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U.S Immigration Warns on Green Card Lottery Fraud
- By Williams Ekanem
- Published July 25th, 2011
- Washington File
- Unrated
As applicants for the 2012 Diversity Lottery check their results, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services USCIS has warned to guard against email scams.
According to the USCIS, if you or someone you know recently received an e-mail claiming you have won the Green Card lottery and ask you to send or wire money, do not fall for it as “ the sender is trying to steal your money.”
According to the agency, “fraudsters will frequently e-mail potential victims posing as State Department or other government officials with requests to wire or transfer money online as part of a “processing fee. You should never transfer money to anyone who e-mails you claiming that you have won the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery or been selected for a Green Card.”
These e-mails, it stated, are designed to steal money from unsuspecting victims as the senders often use phony e-mail addresses and logos designed to make them look more like official government correspondence.
One easy way to tell they are a fraud, the USCIS stated, is that the e-mail address does not end with a “.gov”.
“One particularly common fraud email comes from an address ending in @diplomats.com or @usa.com and asks potential victims to wire $819 per applicant/family member via Western Union to an individual (the name varies) at the following address in the United Kingdom: 24 Grosvenor Square, London W1A 1AE. If you receive this email, do NOT respond. Report it immediately to the Internet Crime Complaint Center and the Federal Trade Commission online,” the USCIS stated in its beacon newsletter.
For more information on this type of fraud and how to avoid and report it, people are referred to the Department of State’s fraud warning and the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer alert on the matter.
According to the USCIS, if you or someone you know recently received an e-mail claiming you have won the Green Card lottery and ask you to send or wire money, do not fall for it as “ the sender is trying to steal your money.”
According to the agency, “fraudsters will frequently e-mail potential victims posing as State Department or other government officials with requests to wire or transfer money online as part of a “processing fee. You should never transfer money to anyone who e-mails you claiming that you have won the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery or been selected for a Green Card.”
These e-mails, it stated, are designed to steal money from unsuspecting victims as the senders often use phony e-mail addresses and logos designed to make them look more like official government correspondence.
One easy way to tell they are a fraud, the USCIS stated, is that the e-mail address does not end with a “.gov”.
“One particularly common fraud email comes from an address ending in @diplomats.com or @usa.com and asks potential victims to wire $819 per applicant/family member via Western Union to an individual (the name varies) at the following address in the United Kingdom: 24 Grosvenor Square, London W1A 1AE. If you receive this email, do NOT respond. Report it immediately to the Internet Crime Complaint Center and the Federal Trade Commission online,” the USCIS stated in its beacon newsletter.
For more information on this type of fraud and how to avoid and report it, people are referred to the Department of State’s fraud warning and the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer alert on the matter.
