Smith Johnson Canada Lottery Scam

For the past few months (or even longer), an email has been floating around, claiming the recipient has won the Canadian Lottery, by means of an email address being selected from their java-based software.

Let’s first take a look at the letter itself, which came from “C.L.C. Board” with the subject “CONTACT Mr SMITH JOHNSON”

CANADA LOTTERY CORPORATION
Ontario Lottery Corporation, Consumer Affairs
70 Foster Drive, Suite 800, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, P6A 6V2
Attention: The Email Account Holder!
Congratulations!
The Canada Lottery Corporation is proud to inform you that you have won USD$8l]0,000.00 (EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLAR), why you have won? Your email address was among those chosen from our new Java-based software that randomly selects email addresses from the web from which winners are selected.

Your E-mail address is one of 200 lucky addresses that have won in this Promotion, I wish to congratulate you on your victory, you are a lucky person to have won this lottery. Your winning price is to the tune of 800 Thousand United States Dollars. This correspondence of?cially con?rms that we are in receipt of Instructions relating to the payment of your lottery
winning, see below how to claim your winning prize, you are required to forward the following details to our of?cial claim agent email address below to help facilitate the processing of your
claim,
Your Winning Reference No.: IMP/73253CA/2011 and Batch No.: 642376/CA/2011.
FULL NAME:
COUNTRY:
COUNTRY OF RESIDENT:
AGE:
GENDER:
TELEPHONE NO.:
OCCUPATION:
Furthermore, you must contact your claim agent (Mr. Smith Johnson) to claim your prize, send your reference and batch number and all the above details to his email address giving
below;
THE CLAIM AGENT CONTACT DETAILS ARE BELOW,
Processing Manager: Mr. Smith Johnson
Email: johnson@canadalotteryagentcom
Phone: +1-647-930-1988
Kindly send email to our Of?cial Claim Agent immediately you read this message for quick and urgent guidance for the procedures you have to follow to effect the release of your fund without any delay.

Congratulations once again from all our staffs and thank you for being part of our promotion program.

Yours sincerely,
MRS. SARAH BROOKE (ADMIN SEC)
NB: Any breach of con?dentiality on the part of the winners will result in disqualification. Please do not reply to this email address. Contact
your claim agent. (Mr. Smith Johnson) with this email address: ( johnson@canadalotteryagent.com )

Let’s just take a look at some of the details here, shall we?

• Would would an official email from the Canadian Lottery contain so many grammatical errors, obviously written by someone who doesn’t speak native English?
• Why is the Canadian Lottery picking winner by email? (They don’t, actually)
• Why is the Canadian Lottery paying the prize in US Funds?
• Why is the “agent” using the “canadalotteryagent.com” domain, which was only created in 2009 and not related in any way to the real Canadian lottery? In fact, it forwards to Canada.com
• Further, why would the email come from info@canada.com but ask that we reply to the canadalotteryagent.com address?
• Why did the letter come in the form of a giant graphic instead of text? (Obviously to bypass spam filters)

Yes, it’s just a variation of the Nigerian 419 scam where they’ll ask you for some sort of ‘deposit” or “insurance” money to be wired to them, and of course you’ll never receive your coveted prize.

Further Resources
Canadian Lottery Scams
Great Youtube video of a man speaking with the “Canadian” scammers
Humorous forum discussion