What to do with email that you don't know where it came from?

My parents reciaved a e-mail saying they won a contest sponsered by Vodafone and the FIFA World Cup. Now Vodafone is not a offical sponsor of the FIFA World Cup. My parents would like to know if its real or not and what to do about it.

This question was answered on March 4, 2006. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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The safest thing to do with email that you dont know if it is legit or not is to just delete it Companies don't normally just randomly send out messages to random people You would need to be on a mailing list of some sort in order for that company to include you in a contest or giveaway of any sort.

In this case it possibly is true, as Swisscom the parent company of Vodafone has "has acquired the exclusive Swiss mobile broadcasting rights for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany." , but to be safe I would just go and delete the email and play it safe This one is especially odd due to the fact that they have the rights above in Germany, not here in the US, so there should be no reason for the giveaway to include anyone in the Americas.

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Posted by Darren of Chandler-Gilbert Community College on March 4, 2006

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