Is this a scam?

i have recieved an email from Scaret Couriers, a business in the UK saying i have won an amount of money from a National Lottery syndicate competition that i entered. i will not give out my bank details and they emailed me saying that they would post my cheque, however they mention that i will need to pay for this.......it didnt say how much and how....Is this a scam?
I can answer this question for you fine. Do not send these people any money or personal information! You can be 100% sure that you haven't won anything right now and here's an explanation of exactly what the notice you've recieved is intended to do.



If you are already a victim contact the U.S. Secret Service via email. This address will be provided toward the end of this answer!



I would laugh at the proposed scam and surely not respond to the punks responsible.



There are many Nigerian scams that are showing up nowadays. Please read the following carefully:



I can guarantee you that if you listen to these punks you will lose every bit of money you have and never receive any prize money as such a prize does not exist.



Another new popular scam is the lottery scam:





There is no British National Lottery Award, 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, UK/FRANCO/GERMANY 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. The Euro Asian whatever you talk about is a perfect example of how you can hand your lifesavings over to some fat-sweaty nigerian con-man (and your i.d. too).



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!
Definitely a scam. I get emails everyday like this and also ones asking me to be a beneficiary for some diplomat I've never met or to become a business representative in the U.S. for some company I have never heard of. In less it is something you signed up for or participated in or from a person you recognize don't even bother opening it. It is more than likely a scam of an offer for something free but you have to participate in offers that will ask you to pay something or ask for you credit card number for verification. Don't fall for it any of them. SCAM SCAM SCAM.Is this a scam?
Scam don't open it just delete it or mark it as spam.
undeniably irrefutably and unfortunately a scam. Most scams operate in this manner. promising to award us with a vast amount of money and all they require from us is a small amount of cash to clear the amount or a bank account to put this money into. It preys on our curiosity and natural desire for a good deal



like others have said I would mark it as spam and delete it ;-)



hope this helpsIs this a scam?
Very old scam...been around as long as mail has been carried....dont send them anything at all.
It's a scam.If you have won anything you don't have to pay for anything.
It kinda sounds like a scam to me. I get several emails every day saying I won something. It is so stupid. I just ignore it.
scamola...tell them to subtract the charges from the cheque...hell, tell them that you are so happy to win, they can take out TWICE the charges and just send you the rest...



why are people so gullible to think money will fall from the sky...
You don't get anything for nothing, it's a scam do not answer do not give personal information. Just google scam and see how many hits yoou get, there are millions of them and they are all aimed at taking your money.An excellent site giving advice on how to recognise and avoid scams is at www.rz-berlin.mpg.de/~wm/wm-lotto.html Also If you go to the following link you will get some info on ID theft www.identity-theft.org.uk the iinternet is safe enough if you are careful but please answer nothing that you are doubtful about.Good Luck and be careful.
yes its one big con
if it sounds too good to be true it usually is
You need to pay for your winnings? kinda defeats the object.
its a scam you get nothing for nothing
BIG, BIG, huge con, smells so much of fish it should called a halibut. Tell them to F off and leave you alone and report them immediately!

If any competition you have won asks for your bank details or money upfront before you get a prize, it's a con. They are after your cash, once they have it you won't see the b*stards for dust!
Hate to say it but... lets see how to say it... SCAM!!!! yeh that worked perfectly.
YES
definately a scam. A friend of mine had same sort of thing so she phoned them up and said she would collect the cheque and they said she couldnt do this. She then said that she would pay the fee upon receipt of the cheque. Guess what, cheque never did arrive!!!
Did you enter a lottery? If not how can you have won? DOH are you blonde by any chance???
Yes that is a HUGE scam!!! don't fall for it!!!
Of course its a scam! If you've never entered a lottery then how can you win anything? Also, the fact that they said they you needed to pay something should have let you know immediately that this is a scam. Never ever open emails from someone or company that you've never heard of. You need to go options and set up your email up to only receive mail from addresses saved in your contacts and all other junk emails will go to your junk mail folder. As a matter of fact, you can set your junk mail to be immediately deleted...it won't even make to your junk mail folder.
Keep away from all e-mails like this,i get about 5-6 per week.

Just forward to you junk mail box.
sounds like a scam to me, find out how much you have to pay and tell them to take it off the money that you won :)
Send them abuse
Yup
It is scam. Yahoo (insert any company name here, this answer works for all!) do not run an email lottery, if they did you could guarantee it would be advertised all over their home page. Check out these links and search answers to see how many people 'win' the exact same lottery every day



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lottery_sca鈥?/a>

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/email-lottery鈥?/a>



Do not click on any links, the page you will be taken to will look authentic but is not

Do not send them a 'courier fee' or any other money

Do not hand over any bank details or passwords



Do report spam

Do delete



Remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot win a lottery if you haven ot bought a ticket. Anyone can set up an email account with Yahoo, they can use any combination of letters they choose. I could be 'thequeenmother@yahoo.com' or 'disneyfreeticketsgenuine@yahoo.com' That doesn't mean that I am either of these and is fine as long as I don't try to use the address to mislead people. Don't be fooled by legitimate looking email addresses which end the same way as any other free account, don't be fooled by fictitious titles such as 'Dr' or 'Executive Director of Winner Claims'.





(I've answered this question so many times that I now keep this answer on my desktop and just copy and paste....that should give you a clue!)
It's a Scam, for sure, if they ask you to pay them to send your winnings.

You could just ask them to deduct their fee from the winnings and see what they say!
it does sound abit dodgy to me. Why should you have to pay them for posting a cheque? When i have entered competitions i am not expected to make a payment for receipt of something that i have won! Anyway, if thats the case, then all they should be requesting is the price of a postage stamp. It would be interesting know how you get one with this one hun,
if it was genuine would you have to pay?
Click Delete and forget it.
definitely sounding like a SCAM!!!
Scam