Oh no! Not Coca-Cola, the best-selling soft drink in history, as its website claims, and the best-known product of any kind in the world.
Not the once all-American company that was created in Atlanta by Dr. John S. Pemberton, earned a patent in 1887 and has long since gone global, offering more than 3,500 products in more than 200 countries.
Scam artists not afraid to repeat selves.
But it’s true, says the Better Business Bureau. Scam artists are using the company’s name and logos in an effort to extract personal information from trusting souls who believe an obvious lie — that they won 950,000 British pounds in a lottery they didn’t enter.
“Congratulations!” begins an emailed spam-scam message forwarded to The Columbian from the BBB’s regional office in Lake Oswego, Ore.
The fraudulent email, topped with a logo copied from one of Coca-Colas’ products, is a phishing scam. The email alleges to be from the company and seeks to gain recipients’ trust, Kyle Kavas, the BBB’s Oregon publications manager, said in a bulletin.
Once you believe it’s really from the soft-drink company, the scammers ask you to begin your claim by emailing and calling their “fiduciary agent and accredited attorney” in South Africa. You’ll need to have your name and address, phone numbers, occupation and other information ready, the email says.
By the way, you’ll be picking up your winnings in South Africa.
In some similar cases, the crook has asked the “winner” to send money upfront for “taxes or fees,” which won’t be recovered, the BBB bulletin said. That marks the pitch as an advance-fee scam.
In addition, the scammers might send their victim a forged or stolen “check” that, several days after the victim cashes or deposits it, will be determined to be worthless. If you spent or wired off any of the money, you have to pay it back. The rightful owner of a stolen check will have to be repaid.
On Coca-Cola’s website at http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com, employees list several ways it’s been done. They also offer tip-offs that indicate scammers are trying to use the soft-drink company to rip people off:
• Spelling or grammatical errors.
• Using company trademarks improperly.
• Senders using free, noncorporate email accounts like Yahoo! AOL and Hotmail.
• Emails in which the sender asks for someone’s personal information and promises quick, easy money.
Phishing is defined as the use of a company’s trademark logos, type styles and other artwork and wording to appear legitimate. It’s been going on for years, often combined with false claims that the victim has won a large sum of money.
Phishing commonly is done in emails, but company logo images also could be forged onto paper documents.
Scammers have claimed to represent all kinds of businesses and agencies including Publishers Clearing House, Reader’s Digest, Bank of America, the IRS and FBI and many more.
This reporter has received many spam emails claiming that my PayPal account, which I don’t have, needs verifying or updating. Many such scam pitches ask the recipient to click on a link, which police have warned against for years.
What looks like a valid link to a business or agency can, in reality, be a redirect to a dishonest website that exposes one’s computer hard drive to viruses and other malicious software. Or it exposes you to people who will try and trick you into revealing personal information, or sending them cash.
This warning from experts is easy to remember: “Never click on a link in a suspicious, unsolicited email.”
Instead, look up the real company’s email or phone address yourself, independently of the email, perhaps in the phone book, and contact real employees.
So many scams are being pitched these days, folks need to keep up to speed.
For a good, free, one-stop info center about a host of scams over the past several years, and the newest ones as well, visit http://www.scambusters.org.
John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.
