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Watch For Scams Newsletter. Prince William and Princess Catherine Worldwide Galore Promotion
June 08, 2011
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Prince William and Princess Catherine Worldwide Galore Promotion

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Prince William and Princess Catherine Worldwide Galore Promotion

You may receive an email claiming to be from Buckingham Palace stating that you has been randomly selected as the winner of a substantial sum of money in a charitable promotion organized by Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.

The message claims to be from Buckingham Palace, and states that you have won one million pounds in this year's "Worldwide Galore Promotion".

The message claims that the money comes from a charitable gift fund created by Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton to help celebrate their wedding. It explains that your email address was selected as the winner through a "Computerized Email Selection System (C.E.S.S.)" comprised of a "database of over a million email addresses from the worldwide web".

The winner is urged to contact the "affiliated accredited attorney" listed in the message in order to redeem the prize.

This is an example of an advance fee scam, with no prize or sum of money to claim. The scam is designed to trick you into sending money and personal information to scammers. If you fall for the scam and contact the attorney you will soon be asked to pay upfront fees that are supposedly required to allow for the release of the "prize money".

The scammers will claim that such fees are necessary to cover unavoidable expenses such as insurance premiums, tax obligations or banking and legal costs. The scammers will insist that for legal reasons, these fees must be paid in advance and cannot be deducted from the prize money itself.

If you pay the first of these requested fees, the scammers will send further requests for money until you finally realize that you are being conned or run out of money to send.

The scammers are also trying to trick you into disclosing a large amount of personal and financial information to allow them to steal your identity as well as your money.

These type of scams are very common so be wary of any message that claims that you have won a substantial sum of money or a valuable prize in a lottery or promotion that you have never even entered. Advance fee scammers often use the names of famous people or organizations as a means of making their lies seem a little more plausable.

In this case, the scammers have capitalized on the interest and excitement caused by the engagement and recent marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

If you have been a victim of this type of scam or any other Cyber crime, you can report it to the IC3 website at: www.IC3.gov. The IC3 complaint database links complaints for potential referral to the appropriate law enforcement agency for case consideration. Complaint information is also used to identity emerging trends and patterns.

Remember - always watch for scams!

Steve

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