I’m trying to figure out the deal with the latest emails I’ve been getting. Up to 10 a day of these wonderful people telling me the latest “hot stock pick”. Some $1 stock projected to go up to $3 or so.
The subject lines are always some reply, or unrelated to the email content, and there is some text about the cool stock.
What is the scam here? Trying to get people to buy a stock just to inflate the price?
The USPS is currently rolling out an online system where you’ll be able to verify whether or not the postal money order is legit within seconds. Hopefully this will cut down on some of the fraud with them.
All the fake one that I’ve seen were VERY VERY good, I’m a bank manager and I had difficulty telling a real one from a counterfeit one. So be careful out there.
the scammers have probably sent out thousands of these emails, with “predictions” about lots of random shares. The law of averages says they will get some right, so when they do they will contact the people who got the right advice, and invite them to sign up for a subscription to their share tipping service.
I recently got this one:
Attention: Customer AFRSA680
Ref: EAAL/851OYHI/05
Batch No. Lotto 6/49
WINNING NOTIFICATION
The Canadian Government sponsors this lottery for the promotion of
the 2010 Soccer World cup to be hosted in South Africa.
We happily announce to you the draw of the Euro-Afro-American
Sweepstake Lottery International Programs held on the Wednesday 2nd
July 2005 in Essex United Kingdom and Ontario Canada. Your e-mail
address attached to Ticket Number: B9564 75604545 100, with Serial
Number 46563760 drew the winning numbers 2/7/22/27/45/48 with a
bonus Number 42, for LOTTO 6/49 under the choice of the lottery
in the 2nd category of daily three.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of
US$820,000.00 (Eight Hundred and Twenty Thousand United States
Dollars) in cash credited to file EAAL/9080118308/05.
This is from a total cash prize of US $11,100,000.00 Million
dollars, shared amongst the first One Hundred and-thirty (130)
lucky winners in this category Worldwide.
Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our Afro
booklet representative office in Africa as indicated in your play
coupon, because this particular draw was selected to promote the
2010 World Cup to be hosted in South Africa hence your winning
information must be kept to enable you participate in our
subsequent draws which will see 500 participants traveling on an
all expense paid trip to South Africa for the Soccer World Cup
2010.
In view of this, your US$820,000.00 (Eight Hundred and Twenty
Thousand United States Dollars) would be released to you by an
accredited commercial Bank in
South Africa. Our African agent will immediately commence the
process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you
contact our African Agent’s office.
All participants were selected randomly from World Wide
Web site through computer draws system and extracted from over
10,000,00 companies and personal e-mails. For security reasons, you
are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your
claims is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever
manner you deem fit to claim your prize.
This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming
and unwarranted abuse of this program by unscrupulous elements.
Please be warned!
To file for your claim, please contact our corresponding Agent in
Nigeria immediately you read this message for quick and urgent
release of your fund, contact information is as follow: email:
OK, this is where you screwed up. Now that we have all your information, any of us could claim your prize.
Let’s see, what was that contact information again . . . ?
Just for completeness, I should mention that 419eater.com hosts one of the largest scambaiting forums, though they emphasize email scams.
A rundown of various internet scam categories is avaiable here. These include your typical 419 scam (Advance Fee Fraud), as well as sweetheart scams, fake bank modalities, ebay/auction scams, general spammers and spyware providers.
Those who wish to drain the bandwidth of various fake financial institutions can check out the lad vampire on this page.
Some of the scambaiter tales are awfully damn funny, but I have to wonder if the baiters aren’t technically guilty of scams in some cases as well. This guy actually managed to get some hard cash from the scammer, and also stuck him with thousands of dollars in import taxes and shipping fees for “Anus Computers” which were actually a bunch of junk. If you rob a thief, he may well deserve it but you become a thief as well.
I got a phishing scam, but thanks to the international community of SDMB, hawthorne got a free bottle of wine out of it.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned romance scammers. They just started hitting my match.com account a few months ago, and I get scam e-mail through Match about once every other day now.
In one scam, the “women” claim to be fashion buyers or models who are now working in Nigeria, who really want to meet you, but can’t get out of the country unless they bribe some customs official or replace their stolen airline ticket, and could you pretty please lend them a few thousand dollars so they can get home and meet you?
This was a strange one.
The Russian brides are alsonow out in full force.
I also get a lot of generic form letters from women who live in the US but are far from me, all in poor English, most with erratic punctuation, all asking me to write to them at some yahoo.com address. I have no idea what’s up with these, but they scream “scam” to me.
Reporting them to Match doesn’t help much; they send a form letter back to you, and about half of the time the scammer’s profile isn’t removed.
I get those all the time on MySpace! Random hot women claiming to be in my area asking me to e-mail them for more pictures of them. Their sites are always brand new, like made that day, they have no friends, and there’s also just one picture of them. Weird.
Sometimes they are called sweetheart scams.
okay, I’ll bite.
What happens in a sweetheart scam? You arrange to meet her on a date and it’s a big guy named Bruno with brass knuckles? Said “gal” asks you to buy her random shit, train ticket, etc. and she never shows?
Has anyone in the history of time ever fallen for this? I am well aware of our collective shortcomings as a species, but I would love to meet someone who went the whole hog with this. The scambaiter stuff isn’t as funny as people who fall for the most inane scams. I’m sure if you’re into the mail-order bride thing, there are resources available to help one figure out the reputable (?) sources…
Apparently, it’s almost impossible to sell a mobile phone or laptop on ebay.co.uk now as a Buy It Now auction, because of Nigerian scammers; it’s also getting harder to find non-scam listings for certain types of item, again, including laptops and mobile phones and also iPods .
‘Sweethearting’, in my experience, refers to retail staff allowing their friends to steal from the store, by putting items through the till at a low price, or just putting them in the bag without charging. Not sure if that’s what Measure for Measure is referring to; sounds like it isn’t.
Actually, didn’t we have someone on the boards here talking about an online contact claiming to be a rich law enforcement officer and offering to pay off mortgages, give away sports cars etc…? Anyone got the link?
In the old days, they were called lonely hearts scam. Here are 2 variants:
- Male victim: Through the personals section of the newspaper (in another city), obtain address of mark. Send letter. Send signed photos of the young attractive one. Obtain gifts. Somehow a face to face doesn’t happen. Then, tragidy: an accident occurs or somebody in the family falls ill: oddly enough, a little money will cover things. Finally, there comes the Dear John letter.
If the guy is persistent at this point he might finally make the trip, at which point he meets (say) one Susanna Mildred Hill, a middle aged woman who graciously introduces herself as the mother of the woman who had just run off with a salesman. She’s very sympathetic and is willing to talk things over. Say, John, you wouldn’t happen to have any money would you?
Mrs. Hill swindled hundreds of men this way.
- Female Victim: Prince Charming is airplane pilot and rather dashing fellow. After a whirlwind romance the wealthy mark of a certain age agrees to marry. This gives access to funds. Prince Charming turns into a toad and finally leaves town with cash.
Often the victims are too embarrassed to contact the authorities.
And now the internet
Using online personal ads, strike up an international relationship. Exchange gifts, remember birthdays. Then, accident strikes…
Sweetheart scams by far do the most damage, as they tend to prey on those in a vulnerable state to begin with.
Incidentally, a lot of these scams don’t work because the con artist is clever. They work because the scammer pushes certain emotional buttons ($145,000,000 can be yours or I love you more than anything in the world), so that the mark sets aside his or her better judgment. It’s not so much a clever trick as a jamming of our perceptions.