Coca-Cola Phishing Email Scams Aren't as Refreshing as the Soda

Millions of people love Coca~Cola soft drinks. Even more like the idea of winning a lottery of some sort.

Why wouldn’t cybercrooks combine the two and try to scam people out of their personal information?

That’s right, internet scammers have taken to sending out phishing emails that claim you’ve won some sort of “Online Coca~Cola Promotional Drawing” and that you need to fork over an obscene amount of personal information in order to collect your winnings.

Although there are multiple variations of this phishing email scam roaming around, the one recently received was rather interesting.

Coming from an email address that obviously didn’t belong to a Coca~Cola official of any kind [cocacolauk7@w.cn], the phishing email featured insanely large blue lettering in all caps, poor grammar, & an attachment with an obnoxious filename that had the actual scam pitch inside.

The  Word doc attached to the phishing email, which is named COCA_COLA_INT_N_ONLINE_PROMO_AWARD_IN_UK,.doc, reads:

PO Box 1010,
LiverpoolL70 1NL,
United Kingdom,

Dear Winner,

We want you to remove every skepticism from your mind because this award is legitimate from COCACOLA  COMPANY ENGLAND, Your Email was luckily drawn by a computer balloting system as one of our winners in our Online lottery bonanza from the prestigious COCA COLA ONLINE PROMOTION. Thus, making you the winner of the sum of 500,000.00GBP (Five Hundred Thousand Great British Pounds Sterling’s).This is to let you know that this online world e-mail draws was conducted from an exclusive list of 25,000 company e-mail addresses, 30,000,00 individual e-mail addresses from over 40 networks and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer selection from the web. Please complete the form below with correct information and email back to us with a return email so that we can have a precise and comprehensive record of our winners and also provide you On how you will receive your winning amount. Your prize cheque has been vaulted safely with our corresponding Bank prior to your readiness to complete your claims and would be presented to you after verification of the data requested below.

WINNING NUMBER: C.C.UK/04567

To proceed with your claims, you would be required to fill the Verification Form below completely and return back to us immediately.

Fill Out This Form

1. Full Names:
2. Your Full Address:
3. Your Age:
4. Your country:
5. Your Country of resident:
6. Your City:
7. Your Occupation:
8. Sex:
9. Statue:
10.Winning Email Address:
11. Your Mobile Number:

DECLARATION:

I_____________________HEREBY DECLARE THAT THE ABOVE DATA ARE TRUE. THAT MYCLAIMS AGENT SHALL ACT AS A FACILITATOR IN THETRANSFER OF THE TOTAL FUND TO ME.

DATE___________                        (YOUR FULLNAMES)_____________________

Congratulations once again from the entire staff of the COCA COLA PROMO TEAM ENGLAND.

MR.JAMES  SMITH
EVENT MANAGER.
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7031827568

sBATCH/REFERENCE NO: C.C.UK/ 004412010

Although you may find yourself tempted to reply back & claim your 500,000 GBP, DO NOT provide any of the personal information requested and DO NOT respond to this phishing email as it is a SCAM.

There’s no telling what the internet scammer will do with all of your personal information, but stealing your identity is a pretty good guess.

Coca~Cola has acknowledged that cybercrooks are using their name in phishing email scams and they’ve created a page to outline some of the internet scams they’ve caught wind of.

To minimize the chances of receiving – and potentially falling for – phishing emails or other spam messages in your inbox, it’s highly recommended that you run an antivirus program that offers email filtering. For example, the email featured in this post was caught & marked as spam by Norton Internet Security 2010, although many other antivirus applications offer it as well.

Steer clear of Coca~Cola phishing scams, everyone!