actually.

I guess the onus is on each and everyone of us, in our everyday dealings, to be careful…