Today I wanted to talk about the "David Dawes" scam which has been making the rounds since at least October of 2011.
In this scam, the idiot criminal who sends the spam message wants you to believe that he is David Dawes of the UK, who is giving away his lottery winnings to you and thousands of other complete strangers.
Here's a link which is commonly posted in these scam messages which is a real news story about the win:
£101m lottery jackpot winners Dave and Angela Dawes to give millions to friends and family
The key paragraph in this news story is as follows:
But along with treats for themselves, they have decided to share their luck with up to 20 close friends and family, giving each a million pounds.
That's twenty (20) close friends, not thousands of complete strangers.
The news media are well aware of the existence of this scam.
A spokesman for the lottery that the Dawes won back in October 2011 has spoken on the record, stating that this type of ridiculous scam message is 100% false, and that they have no plans to share their winnings with millions of strangers via email:
http://petchonka.com/lottery-email-scam-targets-euromillions-winners-dave-and-angie-dawes/
Spokesman for the UK lottery organization Camelot Simon Horne confirmed the emails are not from Dave or Angie Dawes and those who receive such a message need to proceed with caution.
This is OBVIOUSLY a scam, and should be ignored, or - better yet - you can report their email addresses to their providers, which are always a free email provider like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail. You can do this very easily by using my handy Nigerian ScamerAtor™ tool. You can grab that here:
http://bit.ly/TxcMqc
Believe me: it works. The scammers hate this tool. The email providers you report to will often shut the offending accounts down within the same day you report them.
Here is a recent example of this idiotic, obvious scam message. In particular I love that the subject is usually "This is a personal email directed to you", as if the function of putting an email address in the "to" field of a new message was to send it to someone completely different than the recipient.
You're welcome.
SiL
Subject: This is a personal email directed to you... Reply-To: davedaweas@yahoo.cn Mail-Reply-To: davedaweas@yahoo.cn -- Dear friend, This is a personal email directed to you. I am Dave Dawes, my fiancee andI won a Jackpot Lottery of 101 million pounds ($156 million) inOctober, and have voluntarily decided to donate the sum of 1 millionpounds ($1.56 million) to you as part of our own charity project toimprove the lot of 5 unknown lucky individuals all over the world plus 15close friends and family. If you have received this email then you areone of the lucky recipients and all you have to do is get back to us sothat we can send your details to the delivery courier company. You can verify this by visiting the web pages below. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8820 740/101m-lottery-jackpot-winners-Dave-and-Angela-Dawes-to-gi ve-millions-to-friends-and-family.html Best of luck, Dave Dawes.Email: davedaweas@yahoo.cn
ANOTHER SCAM EMAIL FROM THEM IS: davedawes101@yahoo.co.uk and scamming with this person is the courior company with the following email addresses:
ReplyDeletegoldstarexpresscourier@admin.in.th; goldstarexpresscourier@live.co.uk; customerservice@goldstaristanatonal.com
BEWARE OF ALL OF THE ABOVE. THANKS I LEARNED MY LESSON THE HARD WAY.
Also just got one from dave_dawes5286@live.com.. lol
ReplyDeleteThe past two days I been getting messages from David Dawes, all they wanted was me to stary a bank account with a minimum balance in the UK. In order for me to receive my donation. I knew it was too good to be true. This person should get some serious consequneces. Its so WRONG to do that to someone!! I hope they find this person. And make him STOP THE SCAM!
ReplyDeleteWow. They wanted a custom bank account set up? That has to be seen as a very desperate attempt.
DeletePer day, I receive no fewer than three "David Dawes" scam messages. These are the dumbest scammers ever. Well: second only to the "Allan and Violet Large" scammers. That story is nearly two full years old and they're STILL trying to push that one on everybody. Just stupid, stupid people, these scammers.
SiL
Problem is, there will always be a small number of people who will fall for it, and the spammers know this very well.
ReplyDeleteIt's those people who believe something like this is true that are the real idiots, not the spammers ! :-)
Martin, London
The SCAM, this is unbelievable, I got sms text on my mobile phone and without delay I emailed Angela and Dave Dawes only to find i am in to get this donation of GBP1,000,000 dolar.i was asked to open an account with Halifax bank in UK with GBP5,001.00 to allow the process of transaction,Halifax foreigner currency man in charge is called David Pell who called me in Papua New Guinea to tell me that I should open an account immediately and also send me an eamil that I must open an account to allow the transaction.Now that I read this message on internet I will not wast my precious time for this scame to continue,
ReplyDeleteSamson Pololi
Port Moresby
Papua New Guinea
The fact that they're resorting to SMS messages is another sign of how feeble this stupid scam is in the first place.
ReplyDeleteDon't fall for it. These people are outright idiots.
SiL
I just received a email yesterday and I looked them up as soon as I got it. Everything seemed good but I was still not feeling it. The differece with the email they sent me is the fact that they left a phone number and told me to call if I had any doubts of them running a scam. I called the number and I noticed that the guy on the video of course had a accent and the guy claiming to be mr dawes sounded american...im not that stupid...therefore I sucked it up nd kept it moving no matter how good it sounded...
ReplyDeleteI got an email that they were trying to contact me. when I asked why, here is the reply:
ReplyDeleteDave & Angela Dawes
5:57 AM (2 hours ago)
to me
My wife and I won the biggest Euro Millions lottery prize of £101,203,600.70 GBP and we just commenced our Charity Donation and we will be giving out a cash donation of £1,500,000.00 GBP to five(5)lucky individuals and ten(10)charity organisations from any part of the world.
To verify the genuineness of this email and our winnings, please see our interview by visiting the web page below;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8820740/101m-lottery-jackpot-winners-Dave-and-Angela-Dawes-to-give-millions-to-friends-and-family.html
Your email address was submitted to my wife and I by the Google Management Team and you received this email because we have listed you as one of the lucky millionaires, Kindly send us the below details so that we can contact our Bank to effect a valid Bank Draft in your name to your operational bank account in your country.
============
Full Name:
Country:
Age:
Occupation:
Sex:
Mobile/Tel:
============
Congratulations & Happy Celebrations in Advance,
Dave & Angela Dawes
I just received the identical email.....and I looked up the web site......I figured it was a scam....who sends random people money.....just because they have Google?? lol
DeleteThey won't stop until you send them money. It's as simple as that. They don't care that you already know about the scam. They won't remove you from their lists, and they won't stop sending you the exact same scam every single week.
ReplyDeleteThese are the stupidest people ever.
My favorites lately are the complete idiot scammers who insist on sending the Allen and Violet Large scam, even though Violet Large has been dead of cancer for nearly two full years now. They still word the scam as "My wife and I just won the lottery" even though this has happened. It's ridiculous.
The problem is: people still fall for it, and people don't do any research before responding to OBVIOUS scams like this.
The scammers are counting on their recipients to be this stupid, and the saddest part of the whole thing is: they're never disappointed, because somebody still falls for it.
SiL
This scam artist is hurting alot of innocent people and should be stopped! I also was a victim of this scam asking me to pay for the parcel which was a credit card with all that money on it.....then when I questioned their intentions, THEY THREATENED ME with a court suit!!!!!!! OMG are you serious??????
ReplyDeleteYou should have pursued the court case. They never follow through. Not once.
DeleteAlso: it's far more than just one criminal engaging in this stupid scam. Several people report receiving at least 20 or more of this specific scam every single day. These scammers are the dumbest people ever.
SiL
O. come on. You can't possibly believe this sort of emails from no one that you know. This is what I gave 'em.
Delete"O, right! I should believe you because my mother told me that texts from whom I don't know is safe! Come on, you've got to do better than that. I'm not a simpleton.
Where the bloody hell did you get my address, by the way?"
I hope I didn't screw off these fellas.
But keep this in mind. There is no rich who tries to give away money.
> O. come on. You can't possibly believe this sort of emails from no one that you know.
ReplyDeleteWell: "we" can't, no. Most smart people won't believe it. But that's not the target audience of these asshats. They are targeting the absolutely most gullible, stupid people on earth. And they DO fall for it. In large enough numbers that these guys continue to make money.
That's why we see such large volume of this particular type of spam. It works. They make money. It's depressing but it's unfortunately true.
SiL
Watch out: They are on Facebook, too!
ReplyDeleteWhat if i already replied the email. What do i do. Help me
ReplyDelete@akmyr syahar Azwar - if you already replied, that's just an email message.
DeleteDid you send them money?
The fact is if you believed this story (and how could you?!) and you sent them money - that money is gone.
SiL
I'm still receiving these in 2015
ReplyDelete