Crooks use Richard and Angela Maxwell to trick people

May 25, 2015 16:09 GMT  ·  By

In April, Richard and Angela Maxwell won the EuroMillions lottery jackpot worth £53 million ($82 / €74 million), and now scammers are taking advantage of their names to collect money from gullible email recipients.

Cybercriminals often rely on real events to concoct a defrauding scheme that directs users to dangerous pages or to trick them into replying with sensitive information that can be used in future scams.

A "Google powered newsletter software" made the random selection

This time, they chose to weave a bogus story around the winning of the retired couple from Boston, Lincolnshire, in an effort to cash in straight from the victims.

The crooks started to send out messages claiming that the Maxwells decided to share the wealth and to donate £1 million ($1.5 / €1.4 million) to six persons selected at random, in order to celebrate their fortune.

The email starts strong, congratulating the recipient for the lucky break and informing that they are to get the huge amount of money.

“Your email is among the 6 email addresses selected by a Google powered email newsletter software operated by registered British freelance tech experts upon our request to receive a cash donation of £1million from our family, payable by our affilate [sic] payout bank as part of ongoing celebrations to mark our massive Euromillions win,” the bogus email reads.

A small fee is demanded

In order to get the cash, the potential victim has to reply with their full name, age and address for processing the transaction.

However, Hoax Slayer reports that following the instructions leads to receiving a new email asking to pay for various expenses (banking and insurance fees, tax, and processing costs), that cannot be subtracted from the donation.

The sum is not ridiculously large, but it isn't small, either. Scammers are good at setting an amount that is likely not to be reported, if lost.

This is actually what the scammers are after: seeding the idea that by paying the fee the victim can win a large amount of money, which would cover all the costs. After getting paid, the scammers may try to get some more from the victim, invoking other small costs, or as is most often the case, they simply disappear.