I finally got me my own, personal African money scam! This morning I got a note on Hotmail that through a gun brokering forum I haven’t visited in years (I prefer cash-to-face arms deals), someone sent me the following message:
[sub]Keeping the spam/gurgle low[/sub]
Why, I don’t know where Epmgigo is, and Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have any entry on the faction at all. But that doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate! He must know me pretty well already, considering he called me his ‘Dear One’.
Wow! $7.5M? And he reserves his respect for me? [sub]Poor bastard doesn’t know me very well, do he?[/sub]
King-ey, y’allready mentioned it was legitimate money, so I believe you! Plus, you asked God to bless me. What could go wrong?
Anyway, I’m thinking I might drop King-ey a line at his e-mail address as a ‘hook’. I picture either an evil Ben Kingsley or a Kevin Spacey based Lex Luthor behind the other keyboard. I remember someone else on the boards “took the hook” for play, but it didn’t end up as funny as we all thought it would. Any thoughts? Any ideas?
Maybe I can finance my cemetery cleanup with this $7.5M. :dubious:
Well, on the face of it you have a superb financial opportunity there.
However a little research reveals that, operating out of the same address, a Mr. John Dikko is offering £8.5 million and Mr. James Adama will stump up no less than $9.5 million.
Is it a moral failing not to be too sympathetic to the victims? I’m sorry they lost money but given how obvious the scams are my first reaction is to slap them upside the head and ask what they were thinking.
This week there was a story on the local news regarding a woman who feel for one of these, the deposit a large money order and send the balance back scam. She answered a work at home email where she was to be paid $500 a month to send prayer emails.
$500 to send prayers over the Internet.
sigh
Then again I’ve always hard no to be too cocky, no matter how smart you are there’s a scam that can suck you in. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. Or cheap.
As I’ve said before I “anti-scam” these buggers by pretending to be The Rev. Charles Mingephlapps vicar of the Church of the Holy Vulva.
Oh what fun I’ve had and if you go to the 419 site mentioned above you’ll see some of the pics I’ve managed to get these dopes into sending me.
Yes, I can be a right evil sod
Well, I went into my folks’ basement this morning and pulled out my old tackle box. I found some old line, a bobber, and a hook. Mom made me some dough for the bottom-feeders, and I threw a line in the water with:
I doubt he’ll respond, but hey, I can have fun too. I did see those sites you guys linked beforehand. I’ll let you know if I get anything.
. . . and he goes on to tell me how lucrative it is, how bona fide it is, how to “upload it to my base”, yadda yadda yadda. Right now, my head hurts too much to read the thing (part hangover, part his font, colors, and typing are all f*xxored up).
Here’s the question: in which format should I post this? I know cuttin’ ‘n’ pastin’ to the SDMB is frowned upon. Can I e-mail those other 419-scam guys and see if they’ll post it?
Before long he’ll ask for proof of ID and a scan of your passport, this you cannot send under any circumstances…for obvious reasons.
Ask him for proof of who he is in photo form, you’ll more than likely get a dummied up picture of some guys head on a body that just don’t look right, examine it closely.
You also have to dangle a BIG carrot, tell him that you’ve recently come into an inheritance from great aunt Mildred, don’t say how much just mention that you are looking for ways to increase this windfall.
You can send me the e-mail if you want, I’ll have a bit of fun, it is more than likely that I’ve met the guy before masquerading as some other character.
It may be a good idea to open an alternative e-mail account otherwise you’ll get swamped by scammers.
Chowder, I forwarded the e-mail to you. I am thinking of bringing in “another partner” to ‘assure the validity’ and such. However, you can also ‘raise more money’ to help grease the wheels easier.
Either way, I forwarded it to you. Let me know what you think. I haven’t responded to him yet today . . .
Tripler
Yes. Help me “assure the validity” please.
to which i also offer up for your consideration ‘the lads from lagos’ or http://www.scamorama.com/
this website is devoted to screwing mightily with those wacky 419 scammers. a daily pilgrimage here is guaranteed to make you smile on the worst of days.
‘if it sounds too good to be true - it probably is!’
It occurs to me that the Coast Guard thing could work as a good set-up for the old mark-is-tragically-killed-just-before-he-can-wire-the-funds gag. He could either be killed in Iraq (I doubt the mugu knows the difference between the Coast Guard and the National Guard) or his ship could sink at sea, or he killed be killed during a heroic rescue attempt. Maybe he can be bombed by terrorists just as he’s standing in line at a shoreside Western Union.
Leave it a while matey. You have to play these guys like a fish, nice and easy.
Let them think you have fallen for the scam. lead 'em on, ask for photos etc to prove they are who they say they are.
To waste their time and money you tell them that their last e-mail and/or attachment did not come through, get them to send it again.
Remember these merchants are working out of an internet cafe and each time they visit it costs them.
After stringing them along you ask why a SENIOR civil servant is using a free Yahoo e-mail address. They’ll give you some bullshit story…so then what you do is open another e-mail account cuz you wanna keep all this from prying eyes , I mean all that dosh and all!!
Then get him to reply to the new account…all in the interests of security :dubious:
It’s all a matter of “Catchee monkey sleeping, piss in its ear”
Moderator comment:
The mods are discussing whether this is OK and if so, which forum. In the meantime, I’m giving a tentative OK for things to continue. (If the mods as a group wind up with a different opinion, the blame is on me, not on Tripler et al.)
Ooops, I suppose I should have said ‘considered OK or simply overlooked’ - in any case, there have been past threads not unlike this one that have not attracted moderation
