
Evidently a spam email message has started to circulate telling people they've been randomly selected to receive millions of pounds from Princess Diana's Memorial Foundation.
Ummm... right.
Here's the content of the email:
| SUBJECT: You are a Beneficiary of the Diana Memorial Foundation Grant
ATTENTION: Grant Beneficiary This is to bring to your attention that your email has been randomly selected to receive £2, 598,000.00 (Two Million and Five Hundred Ninety Eight Thousand Great Britain Pounds) and for further instructions on how you are to put claims to your grant, you are to FORWARD a copy of this notice to our International Grants Officer as well as give him a call via contact details below: Blah, blah, blah... |
Okay, it didn't say "Blah, blah, blah..." but it might as well have.
This is a simple "West African advanced fee" a.k.a. "419" scam. You reply. They say you need to send money in order to get the millions of pounds, dollars, francs, liras or whatever. You send some money, maybe your bank account number, maybe your SSN. They take your money and ask for more. Maybe they steal your identity. Maybe they sell your information to someone else.
It's all described in detail here [1].
Just use your head.
Last time I checked memorial foundations exist to collect money - not give it away to random people via email.
Links:
[1] http://fightidentitytheft.com/internet_scam_nigerian.html