Australian Online Lottery?

I have received a mail saying that i won in an Australian Online Lottery. Is it a scheme? Please answer me as soon as possible.





Thanks








MICROSOFT AUSTRALIAN ONLINE LOTTERY.








The Microsoft Lottery


POWERED BY








UNI,24 HIGHER AVENUE HARRIS PARK


GRANVILLE NSW 0152 SYDNEY,


AUSTRALIA.


P.O BOX 1010 SYDNEY.


(Winners Services)





YOUR WINNING NOTIFICATION:


Ref.Number: :475061725,


Batch: No ...7056490902/188.








This is to bring to your notice that the draw.of the MICROSOFT AUSTRALIAN ONLINE LOTTERY, online International Lottery program held on the 16th MARCH.2007 in Australia, informing you that Your e-mail address was attached to Ticket no:4706172507056490902 with Serial no:7741137002 drew the Lucky no:5-13-33-37-42.The Bonus Number [17], Winning ..GB8701/LPRC, which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category i.e, matches 3 plus bonus.You have therefore been approved to claim a tota

Australian Online Lottery?
Microsoft doesn't run a lottery anywhere (link 1 below). The real Australian Lottery is run by Tattersall's, and they've published a press release warning about this sort of lottery scam (link 2 below). I also included a couple general links to information about fake lottery emails.
Reply:It is a scam! There is no Overseas Lottery International, YAHOO %26amp; MSN Lotteries, Yahoo online dept., UK (United Kingdom) Lottery, Netherlands Lottery, British Lottery, Thunderball Online Lottery in the UK, Australian Lottery, Spanish Lottery, Yahoo Lottery Microsoft Lottery (emmulating from the UK or anywhere else) or any other form of lottery you can win without buying a ticket. While some people might only copy and paste such email to their answer with a brief take on it, I will go into detail because I'm tired of this trash, as several of my friends have lost their a$$es to this scam. This is about as far away from legitimate as anything can get, whether it be a contest, promotion, or whatever.





There exists a certain form of immoral degenerate that trolls the internet searching for suckers who believe that they have gotten very lucky and won a lottery which they have never entered. They will probably entice you to send an advance fee to claim your non-existant winnings and if you do send this money, you can kiss it goodbye. The money will likely be en-route to Nigeria, a cesspool of fraud that has been the center of these types of fraud over the last few decades.





The best thing to do is to delete such emails immediately and to never reply to them. If you even reply, you risk having your email inbox flooded. If you call these people, expect to be harrassed over the phone at all hours of the night! In some cases, people who travel to claim their winnings in Nigeria are taken hostage, and in worse-case scenarios are killed when whoever is paying ransom payments exhausts their money supply. If anything online sounds to good to be true it always is buddy.





By the way, I have kind of become an anti-scam activists due to the fact that I have many friends who have had their identities and life savings stolen from them via these methods.





This is simply advance fee fraud (a prevalent type of fraud which continously asks for money to cover unforseen expenses) and is intended to drain your bank account, promising money that simply does not exist. Hopefully, this answers your question.





If you have any more questions, do a yahoo search on lottery scams, nigeria 419 scams, internet fraud, or advance fee fraud. You can also read more about this at www.secretservice.gov and www.419eater.com!





If you have lost money you should report it to the U.S. Secret Service at www.secretservice.gov





Now you know the basics of Advance Fee Fraud, a multi-million dollar industry that costs honest people their life savings everyday. Be happy you weren't duped by this scam!





I hope this is helpful, because I could sure use a best answer! I would appreciate it!
Reply:It's a scam. ignore it. I've recieved it about eleventy-eight gazillion times.
Reply:Well known scam. They'll eventually want bank information, a picture ID, and $600 in processing fees sent to Nigeria. Just avoid.
Reply:it is crap crap crap - the only legit online lottery are one's you buy tickets for like these websites here http://www.***************************/l...