My report is exactly the same as Sarah from CA. Only I was originally contacted by a Sir. Desiree Behlock Co-ordinator (online promo programme).
I was notified in exactly the same way, had (allegedly) won the same prize (480, 000 GBP), and so on. But the real good part is that I had the exact same ticket number: 112-4540-525-106!! All this and I never even bought one!
I was skeptical, but I played along, you never know, right? I was contacted by the same Paul Dyer, who told me that my prize was confirmed, and that I should immediately contact, you know who... ACORN EXPRESS COURIER. So I did via e-mail. Now up to this point, I had not given them any bank account or credit card numbers, neither of which I have, but would not have even if I did. After all, I was born at night, but not LAST NIGHT!
After I sent them that small amount of information, I decided to do some research. I looked up the UK Lottery home page and clicked on the web scams link. There I found some very interesting facts.
1. They said that if you haven't bought a ticket, you could not have won anything.
2. They said that they would NEVER diclose the amount of a prize over e-mail.
3. They would NEVER request any personal information over e-mail. This makes good sense because in order to play, you have to set up an account, thereby providing all that up front.. there were other flags, but these are the main ones that jumped out right away.
I knew right then it was a scam. So tried Googling Desiree Behlock with no useful results. I looked up Paul Dyer with the same nothing. Then I looked up Acorn Express Courier and... BINGO! That's how I found this site. I was saddened to learn that people had actually given them lots of money. And I feel a bit nieve for not having checked all this out before I gave them what I did. Personally, I don't think I have anything to worry about because I don't have a bank account or credit cards, and my credit is so bad I doubt anyone could finance a 10 dollar bicycle on my name.
However, I realize there are many people who are much more vulnerable.
My best advice is to do some Googling on these characters before sending them anything at all. And remember: if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
In closing, this thing is not over. I just sent them my information this morning, so they don't know I'm onto them yet. I plan to string them along as they do us until I can find a way to nail them down. I won't use my real name or city because they can reach this sight just as easily as the rest of us did.
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