By Sean O' Driscoll

The Irish national lottery has warned of an international e-mail scam designed to fool readers into believing they have won three million euros in the Irish lottery.

The scam sends out emails with official-looking “Irish Lottery” logos on top, telling the reader that they have won the national lottery and later seeking bank details to transfer the winning money.

The fraudsters then withdraw money from the accounts with the information supplied. The e-mails are cleverly designed, with a warning at the bottom to avoid Internet scams and telling readers that no bank details should be given out.

However, the scammers later ask for bank details when the “winner” contacts them.

The e-mails include colourful logos on the top with a green background and featuring an Irish harp and a lottery ball in place of the o in “lottery.”

It also has the genuine Irish National Lottery logo at the bottom, including the Irish language translation, An Crannchur Naisiunta.

The email begins: “IRISH GOVERNMENT ACCREDITED LICENSED IRISH WEB LOTTERY IS REGISTERED UNDER THE DATA PROTECTION ACT” and includes a fake registration number.

It includes an official address in Sligo city on the west coast of Ireland and tells the reader that “we are pleased to announce to you the draw of the IRISH LOTTERY PROGRAMME online Sweepstakes International Program held on WEDNESDAY 16th NOVEMBER 2005” and that the reader’s email address was attached to the winning ticket.

It includes a ream of official sounding data, including the supposed ticket number, its serial number and the winning lottery numbers.

“You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of €3,048,206 in cash credited to file KTU/9023118308/06 of Irish Lottery,” it adds.

It claims that participants for the online version were selected randomly on the Internet and extracted from over 100,000 unions, associations, and corporate bodies that are listed online.

It then advises the reader to contact the “fiduciary agent,” Paul Young. However, the U.K. phone number included doesn’t work and the e-mail address included is for a free Yahoo e-mail account.

“Mr. Young” asks for a long list of details including name, address, sex, age, marital status, annual income and whether the winner wants to collect their money by check or band draft.

The letters are signed at the bottom by “Chris Walker (Sir).”

On a blogsite dedicated to exposing web scams, http://blog.supersurge.com/latest-email-scams, people from the U.S., Germany and India said they had received the emails. One woman identifying herself as Michelle from Michigan said that she had received the email on December 3.

“I’ve emailed back just to see what they’ll want next,” she said.

The real Irish national lottery said that overseas subscribers agents do not ask for “processing fees,” as the scam had also sought.

“Any promotion saying that you have won a large prize on the condition that you have to pay some money to claim your prize is a fraudulent scam and you should not respond to their offer,” it said.