A website dedicated to recording known scam emails. It appears as though “Marie” has struck before. Needless to say, 3 days later, this email arrives from Marie, from her “private” address.
Not a problem, Marie, who seems to all of a sudden know my first name. Not surprising, as it would have appeared in the email I sent to her.
Interesting that Marie comments that I have given her “to a large extent, the most desired confidence in your person. I have no doubt in your ability to work things out with me to achieve success”, considering the brief email that prompted this comment.
So again I respond, this time asking for more details, as well as asking how she got my email. I also informed her that I have a valid passport, and am willing to travel anywhere. For $30 million, who wouldn’t? I get this in reply:
As a result, I send back a bogus name, bogus address, and a bogus phone number prefixed with the Australian calling code (61) but when rung, will give you a dead line. Marie’s response was as follows:
Hmmm. “The game’s up”, I thought. They obviously checked my details and discovered they were bogus, and realised they wouldn’t be swindling any money out of me. So they’ve given me a ‘cut him loose’ email, and that would be the last of it. That was, until, this arrived:
Now this is interesting. A phone number, prefixed with +31. A quick bit of research reveals this is a Dutch number. So, what do I do now? With a phone number, the authorities could perhaps trace any call made to it and catch the crooks responsible for this particular internet swindle. What should I do from here? To date, I have not replied to “Marie’s” last email.
I think you should post the scammer’s email address. I generally use them when signing up for websites and forums so I can be assured that I won’t receive any spam.
Agreed. Your next step should be to call the cops. The Nigerian scam is well-enough known by now that the operators are probably pretty spohisticated in dealing with jokers, so you are simply not equipped to track this down on your own, not to mention the fact that these folks actually kill people.
Mangetout is right on the mark with this advice. Scam artists are not babes in the woods. If this is a Nigerian scam operation, they are not to be messed with. They are masters at the game. Trust me.
What’s this about people being killed with these scams? I must have missed something, because the Nigerian scam thing was all the rage awhile back, and I just figured it as regular internet pop-culture stuff. Why would they get to the point of murder being involved?
I believe that a number of people have simply gone missing (presumed murdered) when the scam got them to the point where they had to fly out to Lagos or Amsterdam to ‘sign the papers’ or some such. I’ll see if I can find a cite.
Of course that doesn’t mean that they would come after you for messing with them on a few emails…
Personally, I think:
a) the law enforcement agencies aren’t going to give a darn about any report you make, especially as no money has actually been lost by you and there are multiple countries and police agencies involved. (by the way, this is backed up by some experience by me; many years ago when the Nigerian thing was heating up, I received several different contacts and turned them to the FBI, who made it clear they couldn’t care less about my receiving one email from some strangers in other countries)
b) you are not in any sort of danger of some Nasty Norweigien flying here to kick your butt. (please) and
Here’s another cite - granted these aren’t Amsterdam cites, but the Nigerian advance fraud letters often invite their victims there as well (see scamorama.com).
