You May Have Already Won...

Guess what? I just won $150,000. No, seriously, it's for real. I got a letter from England and they said my name was drawn from different sweepstakes and lottery databases around the world. Evidently they've tried to contact me for years now, and it's down to the wire, only three more weeks left before I forfeit this forever. And all I have to do is call a number in England... hold on a second. This sounds fishy. I'm beginning to suspect this letter from 'Standard Links Alliance' might be a scam. Or scam-ola...

   You know, now that I think about it, I've never entered a British lottery. I don't even know if they have one. I know they have a lottery in Australia because I did buy lotto tickets there, but all I won was a kangaroo with a pouch full of beer. I'm kidding, the beer came in its own crate.

A while back I wrote about a Nigerian scam e-mail I received, one that claimed to be from our own FBI. I could tell immediately that was a scam because it wasn't from some prince, but from a US Federal police force operating on behalf of a foreign lottery and I was supposed to have won almost a million dollars. Only the truly desperate would believe that kind of pitch.
   But these Standard Links Alliance guys are good. Really good. The letter was indeed mailed from England, and it's written on A-4 paper (what they use in Europe instead of 8.5 x 11), and the phone number they tell you to call is in London, England just like they claim. Aside from the complete nonsense of the letter itself, which never quite explains where they got my name or how I came by this sum, it's almost totally believable. Even the dollar amount itself, $150,000, seems within the realm of possibility. Not too large to be ridiculous like the Nigerian e-mail, and not so small that most people would ignore it. $150,000 is that Goldilocks spot for generating interest in free money. If, of course, you don't ask yourself why a British bank is issuing checks in American currency.
   I'm half tempted to give these guys a call - from a work phone, of course - just to screw with them. But, nah, this will just go in the trash with the other garbage.

Still... you gotta give them an 'A' for execution on this one.