Yesterday, I sent a scammer my banking information. Right now, he’s in my bank to put the money in my account. On Memorial Day.
I told him to ask for Shelli as she’s a good friend.
Now he wants my ID to confirm the bank name.
Me: My ID doesn’t have the bank name on it.
(He really means the name I have on the account)
Give me the name
What name?
Peter Mosse
Your bank account name
You have my banking info and you can see the account number. Why do you think my account has a name?
Peter Mosse
We need your own name
Please be fast about this because I’m in the bank right now to get this done today
You have my name.
Peter Mosse
Peter Mosse right
Yes.
Peter Mosse
I’m in the back right now
Why are you in the back? The tellers are out front.
Peter Mosse
We are talking about $10.5 million dollars Mr Pater Mosse
Is it in cash or a check?
Peter Mosse
I told you that it’s ATM master card of $10.5 millions dollars and I will Withdraw and put it in your bank account
Then why are you in the back of the bank? The machines are out front.
Peter Mosse
Front of bank
(I think he might have meant this as a question. he’s not big on punctuation.
You’re going to withdraw the entire amount in cash?
Peter Mosse
In March my wife and I went to our local annual Home and Garden Show. While I ducked into the bathroom she went ahead a litlle bit and filled out a form to win a fire safety kit. A week or two later, I got a call saying we won! My scamdar started beeping. Of course they wanted to drop it off and of course we both had to be there. Scamdar was shouting “Danger! Danger Will Robinson!” Guy shows up and stays for an hour and a half. First thing I asked was what are you selling and how much is it? He said it was a fire safety review but admitted there was a product that they would offer to sell us. He went on and on… looked at our alarms and OMG they’re ionization models! OK, photoelectric is better for some fires than ionization and vice versa for other fires- you should have both and I can get 6 dual sensor alarms from Home Depot for under $120. This was followed by showing us videos of news stories showing people bemoaning the fact that their smoke detectors failed to go off. This was coupled with leading questions like “would you rather have a system that works all of the time or some of the time?” FINALLY cuts to the chase- wants to sell us a package of smoke alarms and water sensors. Their packages ran from $2000 to $7000. I said I’d do some research and we’d call them if we wanted it. Turns out this company is on its third name, I’m guessing as soon as word gets around about them, they simply change the corporate name and go back to selling overpriced equipment. Oh, and they’re an MLM, as if that was a shock. And- I could find no independent testing and reviews of their alarms. So I never called them back and they never called us back.
Bottom line- if you go to a home show and there’s a booth offering a chance to win fire safety equipment (it was just some bandages and creams), DON’T enter the “contest”. You WILL win. EVERYBODY does. Spare yourself an evening of your time and someone trying to get his hands in your pocket.
I wouldn’t have let him in.
“Hand over my winnings and go away.”
This. Around here we have lots of booths at county fairs and home improvement shows and boat shows and the like, all with various types of “sign up and win” a grill or windows or car mats or something. So when I got to the safe-computer habits section in the Intro to Computers class I taught, I always devoted a significant amount of time to non-computer scams. We would have a discussion about what its worth to sell your name and phone number to a marketer: $10? $20. More? My recommendation was to just not do it at all.
You just reminded me of a pre-pre-internet ('68-'70) prank. There was a girl who had a crush on a friend of mine, who was not interested, which didn’t deter her.
So we went to every boat show, RV-a-rama, county fair, new car premieres, 4H shows, and hit as many booths as we could find, and entered every contest with her name and address.
When they’d ask “So, son, you say your name is Wendy?” my friend would stand up straightand look them in the eye: “Yes, sir, and I’ve learned to live with it.”
.
ps: So sorry, Wendy. Hope you’re done getting junk mail.
And if you are getting married and go to David’s Bridal, you may be entered into a contest for a free facial or other “pampering treatment”.
Every person that enters will win. The actual prize is a Mary Kay sales pitch which includes a self-administered facial.
Although it can be amusing when these ladies unironically talk about “facialing” their customers.
And I’ve just sent a sixth fake payment(electronic bank draft).
I sent him this email.
I’ve sent this to your bank. It’s a bank draft-guaranteed.
I included your account info and an explanation of all the difficulties you’ve had in receiving the payment and asked that this be expedited.
Different scammer, same story. Typical “pass you off as the relative of a dead person”. Tried something different. When I tried to send the fees to Nigeria, my bank flagged the transaction for review.
Panic from the scammer, I just sent this.
I’m back. I had a meeting with Mr. George Bailey, the General Manager of the Loris branch of UCB.
The transaction has been approved. I gave your name as Mr. Onah’s educational advisor and gave Mr. Bailey your email if he needs further clarification. This is the story I told him.
"I hosted Mr. Onah as an exchange student in the school year of 2013-14 at Shasta High School in Redding, Ca. and have stayed in occasional contact since. Mr. Onah is currently employed by Weyland-Yutani in software development. The company is in the process of transitioniing to a new programming language known as JYV. Mr. Onah has been struggling to learn this new language and his supervisor, a Ms. Billingsley, has informed him he has one month to improve his communication skills or he’ll lose his job.
Not having the needed funds for private tutoring, he appealed to me for help."
Peter Mosse
Just found this in my spam folder (email address has been fictionalized):
FROM MR FABIO ANTONIO ////
On 05/31/2023 3:46 PM EDT Google Incorporation® (wggxxxx at gmail dot com) wrote:
Dearest Beloved,
I am Mr Fabio antonio, A Portuguese national,I was browsing and I saw your e-mail, So i decided to write you if your e-mail is real, I have been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live. I am very rich, but was never generous; I have given most of my assets to my immediate family members.
I have decided to give alms to charity organizations. I cannot do this myself anymore because of my health. I once asked members of my family to give some money to charity organizations, they refused and kept the money. I have a huge cash deposit of Eighteen Million dollars with a security firm in America. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatch it to charity organizations. You will take out 20% of these funds for your assistance.
I will like you to acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail as soon as possible and treats with absolute confidentiality and
sincerity.
Mr Fabio antonio
The reply-to is one “Mrs Sandres Gingers”.
She has a sister-Rogeres.
And a seventh. (fake online service)Steam cards.
One I totally forgot about. He’s been waiting ( a week and a half) for my lawyer to review a contract.
He’s been on vacation to the North Pole. He’ll be released once we pay the polar bears.
Eighth. Picture of two scratched-off iTunes cards I got online.
An interesting variant on calling the bank back: I once needed to call our credit card company for something-or-other - and apparently misdialed. So if the number was 1-800-555-1234, I dialed 1-800-555-1244", or something like that.
Got a recording saying it was such-and-such bank… but the rest of the prompts did not sound quite right, so I hung up and redialed.
Basically they were cybersquatting with a phone number!
I assume that it would have proceeded with me being asked for my account number, and possible to “verify your Social Security number”, followed by “I’m sorry, our systems are down right now, I can’t look at your transaction history right now”. And at that point, I’d ultimately be a world of hurt.
They are clearly putting a bit more effort into their scams than the average “throw it to the wind and see who bites” scammers. That sort of information is apparently available via various services; 9 years ago when we were dealing with Shitibank for a mortgage, they came up with all sorts of addresses / phone numbers that did not match what we’d put on our application, and I had to explain each one. One was a place we lived in briefly for 4 months in 1988. Another was an office building / phone I’d used 15 years earlier. Another was a company I’d never worked for - but the previous owner of our house had, apparently (per mail we received for years after he moved).
Anyway, that kind of thing suggests that more savvy scammers are trying that much harder to get even those of us know know better!
All the payments you sent recipients are fake.i don’t not receive any of it to dispatch your funds. it seem like you don’t want your funds.let me know
If those were truly fake, a smart person (or even a barely intelligent person) would have quit and moved on. You, on the other hand, are simply taking my payments and claiming to have never received them in the hopes that I’ll keep paying. The gravy train ends here.
Peter Mosse
It’s hilarious to sprinkle in American pop culture references into these emails that these twits will be completely oblivious to.
I hope you caught the other three.
Weyland-Yutani Aliens
Ms. Billingsley, JYV Airplane!
improve communication skills The Fifth Element
I don’t expect this one to go anywhere but you never know.
Hello how are you doing hope you are fine my late father left some money for me in the security company the amount of the money is 50 million dollar I need somebody that will help me to invest the money in his country so that I can start a new life there so please I’m waiting for your reply is urgent
timmy joe
With that kind of money, you could buy the best help in the world. You don’t need to be looking for random people on the internet.
Please send me $500,000 USD for this advice.
(followed by all my fake bank info including PINs and passwords)
After a good long break the “We’re going to tell all your contacts about your naught behavior.” emails have started up again. No mention of names, emails, videos watched, etc. Sure, right, you’ve taken over my computer and recorded everything except the stuff that would prove you’ve got me. Sure.
For some reason, some Brazilian folks think I have accounts with various Brazilian banks and really want me to click on their surely-completely-innocent links. Since I don’t speak Portuguese (and only figured out what was going on via Google translate), they are barking up the wrong tree.