It must be my lucky day: I've won 800,000 euros from Omega Lottery International. Which is surprising, as I've never heard of them.

If you happen to "work" for Omega Lottery International (and by that I mean you're one of the idiot spammers who hopes I'll send you thousands of dollars in fees to try to get my fictional winnings), I have a few suggestions for you.

1. It's hard to believe that you're a reputable outfit if I have to keep news of my windfall quiet because of "mix up of some numbers and names." Make up some sort of security requirement or media blackout, something.

1a. I know you're coming to us from the Netherlands (or at least you're purporting to), but you could brush up the English a bit. I suppose you think it gives you more credibility, but if you were handling large sums of cash you could probably afford better translators.

2. Mix up the names a bit. There's at least one other scam using the last name of Jansen, according to the Snopes page on lottery scams.

2a. The same goes for the body of the email, which uses word-for-word language from at least a couple of other lottery scams. I know you're trying to get money for nothing, but how's about just a little effort?

3. You could at least use some of your scam money to get a more realistic domain for your email. The idea that a lottery would have to use email.com is a little odd. It'd be like the Powerball folks using AOL.

4. While I apparently won this money in a drawing held today, I have to claim the money by June 30, 2003. Unless I've also won a time machine, that's going to be difficult.

I suppose it's a nice break from the Nigerian scam (which I now get from several other west African nations). It does almost make me wistful for Make Money Fast. But not quite.