Let's try to answer the very common question: IS IT A SCAM? WHAT SHOULD I DO?

1) Congratulations, you won a lottery: DID YOU BUY THE TICKET????
These is no such thing such as a reandom extraction of e-mail addresses and awarding million dollars to a random guy (you) on the internet. So again: DID YOU BUY THE TICKET? If not, it is for sure a scam, no need to look and investigate further.

2) Generic e-mail addresses: if the contact has an e-mail address @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com or any other generic e-mail provider, then the message is a scam. No need to look further.

3) Fake e-mail headers: if in the e-mail body you asked to contact a recipient that is different from the actual sender, it is a scam, no need to look further

4) Misleading web sites: sometimes, reference to existing, legitimate web sites are made in scam e-mails. Remember that anybody can put a link to a website in an e-mail, but only the real owners of the domain can have an address @domain_name.com. Tipically, although there is a link to a real web site, the contact e-mail addresses are not @this_website but are generic e-mail addresses (see point 3)

5) Fake web sites: sometimes a website is mentioned/linked to, that was set up in a hurry a few hours before, just to give a credibility to the scam. Always check the date of creation of linked web sites. If the domain was acquired just a few hours or days before you got the e-mail, it is a scam, no need to look further. You can check the domain registration information in any whois site, for example http://www.whois.net/

6) Congratulations, you job application was accepted!! DID YOU APPLY FOR THE JOB???? DID YOU SPECIFICALLY APPLY FOR THIS PARTICULAR JOB YOU ARE OFFERED? if not, it is a scam, no need to look further

7) In regular job offers, you are NEVER asked to pay significant fees in advance for visas, legal assistance to prepare documentation, shipping fees, consulting fees etc etc. If you are asked to pay anything upfront, it is a scam, no need to look further

8) I received this lottery letter/job offer. Is it true? What should I do? The answer to this is simple: learn to spot scams on the fly (by enlarge, ALL these messages are scams) and just ignore them. Do not reply, NEVER send money or personal details. Consider this as background spam, filter it out or your mailbox. Ignore it.

Or maybe, if you want to help, post it on some online forum to help other people to recognise the messages for what they are.

9) Any single one of these criteria is enough to spot a scam. And scam letters often have several of these "markers".

10) If it is too good to be true, it is a scam, no need to look further