aa the Tom and Cathy Rea Foundation is not registered as a charitable organization in Missouri or Mississippi,a Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood notes.

Hoodas office issued a warning Friday about the scam, which comes in the form of an email or LinkedIn post, similar in form to the ancient-but-stubbornly-persistent Nigerian Letter Scam. Rest assured, if you really won something, the attorneys who would be sending it would know how to get to the point.The letter goes on to state that the whole deal will evaporate if the recipient lets anyone know about it, even going so far as to allege there have been a number of attempted fraudulent claims against the foundation, yet you somehow can avoid all that if you just cooperate and not tell anyone.Several errors appear in the document, such as using the term aPound Sterlings,a when (as every grammarian knows) the proper term is aPounds Sterling.a A Also, abiblea is used, instead of aBible.a The scammers have finally discovered Spellcheck, but it doesnat catch stuff like this.The pitch is tied to something that really happened (in this case, the Reasa Powerball win), giving it an air of legitimacy.Finally, all such scams have some kind of ahook,a in an attempt to reassure you this isnat a scam.