Win a shiny BMW! All we need are your bank details

Sifting through its inbox recently, among all the redundant spam offerings of budget Viagra and penis extensions, the Diary was overjoyed to receive an e-mail exclaiming : "Congratulation you are a winner BMW star prize [sic]."

Apparently, the Diary was the "Star Prize Winner in this years’ [sic] BMW Automobile International Awareness Promotion (IAP) held on February 19, 2007, in London, England", winning "a brand new BMW 5 Series, M Sport Saloon car and a cash prize of £450,000 GBP (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Great British pounds). The car comes with a special BMW Insurance Cover for one whole year." The fact that the Diary wasn’t aware it had entered made it all the more exciting.

All that was required was a few personal details to be sent to Mr Simon White at the BMW claims department of "The BMW Automobile Company, UK" at his official BMW e-mail run, oddly, through Yahoo!.

But the Diary couldn’t wait for an e-mail to go through, so it was on the phone to BMW’s UK offices in Bracknell to find out more about this unexpected prize.

Imagine the disappointment when it was revealed that the whole thing was just a big scam and nothing at all to do with BMW. There is apparently no prize and BMW’s legal team are beavering away to put a stop to the "random" company using the brand to rip people off.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Now what’s this e-mail from a Nigerean bisness man [sic, again] promising to deposit part of his huge inheritance in the Diary’s bank account?