Late last week, I received an email that told me that I was the lucky winner of a "Random Award from AOL and Microsoft". Aside from the fact that it is very unlikely that any organization would misspell their own name in an award notification. If you look at the first sentence in the first paragraph of the announcement, Microsoft and successfully are spelled incorrectly. I am not subscribed to any beta programs through either of these companies. So this was a fairly easy scam to spot.

Here are the contents of the entire email.

[More:]

From: Dr. Bryan McDonald
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:34 AM
Subject: Dr. Bryan McDonald

Microsoft presents Hill Team
With Innovator Award.
20 Craven Park, Harlesden
London NW10
United Kingdom
Ref: BTD/968/05
Batch: 409978E

Dear Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION

The prestigious Micrsoft and aol has set out and sucessfully organised a Sweepstakes marking the new year 2008 anniversary we rolled out over £5,000.000.00 (Five million Great Britain Pounds) for our end of year Anniversary Draws. Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage.

The selection was made through a computer draw system attaching personalised email addresses to ticket numbers. If you ignore this, you will regret it later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program,

Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 008795727498 with serial numbers BTD/9080648302/06 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-25-39-40-47(20) which subsequently won you £500,000.00 (Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds) as one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw. You have therefore won the entire winning sum of £500,000.00 (Five Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds). The draws registered as Draw number one was conducted in Brockley, London United Kingdom on the 3rd of January 2008. These Draws are commemorative and as such special.

Please be informed by this winning notification,to file your claims,you are to make contact with your designated agent who shall by duty guide you through the process to facilitate the release of your prize.To file for your claim Please Contact your fiduciary agent,

Mr Micheal Lannie
Microsoft Promotion Award Team
Email:micheallannie@hotmail.com
Phone:+44 703-186-4913; +44 871-503-3875

You are advised to contact your Fiduciary Agent ( micheal lannie ) with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications:

Name (in Full) :
Country:
Address:
Direct Telephone No.:
Age:
Occupation/position
Ticket Number:
Batch Number:
Serial Number:
Lucky Numbers

as indicated in this winning Notification and Phone numbers.Thank you for being part of this promotional award program.

Our special thanks and gratitude to Bill Gates and his associates.We wish you the
best of luck as you spend your good fortune.Thank you for being part of our commemorative new year Anniversary Draws.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bryan McDonald
Microsoft Promotion Team

If you receive a message like this, it is a scam, don't call any of the numbers, don't reply to it, just deleted it.