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Anonymous writes "FROM: THE LOTTERY COORDINATOR,
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT

DEAR SIR/MADAM,
WINNER OF SECOND CATEGORY DRAWS
Congratulations to you as we bring to your notice, the
results of the 2nd Category draws of PROTEA GAMES
SOUTH AFRICA. We are happy to inform you that you have
emerged a winner under the Second Category, which is
part of our promotional draws. The draws were held on
June 5, 2004 and results are being officially
announced today August 12th, 2004. Participants were
selected through a computer ballot system drawn from
30,000 names/email addresses of individuals and
companies from Africa, America, Asia, Australia,
Europe, Middle East, and Oceania as part of our
International Promotions Program.
You/Your company, attached to ticket number
, with serial number drew the winning
numbers (21) and consequently won in
the First Category.
You have therefore been awarded a lump sum pay out of
US$5,500,000.00 (five million, five hundred thousand
US dollars), which is the winning payout for Category
B winners. This is from the total prize money of
US$16.5 million shared among the 3 winners in this
category.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Your fund is now deposited with our International
Funds Transfer agents PINNACLE FINANCE SOLUTIONS and
has been insured in your name. In your best interest
and also to avoid mix up of numbers and names of any
kind, we request that you keep the entire details of
your award strictly from public notice until the
process of transferring your claims has been
completed, and your funds remitted to your account.
This is part of our security protocol to avoid double
claiming or unscrupulous acts by
participants/nonparticipants of this program.
We also wish to bring to your notice our end of year
premium stakes draw where you stand a chance of
winning up to US$500 million that will be shared
amongst 10 winners worldwide; we hope that with a part
of your prize you will participate.
Please contact your claims agent immediately for due
processing and remittance of your prize money to a
bank account of your choice:
MR. DAVID MOTE,
FINANCE MANAGER,
PINNACLE FINANCE SOLUTIONS
EMAIL:
PHONE:
FAX:
You are advised to contact our agents by email and/or
fax within a week of receiving this notice. Failure to
do so may warrant immediate disqualification.
NOTE: For easy reference and identification, find
below your reference and Batch numbers. Remember to
quote these numbers in every one of your
correspondence with your claims agent.
REFERENCE NUMBER: SA/1/PFS
BATCH NUMBER:
Congratulations once again from all our staff and
thank you for being part of our promotions program.

Sincerely,
THE LOTTERY COORDINATOR,
PROTEA GAMES SOUTH AFRICA
65 EVERSON STREET,
LINDEN - 2104, JOHANNESBURG,
SOUTH AFRICA.
TEL/FAX:

N.B: Any breach of confidentiality on the part of the
winners will result to disqualification. Please do not
reply to this mail. Contact your transfer agent
immediately.

This sounds like a scam to me. Received it in today's email along with 3 other similar notices for being a "Second Tier" winner.

Ahhh, yes... The author is correct -- this is a scam! The early versions got the nickname "Spanish Bull", as they referred to a lottery known as the "Toro". Apparently, this scam has cross international borders just like the "Nigeria 419" has.

I wrote up one of these in an earlier article, It's a "Lotto" Bull!, so you can read the various warnings & stuff I received there.