I’m putting this in the Pit as I anticipate some harsh language in the replies.
Over the last week or so, I’ve gotten four or five e-mails informing me that I’ve won sums of money ranging from five hundred thousand to two and a half million dollars. Now, I’d just love to believe that lightening struck five times in one week and I’m suddenly worth more than four million beans, but I don’t believe in Santa Claus and I don’t do drugs any more. If you’ve got two active brain cells to rub together, you know these guys are phishing, especially since the e-mails all seem to originate from foreign countries and they all want personal information before they’ll “confirm” my winnings.
Now, we’re all pretty sharp cookies around here, and I doubt that any SDMBer’s will fall for this scam. But you might want to spread the word amongst your friends and acquaintances in the hope that you’ll protect some poor soul from getting his bank account looted and/or his identity stolen.
Wish I’d saved those e-mails so I could report this shit to Snopes.com.
If I wanted to get these guys, what should I do the next time I get one of these things?
Forward it to your e-mail service provider, following their instructions as far as headers are concerned. I think there is a Government site you can also send such “spam” to, but I don’t know it’s address. Report it to both your e-mail provider, who may also report it to the authoritie at the very least, and also the “anti-spam” office set up by the government. I’m not sure if you can report such scams to the Better Business Beureau (sp?) or not.
I won five times in the last week alone, eventually I sent an email back telling them I must be the luckiest man alive. I also told them I was not a material boy but I did forward 8 e-mails from African businessmen who had very interesting ideas on how to make tens of millions of dollars.
Actually, just a few weeks ago, a man was found to have been stealing money from his company here in Iceland. The culprit is going to jail, but he’s not going to enjoy his ill-gotten cash: He lost it all to a Nigerian scammer. It’s a funny old world…
I’ve been getting the lotter advance fee scam mails for ages; the opening story is different, but under the covers, it’s exactly the same animal as the Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud; “You can have a lot of money if you first pay these fees…”
What really irritates me, from what I’ve read of these scams, are the ultra-lame excuses they provide to “explain” why they can’t just deduct your fees from your “winnings”… and that people actually believe said excuses.
(Or would those dumb enough to fall for this not even ask about this point in the first place? Then again, even Dilbert’s PHB has had his rare flashes of intelligence…)
Recently, a Harvard Medical School instructor and researcher was found to have taken money that colleagues gave him for research on SARS…and losing it to a Nigerian scammer.
AFAIK, MSN or CNN reported it to be a Chinese cancer researcher who was working at Harvard. He had been bilking friends and family out of money for donations for a supposed charitable organization for children’s cancer research. He raised something like $600K and lost it to the scammers AND got arrested for fraud.
This is a site that has contributors posting saved e-mail corespondence from these “people” The archives have some people that have been sucked in and told their tale.
Basically, the ones onto the scam set up fake addresses or troll for solicitations. It’s gone far beyond Nigeria. Some countries now include Cote de Ivore (no accents avail) South Africa, Belgium, Netherlands, Iraq…(that should tell you right there)
Great fun, if you like seeing how far these shithead’s will go for a buck from a cyber-cafe. And what they will beleive? Hell, tell them anything as long as you respond. That’s all they look for.