Yahoo + Western Canada Lottery, etc.

Although this one purports to be from someone named "Dianna Rutherford," who is informing me that I have won a Canadian lottery - I couldn't help but notice that, when I viewed the raw source data, the name of YAHOO came up. You would think that an organization such as Yahoo would be interested in taking whatever means would be necessary to prevent people like this from taking advantage of their corporate name!

The E mail appears first in its original form - followed by the Raw Source Data:

Western Canada Lottery Corporation
Online Department
Prize Payout
10th Floor, 125 Garry Street
Winnipeg, MB? R3C 4J1
?
The Western Canada Lottery Corporation wishes to inform you that the results of the E-mail address ballot lottery international program held recently. Your email account has been .picked as a winner of the sum of $1,500.000.00 (Canadian Dollars). Please contact your claim officer with your verification & fund release form for further instruction of the release of your winning.
?
******************************************
Name of Claims Officer: Mr. Lucas Van Woods
Email address: [email protected]
*******************************************
?
VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE FORM

1. FULL NAMES:
2. ADDRESS:
3. CITY:
4. STATE:
5. POSTCODE:
6. COUNTRY:
7. SEX:
8. AGE:
9. OCCUPATION:
10. TELEPHONE NUMBER:
?
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Dianna Rutherford
Online Department
Western Canada Lottery Corporation

Now for the Raw Source Data - where the Yahoo name turns up!




Return-path: <[email protected]>
Envelope-to: [email protected]
Delivery-date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:41:18 -0700
Received: from exim by mz1.forethought.net with spamassassin (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1Pfa9s-0005HU-4e
for [email protected]; Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:41:18 -0700
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.1 (2007-05-02) on
new-mail2.hypermall.com
X-Spam-Level: *
X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.2 required=3.0 tests=US_DOLLARS_3
autolearn=disabled version=3.2.1
Received: from sargas.telkomsa.net ([196.25.211.69])
by mz1.forethought.net with esmtp (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1Pfa9r-0005HB-PO
for [email protected]; Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:41:16 -0700
Received: from mail3.telkomsa.net (zimbra3-vm1.lb2.telkomsa.net [192.168.16.224])
by sargas.telkomsa.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D1FF2A067F;
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:40:59 +0200 (SAST)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:41:10 +0200 (SAST)
From: "Mrs. Dianna Rutherford" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: "Mrs. Dianna Rutherford" <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <1082179942.41198.1295451670430.JavaMail.root@zimbra3-vm1.telkomsa.net>
Subject: Prize Payout URGENT.!!!
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Originating-IP: [192.168.16.42]
X-Mailer: Zimbra 6.0.5_GA_2213.RHEL5_64 (zclient/6.0.5_GA_2213.RHEL5_64)
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Western Canada Lottery Corporation
Online Department
Prize Payout
10th Floor, 125 Garry Street
Winnipeg, MB=E3=80=80 R3C 4J1
=E3=80=80
The Western Canada Lottery Corporation wishes to inform you that the result=
s of the E-mail address ballot lottery international program held recently.=
Your email account has been .picked as a winner of the sum of $1,500.000.0=
0 (Canadian Dollars). Please contact your claim officer with your verificat=
ion & fund release form for further instruction of the release of your winn=
ing.=20
=E3=80=80
******************************************
Name of Claims Officer: Mr. Lucas Van Woods
Email address: [email protected]
*******************************************
=E3=80=80
VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE FORM

1. FULL NAMES:
2. ADDRESS:
3. CITY:
4. STATE:
5. POSTCODE:
6. COUNTRY:
7. SEX:
8. AGE:
9. OCCUPATION:
10. TELEPHONE NUMBER:
=E3=80=80
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Dianna Rutherford
Online Department
Western Canada Lottery Corporation

Welcome to Scamwarners.
I'm quite sure Yahoo, etc, would like to, but it simply isn't possible. Free email accounts are easily created, and thre is too much email to screen, even if it was legal to do so.
Closing their email accounts is possible, but futile as new ones can be created faster than they be closed. Something we oppose in any case. It's better to have live addresses that potential victims can find with an Internet search.

I know what you mean about the SPAMMERS being able to create new E mail accounts as quickly as an old one closes. I have been attempting to black list the most prolific SPAMMERS through my service provider's SPAM filter system. However, I can go down the list of SPAMMERS which I have blacklisted and see that, as soon as I blacklist one E mail address, the SAME SPAMMER turns up a day or so later with a slightly altered version of that E mail address - which is just different enough to be able to slip past the SPAM filter's blacklist notifications.

I DID track one SPAMMER down to a spot in SPAIN, near Madrid, by using their originating IP address. That one piqued my curiosity because they were using one of our local television stations as their "come on." The innocuous looking E mail said something about having landed a job by reading the job leads web page at one of our local television stations. Fortunately for me, I viewed the E mail via raw source data and discovered that the "link" which purported to be taking you to the job leads web page for the local television station would,instead, lead you to a web page where someone from Nigeria was attempting to sell books about "how to get rich quick!"

It would be helpful if SPAM filters could be setup to blacklist originating IP addresses - but I have noticed that the more prolific SPAM artists seem to be able to change their IP addresses as often as they appear to be able to change their E mail addresses!

At least, the guy from Spain who was using one of our local television stations as the cover for his SPAM operation stubbed his toe big time because I reported the whole incident to the television station being used as a cover and they ran an expose during their local news hour, warning other people in this area NOT to click on the link in the fraudulent SPAM E mail because the link would NOT lead them to the job leads web page for the local television station!

I was also wondering if anyone had found a way to deal with the SPAMMERS who have discovered text messaging. Our telephone system is NOT set up to deal with text messaging - however, whenever one of the SPAMERS sends us a text message - we end up being charged ten cents for each text message which one of the SPAM artists attempts to send to us. I could see this practice turning out to be an expensive new wrinkle in the SPAMMERS bag of tricks. So far, we have only had to pay for one text message from a SPAMMER - but we can't help wondering whether or not that is just the tip of another nasty iceberg!

Well - Keep on truckin' - You seem to be providing a valuable service here - more power to you!