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GREENSBORO - Boy, is this your lucky day.

"We happily announce that you draw (#1004) of the IRISH LOTTERY online Sweepstakes International held on 1st of June 2008. It is now available for claims and you are getting the final NOTIFICATION as regards to this."

Your prize? - "1,000,000 (one million pounds)"

To claim your glorious prize, contact "Frank Cole, i.e. agent.cole@mail.org."

Do it, and "MRS. MIHAI ANDREI" and her associates have you hook, line and sinker.

It's an e-mail scam, one of millions that fill up e-mail inboxes across the country every day. And a paper version of the scam winds up in the hands of untold residents, often targeting the elderly.

Then, there are those nagging calls from someone claiming to be from your bank, who needs your account information or Social Security number.

And sweet Johnny who just knocked on your door trying to sell a yearlong subscription to Glamour magazine to pay for his school trip to Europe?

Hate to break it to you, but most likely Johnny isn't quite so sweet.

Greensboro police and other law enforcement agencies get reports of con artists preying on unsuspecting people every day.

From fake lottery winnings, work-from-home job opportunities, magazine sales, deep discounts on home improvement work and everything in between, scammers show up in many forms.

And all too often, residents become victims and fall into their web of lies - sometimes losing tens of thousands of dollars by wiring money into unfamiliar bank accounts - trying to claim a prize.

"The funny thing is that (scams) occur everywhere," said Sgt. V.W. Craven of the Greensboro Police Department's fraud investigation unit.

"A lot of these scams, there's horrible spelling, the words don't look alike, bank names are misspelled and font sizes are different," she said. "We tell people to use common sense (when receiving unsolicited mailings or phone calls)."

The lottery scam, which promises millions for the low price of an overseas wire transaction of a few thousand dollars to cover taxes and various other fees, is increasing in popularity, Detective S.L. McGuire said.

Earlier this year, one unsuspecting Greensboro woman lost $80,000 from her savings account to a scam that started with a phone call to her residence one evening.

"She went to the bank and deposited a check they had sent her," McGuire said. "She drew (the so-called tax) money (from her bank account) and sent it off to Jamaica."

Turns out the check they sent was a fraud meant to gain her trust, and the scammers kept needing more money to get her $1 million prize out of the country.

"Once they had her number, they kept having her send money for whatever reason they could come up with," McGuire said. "They even said they were the Jamaican police and said they needed money to help her get her money back. They know when they have a hold of someone."

By the time the woman reported the scam to police, it was too late.

Her money was long gone in another country, and local law enforcement in the United States has no jurisdiction to track it down.

"She depleted her savings on this," McGuire said. "She didn't need a million dollars. She wanted it for her church. She said, 'Do you know how many meals we could buy with that money?"

"People need to think about it for a second - you have to play to win a lottery," he said.

Another popular scam involves teenagers going door-to-door selling fake magazine subscriptions, which has been reported on multiple occasions in both Rockingham and Guilford counties over the past month.

They gladly will take your check, but the magazines never come.

Sonya Lowe, a Neighborhood Watch coordinator for the Fisher Park neighborhood, approached one teen trying to take advantage of a neighbor last week.

"He said he was a student at a technical college in Georgia and gave this long spiel about how he was trying to improve himself before even getting around to talking about selling magazines," Lowe said.

Lowe said the teen, who had a tattoo along the side of his neck, told her "the boss" had dropped him and about 14 teens off in neighborhoods across Greensboro.

The teenager didn't have a solicitation permit, which is required for door-to-door sales in the city.

"We get people wanting handouts (in this area) all the time, (but) I suggested it would be for the best if he left our neighborhood," Lowe said.

To keep from becoming a victim, police say the best advice is to use a little bit of common sense.

If you still aren't sure, give the police a call and they will gladly offer their advice.

"Like the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," McGuire said.

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com