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Methinks I'm getting scammed...

Starwhip

By Starwhip
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Starwhip

Starwhip

Posted
Posted

So I got this email a while ago:

Excuse Me Tristan [NAME REDACTED],

I have been in search of someone with this last name"[NAME REDACTED] so when I saw your name I was pushed to contact you and see how best we can assist each other. I am Mrs Stella Kwale, a Banker here in GHANA. I believe it is the wish of God for me to come across you now. I am having an important business discussion I wish to share with you which I believe will interest you because, it is in connection with your last name and you are going to benefit from it.

One Late Dr Dean [NAME REDACTED] citizen of your country had a fixed deposit with my bank in January 2006 for 36 calendar months, valued at US$5,500,000.00 (Five Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) the due date for this deposit contract was the 16th of January 2009. Sadly Dr Dean was among the death victims in the May 26 2006 Earthquake disaster in Jawa, Indonesia that killed over 5,000 people. He was in Indonesia on a business trip and that was how he met his end. My bank management is yet to know about his death, I knew about it because he was my friend and I am his account officer. Dr Dean did not mention any Next of Kin/ Heir when the account was opened, and he Dr Dean was not married and no children. Last week my Bank Management requested that I should give instructions on what to do about his funds, if to renew the contract. I know this will happen and that is why I have been looking for a means to handle the situation, because if my Bank Directors happens to know that Dr Dean is dead and do not have any Heir, they will take the funds for their personal use, so I don't want such to happen. That was why when I saw your last name I was happy and I am now seeking your co-operation to present you as Next of Kin/ Heir to the account, since you have the same last name with him and my bank head quarters will release the account to you.

There is no risk involved; the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you and I from any breach of law. It is better that we claim the money, than allowing the Bank Directors to take it, they are rich already. I am not a greedy person,so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties,my share will assist me to start my own company which has been my dream.

Let me know your mind on this I have more to write you about the details once I receive your urgent response through my personal Email address Please let this Secret remain between the both of us only.

Have a nice day and God bless.

Anticipating your communication

Mrs Stella Kwale.

And I immediately thought, "Yep, scam" when it was called a "Secret", as well as various grammar nuances.

Then I found this:

Hello [NAME REDACTED],

I have been in search of someone with this name [NAME REDACTED] and It is my pleasure to seek for your business assistance, and I want you to consider it very important. This is an opportunity I would want us to utilize well. I am Mr. GODWIN CHRIS, an officer in charge of Auditing and Accounting section with (International Commercial Bank Ghana, LTD), and also a Relationship Account Officer to Dr CLIFF [NAME REDACTED],

One Late Dr CLIFF [NAME REDACTED],a citizen of your country had a fixed deposit with my bank in 2005 for 48 calendar months, valued at US$18,400,000.00 (Eighteen Million, Four Hundred Thousand US Dollars) the due date for this deposit contract was this 16 of January 2009. Sadly CLIFF was among the death victims in the May 26 2006 Earthquake disaster in Java, Indonesia that killed over 5,000 people. He was in Indonesia on a business trip and that was how he met his end, I have carried out various inquiries to locate any of his client and extended relatives but this has proved unsuccessful.Since the demise of this our customer,Dr CLIFF who was an seasoned oil Merchant/contractor here. I have kept a close watch of the deposit records and accounts and since then no body has come to claim the said money in this a/c as next of kin to the late Dr CLIFF [NAME REDACTED].

I hereby write in regards to this effect to have you stand as the rightful beneficiary to Late Dr. CLIFF so that the funds will be claim and transferred into your foreign account before my Bank declare the total fund unserviceable or confiscated. Please you will be entitled to a percentage that will be discussed later with you and there is no risk involved, the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law.

I immensely request for your optimum honesty and cooperation and Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET. We shall go over the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal email address,( [email protected] ) We can as well discuss this on phone; let me know when you will be available to speak with me on Skype. Have a nice day and God bless.

Anticipating your communication.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Godwin Chris.

All names are in caps here... :/

AND this:

I have just received an email from this person asking me to contact her privately as she says she has "something important to disclose to me".

If this isn't a scam, I don't know what is

With the title "Stella Kwale"... ;)

Yeah. Now I'm 100% sure it's a scam.

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Norpo

Norpo

Posted
Posted

<sarcasm>But it's totally legit! Don't you know that if someone wants your credit card number it can ONLY be legit?</sarcasm>

Now, I wonder what happens if you contact "them".

My guess: crap e-mail list, targeting you as gullible, not that you are, of course. :D

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Starwhip

Starwhip

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

I'm going to respond, just for the hell of it. :D

I don't have a credit card, so....

EDIT:

Here's what I sent:

Hello, ScamBot!

I'm sure you would like to cooperate with me, but my credit card number, frankly, does not exist, because I do not have one. :)

Too bad, so sad.

If it responds thinking I just accepted the offer I'm going to die of laughter.

Edited by Starwhip
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Norpo

Norpo

Posted
Posted (edited)
If it responds thinking I just accepted the offer I'm going to die of laughter.

Well, think like a scammer. (written from scammers perspective EDIT: Realised this sentence could be misintepreted BADLY. I'm not a scammer. Just this being written as a "Here's how my scam works" perspective)

First, you send a bunch of bulk e-mails to send, these don't have to be high quality, you'll hit SOMEONE who will trust you. If you can send 1000 e-mails, statistics suggest ONE person will believe you.

Next, when they respond, start replying manually. You have perhaps limited information about them now, and you can devote the time to talking to this one person. You can hand-craft a reply that seems legitimate, you don't want to lose them now, you have the fish, now yank them in. This of course assumes they haven't sent you any personal information yet. Just an "Oh gee, how do I sign up" reply.

(If the scammer's lucky? They might just send you their credit card number off the bat. No need to reply at all, you have the credit card, now never talk to them again.)

Through this? I imagine you (starwhip) won't get a reply at all, you called their bluff, it's not worth the time to send a reply.

Scamming: It's not rocket science. Just probability on your side. (I haven't done this, obviously, but scams seem to follow this pattern. I honestly doubt this technique would work, but hey, that's how i've always imagined it.)

Edited by Norpo
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Starwhip

Starwhip

Posted
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Posted

Yeah, probably.

I wonder if I should have played along... :)

Still, the automated system is evidently targeting forums and the like. I got it off of another forum (A message asking me to contact them) and it did the same for the for this one (posted above): http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/forum/topics/stella-kwale?id=2036495%3ATopic%3A4373074&page=1#comments

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StrandedonEarth

StrandedonEarth

Posted
Posted

Another popular one is the 'Grandma/Grandpa scam', where someone phones and says "Hi Grandma/Grandpa, it's me!", and then waits for the answering person to guess a name. Of course, the scammer then runs with that name, saying they're in trouble, please send money.... It relies on the grandparents having infrequent contact with the the grown grandkids.

My mother, who was sleeping when the phone rang, actually got hooked with one such call, but, unbeknownst to the scammer ("I went out and got busted for drunk driving and i'm in jail please send money to bail me out"), my mother lives downstairs from us and her then-16 (and uninterested in driving) granddaughter. The response the scammer got was "No, I'll come get you" and a flurry of phone calls then followed, to my wife's work, my work, and my daughter's school. I can imagine the puzzled look on the face of my daughter's teacher (and the 'what'd i do?' look on my daughter's face) as the teacher is on the phone saying "No, she's right here in front of me..."

My response when I got the call at work was instant: (Admiral Ackbar voice:) "It's a scam!!!!" My daughter was teased about being a jailbird for awhile after that.

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technicalfool

technicalfool

Posted
Posted

And if anybody ever gets anything like this via forum PM, don't reply, don't even bother starting a thread about it.

Hit dat report button. We get spambots/scambots on a regular basis, and we'll happily drop the hammer on them. You know of which hammer I speak:

kwkBiIO.png

(Actually, there are other, even worse options especially for spammers, but everyone recognises this one at least.)

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Voidryder

Voidryder

Posted
Posted

I use to get these back in the day. I actually did "play along" with a few of them. If you do it right you actually can string them along making them waste their time for a while without jeopardizing your security.

My two favorites I've gotten:

1) The foreign banker saying that someone with my last name had died in a plane crash with their entire family leaving beaucoup money. He was unable to locate any next of kin and so since my last name matched for a small fee I could keep the money out of a corrupt government's hand.

My response was "Oh my god! My brother is dead! And my nieces and nephews! Please, please please send the money now so I can travel to your country and claim their remains. My family is heartbroken! What airline was it?! We're going to sue! I'm contacting the FBI right now so they know of your good deed! And send me your name so I can add you to the lawsuit. Of course there will be a small fee to help retain the lawyers. You can wire that to me immediately."

2) The foreign General whose supply deal fell through but needed to spend the money for budget reasons. This one was very creative I thought as it didn't go the regular routine of unclaimed lottery winnings or death with no next of kin.

My response was to pen a very business-like email from the weapons supplier thanking the General for contacting us as we had been unable to reach anyone since our previous contact, General so and so's sudden demise. I went on to say that we did note a substantial difference between the agreed upon price and what this General had in his budget to pay us. I reminded this General that as our previous Collection Team had informed the now dead General the amount was not open to negotiation and that a new Collection Team was in route to his location now. We expected full payment of the agreed to amount.

Now if any of these scams make it through my filters, etc I just delete them as the risk of viruses has grown too great in my opinion.

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Starwhip

Starwhip

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Posted
(Actually, there are other, even worse options especially for spammers, but everyone recognises this one at least.)
Think a windshield wiper. With spikes. Made of diamond. That is on fire. That is travelling at Earth Escape Velocity.

*whimpers*

What, though?

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Norpo

Norpo

Posted
Posted (edited)
*whimpers*

What, though?

I think I know.

It's called a hellban. Basically, to the punished, everything seems normal.

Except nobody can see their posts, PMs, or anything. They think they're still on the website, but it seems like everyone is ignoring them (when really they're invisible)\

Anyone smart could realize somethings up when nobody replys to them, or responds to their PMs, which is why it's typically reserved for spammers/spambots. Spammers, and the utterly stupid.

EDIT: A more comedic variant, in the times of usenet was plonking.

edit2: also mods if you want to remove this post because it ruined your grand plan feel free to do so.

EDIT3: There's also an interesting blog article about it, regarding stackoverflow, some other inegenious types of banning: http://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/

EDIT4: It's becoming increasingly obvious to me sysadmins are not satisfied with traditional bans as I do my research. They demand blood (okay not literally), and a price must be paid (again not literally). Thus, the drupal "misery" module was born. https://www.drupal.org/project/misery and there was also a vbulletin version (in fact, the drupal version was inspired by it), no idea if it still works. http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=165961 (4.2 vers http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=231106)

Edited by Norpo
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EdFred

EdFred

Posted
Posted

Since they never know who they are really sending email to, I will sometimes respond from an email account I don't care about, and just take up their time. If it is from a 'female' and she mentions God in the email, I usually go into a "I've been praying for someone to find me" diatribe about God finally sending me a bride. Depends on my mood. I've been everything from a multi millionaire philanthropist, to a terminally person who is looking to is looking to leave their money to someone. Sometimes I act suicidal if they don't respond the way I hope they do. Depending how much bait they take depends how far I go with it. I just keep them busy.

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Norpo

Norpo

Posted
Posted
I've been everything from a multi millionaire philanthropist, to a terminally person who is looking to is looking to leave their money to someone.

This is one of those quotes that could be hilarious/terrible if taken out of context. :D

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Colserra3

Colserra3

Posted
Posted

I haven't yet encountered an e-mail scammer, but in my country phone scamming is quite big, and so I've had experiences with them. I play along for a while, lure them into a sense of confidence, and then, depending on who can hear me, I'll scream so profanity into the phone and shout every word I say, or, if I have guests over, I'll either threaten them like Liam Neeson, or I'll act like they're a crime syndicate who've tracked me down.

Phone scams, in my opinion, are worse than e-mail, because e-mail you can reply when you have spare time, but when the phone rings in the middle of a conversation and you answer it just to find out it's a scam, it can be infuriating. So, the scam may not be successful, but they might have still succeeded in pis- er, annoying you.

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