Bogus Lottery Winners

Bogus Lottery Winners

UK Megajackpots – Distribution of Payment

“Euromillions e-lottery disbursement policy”

http://nationwideints.com/finance

nationwideonlines@gmail.com

account.manager@nationwide.e-bankers.org.uk

The Commission has recently become aware of emails received by members of the Public with the subject line “Euromillions e-lottery disbursement policy”. The emails seen by the Commission are shown as being received from “nationwideonlines@gmail.com on behalf of account.manager@nationwide.e-bankers.org.uk” The emails falsely state that the recipient has won a sum of $2,312,609.35 USD in a lottery and that, in order to obtain their winnings they must open an account and deposit the sum of $500 USD. The emails include, as attachments, various purported “account opening forms” which they ask the recipient to complete with detailed personal information and fax back to the sender, together with proof of identity.

The emails falsely attempt to give the appearance that they have been sent by or on behalf of Nationwide International Ltd of PO Box 217, 5-11 St Georges Street, Douglas, Isle of Man IM 99 1RN, British Isles. They include details of a purported telephone number of +44-703-590-2986 and a purported fax number of +44-845-280-1168.

The Commission has previously issued general advice regarding bogus correspondence falsely purporting to have been issued by genuine Isle of Man institutions.

The aforementioned emails are headed with an attempted facsimile of the logo of the genuine Nationwide International Limited.

The genuine Nationwide International Limited is licensed by the Commission to undertake Banking Business. The genuine Nationwide International Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nationwide Building Society which is itself licensed by the Commission as a Building Society. Details of all genuine licence holders of the Commission are available via our website.

The aforementioned emails do not originate from and have not been sent with the knowledge or authority of the genuine Nationwide International Limited or Nationwide Building Society on the Isle of Man. The telephone and fax numbers quoted within the emails are not Isle of Man numbers and are not associated in any way or form with the genuine Nationwide International Limited or Nationwide Building Society. None of the email addresses or web addresses contained within the aforementioned emails are associated in any way or form with the genuine Nationwide International Limited or Nationwide Building Society on the Isle of Man.

The emails contain various items of text which appear to have been copied, without authority, from the website of the genuine Nationwide International Limited and contain, without authority, the names of, or names similar to those of, genuine employees or other persons genuinely associated with that institution.

Under the circumstances the Commission feels that these emails are being issued to either tempt the recipient into becoming the victim of an Advance Fee Fraud (see explanatory notice issued by the Commission at:

http://www.iomfsa.im/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/iomfsa/westafricanfraud.xml&menuid=11570)

or are an attempt at gaining personal data from the recipient in order to steal their identity (see explanatory notice issued by the Commission at:

http://www.iomfsa.im/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/iomfsa/identitytheft.xml&menuid=11570)

Under the circumstances the Commission would encourage people receiving emails matching the above description to refrain from responding to them in any way.

Any persons who are already involved in any dealings resulting from the above emails and who have concerns should contact the Enforcement Division on +44 1624 689313 or by email to fsc@gov.im.

Any persons who have paid out funds in relation to the above emails or who have provided personal financial details to 3rd parties in relation to the above emails, should consider contacting their local police fraud unit for advice, without delay.

For the complete avoidance of doubt the sole subject of this Public Warning is documentation matching the above description.

This Public Warning does not relate to the genuine Isle of Man Banking licence holder, Nationwide International Limited or Licensed Building Society, Nationwide Building Society.

Any persons who may have concerns as to whether or not they are dealing with the genuine Nationwide International Limited or Nationwide Building Society or a genuine associated company may wish to satisfy themselves by contacting the genuine Nationwide International Limited. Details of the genuine postal addresses of licence holders of the Commission may also be found via the aforementioned link to the Commission website .Other contact details for the genuine Nationwide International Limited are available via their website at www.nationwideinternational.com. The commission would recommend that, as with all bank websites, you should manually type this address into your browser rather than following a hyperlink. This will help to reduce the chances of your browser being hijacked and diverted to a bogus website.

FSC Reference: JPM/11/2007