Let the Games Begin.

No, not those ones. I’m going to play around a bit with a (completely imaginary) fellow by the name of Tony Cobbs. He’s the fictional chap from whom this site recently received an email advising that we had won $2.5 million in a lottery (the actual name of which is unspecified) and inviting the recipient to contact the imaginary Cobbs to claim the prize; Cobbs, you see, is supposed to be the “Claims Broker”.

Now OLG may have their own issues of consumer confidence concerning retailer wins, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t employ anyone known as a “Claims broker”.

“Cobbs”, of course, is a fraudster. He’s running an “advance fee” scam; he’s trying to get us to send him money – for a variety of fraudulent, made-up, absolutely criminal and illegal reasons – so that he can arrange for our prize money to be released to us. There isn’t any Cobbs, there wasn’t any lottery and – you can be assured of this, dear readers – there is no money waiting to be sent to us. It’s a scam; don’t fall for it.
I thought it might be fun to play around with him a bit, however, and waste his time. It’s something I’ve done before – the activity is called “scambaiting”, and the idea is to waste the time of the criminals by keeping them busy and frustrated, so that they hopefully have less time to spend actually defrauding real people
of real money. I use a character by the name of “Ulysses R. Forwunyne”, a retired (blind) NHL goal judge and resident of Iqaluit as my fictional alter-ego in these encounters. Here’s the first email to Cobbs:

Mr. Tony Cobbs, Esq:

I understand that you are the Claims Broker in relation to E-Lottery Promotional Draws. I have received a most intriguing missive advising me of an unexpected but spectacularly lucrative piece of good fortune on my part.

I am ready to triumphantly claim my prize, Cobbs. Please contact me directly and I shall furnish you the appropriate details so that you may send along my cheque. I have a charity in mind to which I hope to donate a large portion of these funds, so make it quick my good man.

Yours in avarice,

Ulysses R. Forwunyne