An e-mail trap for cricket fans

KOCHI: Beware if you are  cricket crazy! A fake e-mail is doing the rounds   across the country claiming to be from the International Cricket Council (ICC). It informs the recipient that he has been selected for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2012 Promotional Award. Sumesh, a youth hailing from Kochi, received a similar mail last week. The e-mail said he had been selected for ICC Cricket World Cup 2012 Promotional Award and had won a prize amount of 850,000 pounds.
The e-mail claimed to be from Dr David Richardson, ICC Promo Manager.
According to the mail, Sumesh has been selected by the ICC through the Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) from an exclusive list of 8,00,000 e-mail addresses of individuals from South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, England and India.
“The e-mail also stated that the prize should be claimed within seven days and that the prize money has been insured under a certified international bank draft and will be delivered after meeting the requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report. To file for  the processing of the prize payment, it advised me to contact their certified and accredited Claims Agent. It also had a form in which we had to send our personal details, including the bank account number to Peter Hinson, the agent selected by the ICC,”  Sumesh said.
According to the Cyber Police, the public should refrain from replying such emails.
“Recently, an e-mail claiming to be from the CEO of Coca Cola was received by many. Similarly, thousands of fake e-mails are spreading across the country each day. These are fake agents operating mainly from other countries. There are many people who have lost money after giving their  personal details,” the officials said.