The other day I posted a pretty sorry excuse for a Nigerian email scam letter.
Today I post another example:
Dear Friend,
I am Lloyd Phillips. A solicitor and confidant to the late German property
magnate Andreas Schranner who was on board the ill-fated AF4590 concord
plane crash of 25 July 2000.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm . As the attorney to
Andreas Schranner here in UK, I am aware of the amount Fourteen Million
United State Dollars ($14, 000,000), proceeds from the sale of properties
here in UK, he deposited with a bank in Europe before his death.
I have decided to pull the fund out before the bank declares it
unserviceable. This has become necessary since my client died some years
back. Moving the money in my name is not possible since he use to be my
client. I hereby solicit for your assistance and consent to present you as
my partner and next of kin to the deceased so that the proceeds of this
account valued at fourteen million, United States Dollars ($14,000,000)
will be transferred into your account. I am ready to concede 40% of the
funds to you as your share. As a lawyer, I will secure all necessary
documents to back up our claim and personally apply to the bank for the
release of the funds into your account. I assure you it will be a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law. I
also need your assurance that you will follow my instructions and be
sincere in all your dealings with me.
As soon as I hear from you, I will give you more information on this
transfer.
Sincerely,
Lloyd Phillips
While this is obviously another twist on the Nigerian email scam, it is a far better, more believe able example.
1. There are no spelling errors in the letter (with the exception of a non capitalized "concorde.")
2. The gentleman alleged to have left $14 million in an account is indeed dead (proof is provided).
3. As an attorney, I wouldn't put it past the guy writing the letter to be a greedy, decietful scumbag (my apologies to all non greedy, forthright and honest attorneys who may be reading this).
4. What better partner in international monetary fraud could there be than me, the Hotdogman!
While I know this is a scam, I at least give the attempted perpetrator an "A for effort."
Does anyone really fall for this BS? Know of anyone who has?
This is More Like it!
Sad Nigerian Email Scam
I received the following email the other day:
Hello Friend,
Attention Sir/Madam
Please don't be surprise to receiving this mail, I was appointed to pay all the foreign contractors that executed contract here in River State Nigeria, after paying all the contractors, this amount of money was remaining in our custody, I decided to contact and present you as one of the contract beneficiaries so that I can transfer some part of the contract entitlement fund into your bank account
What I require is utmost co-operation as this transaction involves a very large sum of money. The money is 12 million but I want to transfer 6 million into a foreign account And return the remaining to Federal Government this is why I have decided to Contact you to see if you will assist in the transaction as I have a very short period Left to conclude with this contract payment proceedings.
Ibrahim abubakar
Special Adviser on Contract and
Fund Entitlement Matters
There are millions of these emails out there claiming to offer me a cut in some illicit scheme to get "my share" of unclaimed money. These types of emails are commonly known as "Nigerian Email Scams" since many of them originate in Nigeria (or so I've read).
This particular one is a little sad. First of all, the perpetrator of the email greets me as his friend, then proceeds to call me "Sir/Madam." If I was such a good friend, you'd think the guy would know my gender.
Second, the guy doesn't even bother to hide the fact that he's from Nigeria. You'd think a smart scammer would try to hide the fact that he's from a country known for email scamming.
Third, I am always amazed that a Hotdogman from Massachusetts is such a frequent beneficiary of goodwill from corrupt bankers, contractors, ex-wives and government officials all over the world. To date I have been offered to be the recipient of ill gotten international funds totalling over 1 billion dollars!
Last, this guy doesn't capitalize his last name. I don't know if this is a Nigerian custom or this guy is just a dumb ass.
*sigh*
Even dumb email scam letters aren't as funny or creative as they used to be!
Beware of a Comcast Scam
The scammers are everywhere. I just got this email from my sister in law:
This just happened to me:
I got a call (no caller ID), the woman said
"I'm Terry from Comcast. Your account is past due and your scheduled to be disconnected on the 15th. This is a courtesy call. Would you like to pay it off, over the phone, with a credit card? That way you won't be disconnected on Monday."
She was kind of pushy about it and kept saying that this was a courtesy call, but If I didn't pay this, my Comcast service was going to be cut off.
Well, I don't handle the Comcast bill, Steve does. So I told her something to that effect and that I'd have him look into it. and thanked her for the notice and hung up.
Now I'm thinking Steve wouldn't let his cable bill get unpaid. So, I called him and let him know he may want to take care of this. As it turns out, that bill is paid, up to date. He even called Comcast to see if anyone had called us and if there was a mix up. No one from there called us.
So..... either Comcast is really messed up (probably, but not this time) or the most likely scenerio.... I didn't give a scam artist my credit card info. WHEW!!!!!
Please be careful who you give your info to. And couples.... "Terry" asked for Steve and then asked if I was his wife.....because I could take care of it.... that doesn't usually happen. Anyway....
Please be careful.
Help me steal $48 Million!
A tremendously profitable opportunity came into my email box today! A gentleman has offered to share $48 million with me! Here's his email:
From: Mr. William Soo
Seoul,South Korea.
I will introduce myself I am Mr.William Soo a Banker working in a bank in south Korea Until now I am the account officer to most of the south Korea government accounts and I have since discovered that most of the account are dormant account with alot of money in the account on further investigation I found out that one particular account belong to the former president of south Korean MR PARK CHUNG HEE,who ruled south Korean from 1963-1979 and this particular account has a deposit of $48m with no next of kin.
My proposal is that since I am the account officer and the money or the account is dormant and there is no next of kin obviously the account owner the former president of South Korea has died long time ago, that you should provide an account for the money to be transferred.
The money that is floating in the bank right now is $48m and this is what I want to transfer to your account for our mutual benefit.
Please if this is okay by you I will advice that you contact me through my direct email address.
Please this transaction should be kept confidential. For your assistance as the account owner we shall share the money on equal basis.
Your reply will be appreciated.
Thank you.
William Soo
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMM:1. Mr. Soo likes run-on sentences. The first paragraph of his letter left me positively breathless!
2. MR. PARK CHUNG HEE (spelled Park Chung-hee) ruled South Korea from 1961-1979 (not 1963-1979 as Mr. Soo states).
3. Mr. Park Chung-hee has a daughter-presumably his next of kin- who is very much alive.
4. Obviously any dormant funds left in a South Korean leader's bank account should be shared with a Hot Dog Man in Massachusetts, so I can see why Mr. Soo contacted me post haste!
5. What bank does Mr. Soo work for anyway?
6. When entering into international bank fraud schemes, I usually like to have a few more details on my co-conspirators than a proxy email address!
I'm not sure who is more stupid, the person who would get sucked into whatever it is Mr. Soo is up to or Mr. Soo himself for actually believing there are people stupid enough to fall for this line of BS!
I Won 500,000 British Pounds!
I recieved this email informing me of my tremendous good fortune: I WON 500,000 British Pounds!
Yahoo/Msn lottery Balley,
Incoperation,
Ihama House, Har Road
Sutton, Greater London
SM1 4te,
United Kingdom.
This is to inform that you have won a prize money of Five hundred
thousand,Great Britain Pound Sterlings(£500,000.00)for the month of
August 2007 Lottery promotion which is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY
INC & WINDOWS LIVE.
These are your identification numbers:
Batch number..........YM 09102XN
Reff number...........YM35447XN
Winning number........YM09788
You are therefore advised to contact the EVENTS AGENT MANAGER for
directives of claims via email address below.
Mr. Dennis Anthony
Email:enquirymicrosoft_claimsdept04@yahoo.co.uk
TELPHONE:+44-70457-32405
Things that make you go HMMMM. A couple of things make me a bit suspicious though. For instance Incorporation and Telephone are misspelled. And they told me I "have won a prize money." And what is a "Reff number?" And since when do folks from Microsoft use Yahoo email? Do you think this is legit?
I'd be willing to bet anyone stupid enough to fall for this doesn't know how to turn on a computer, let alone use email!
Credit Cards Can Make You Rich!
I had a friend who called 0% interest cash advance credit cards "the last great pyramid scam in America." He'd use the cards to get a cash advance, put the cash advance in the bank or in bonds and take out another card to pay that card off. This guy must've had 20 or 30 cards working at one time! John Chow told a similar tale on his blog about how he did a similar scheme. What a country!
There was also the guy (I forget his name) who scammed the airlines out of millions of miles with his credit card. He'd go to AAA and charge tens of thousands of dollars in traveler's checks on his creit card (there is no surcharge on traveler's checks at AAA) which would earn him airline miles. When the bill came in, he'd cash the traveler's checks and pay up. He never paid interest because he paid in full every month and he accrued enough airline miles to travel the world for free with his wife and kids! His scam was so successful, the airlines closed the loophole he exploited.
These guys made credit cards work to their advantage. They obviously had discipline. Too many people get into trouble with their credit cards by spending more than they can afford. This screws up your credit rating. When I was in the mortgage business, we dealt with people with credit problems all the time. The challenge was to help folks with poor credit repair their credit so they could qualify for a home loan. There are many tricks and secrets to credit repair and many of them work, some better than others. There are also a lot of scammers in the credit repair business, so be careful when reviewing these programs.
The best thing to do is not need credit repair services, tricks or secrets at all. Pay your bills, stay within a budget and don't max out the plastic. With good credit you can qualifiy for 0% cash advance cards like my friend and actually make money off the credit card companies. Unfortunately, credit card companies send these offers out knowing 999 out of a thousand people won't be so clever and will end up paying them interest.
Be careful out there. Compare credit card offers here.
