BMW Email Lottery Scam Emails Asking for Your Personal Information

• Scam email campaign claims you’ve won a BMW and $1.5 million in a cash cheque.
• Scammers ask for basic information first, and more sensitive data on their second step.
• Most of the people who fall for these claims are impulsive personalities with low self-control.

In the world of email scam marketing, you need to present a luring enough prize and at the same time not get overboard the context of realism. This is exactly where this new scam email campaign would stand if they only claimed that you won the lottery for a brand new BMW 2 Series M240i. The actual price of this model is about $50k, so here we have a supposed lottery prize that isn’t too far-fetched but is still impressive enough to leave no one untouched. This is fake realism right there, and this is precisely where things start to tumble.

The prize is accompanied by a cheque of $1.5 million, which is on the overboard side of things. Why combine a massive amount of money with a $50k car? The scammers may have thought that the car alone wouldn’t be enough to lure people into giving out their personal information, so they thought of going full throttle with the cheque. Anyone in their right mind, however, should have identified this as a scam only by judging the type of the offered prizes.

The emails ask the recipient to send his/her “delivery details” to claim their prize. This includes the Full Name, Delivery Address, and the Mobile Number. Once this info is provided to the scammers, they come back to ask for more, and this time the request includes the social security numbers, bank account numbers, etc. With this information in their hands, the attackers can easily perform identity theft and gain seamless access to the financial accounts of the victims.

If you have this or other similar emails in your inbox, you should demonstrate self-control and sound judgment of the claims made. According to the findings of recent research conducted by the Michigan State University, it is impulsive personalities who are most likely to fall victims of such campaigns. The study was exploring the personality traits that lead people to fall victims of malware and scam attacks, and compulsive email usage is one of the primary characteristics. People with low self-control are easy prey for attackers, so these people are more vigorously picked out and targeted by malicious parties. If you identify yourself as one, work towards the restructuring of this behavioral aspect of yourself, at least when it comes to using the internet.

Would you ever believe that you won a BMW and $1.5 million in cash? Let us know in the comments below, and spread the word of this scam campaign by liking and sharing this post through our socials on Facebook and Twitter.