Hello David. This is Chun. I found some U.S. software projects. To start project my client wants to send laptop. Can you receive it and turn it on please? So I can work remotely? I can pay some money for this?
What he’s saying doesn’t make much sense. Why would he need me to host a laptop for him to work on remotely? He obviously has his own computer.
But I can’t figure out the scam. It seems unlikely but could this be someone trying to plant connected laptops around the country for nefarious purposes?
Probably the beginning of a longer scam – they send this to thousands of accounts and assume those who respond are more gullible and more likely to accede to further requests, whether for money, gift cards, bank info, etc.
Probably, the next part is something like, “I sent the laptop, but it’s stuck in customs unless someone provides a SSN to prove they’re supposed to pick it up. Can you give me your SSN, so I can tell them you’re authorized to pick up the laptop?”
All of these suggestions make sense. I can’t really play with this scammer since he knows my name. I’ll just report him and reject the contact request.
You could create a brand new throwaway email address with a fake name and reply from that one. The scammer is unlikely to bother attempting to connect up the replies with the addresses they actually spammed.
In case they’re more clever than average, don’t quote any of the original message when you respond from the other address, in case there was tracking steganography embedded in it.
In order for them to work remotely, the laptop will have to be connected to a network - your network.
Now a hacker has a laptop connected to your network.