Category: Advance Fee Scam

Stupidest Spam of the Week Mailing List

Most scammers stick to one story and just keep trying to entice more and more people to fall for that story – maybe a 419 scammer offering a fortune to be collected or the usual phishing messages wanting you to login to check something or a romancer looking for victims and there are many other scams of course.

This scammer seems confused as the messages are clearly a 419 scam talking about $28 million but also the format is about building an email address list.

So, the main story is that the sender is dying of Coronavirus and has been a bad person but now has given away most of his possessions as she doesn’t want to go to hell when he dies.

She does however still have $28 million to get rid off and has selected me to collect the money and give it to charity on his behalf and I get to keep 40% for my troubles.

Most of the email and addresses etc. include the name Ken but the email also claims the sender’s name is Mrs Aimi Jack and she is an ‘epidemiology’. There are other obvious grammatical errors in the message.

Then the message switches to being about joining Ken’s mailing list, whoever Ken is – it doesn’t say.

There are endless options for changing passwords, re-joining the account, changing options, setting a new schedule for digest messages and so on.

All completely inappropriate for the first half of the message about asking me to help her “distribute” millions of dollars.

Does being a scammer for too long rot the scammer’s brain or do they all start out as idiots?

To enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Famous Names Misused

This is a typical Advance Fee Scam also known as the 419 scam but it uses a living person as the bait, as well as inventing a fortune to be available to the lucky punter (victim).

The main part of the email is the standard advance fee scam where the scammer tries to sell you on the idea that he has a fortune to push your way at no expense to you. In this case, it’s an unspecified number of millions of dollars and whatever is invested you will get 30%.

The difference with these emails is that they hijack true stories for their own use.

This latest one uses the name Isabel dos Santos as the lady with the money to give away.

She is a real person – a multi billionaire and claimed to be the richest woman in Africa although she’s actually a Russian living in Angola. She is rich, famous and does give a lot of money to good causes.

Because she’s a real person, the scammer includes a list of links to stories in magazines such as Forbes about her.

She is obviously not stupid enough to give away money to random people contacted by scammers, but then she is not part of what’s going on – it’s just a scammer misusing her good name.

Just because part of a story told by a scammer is true does not mean anything else in the story is true.

If you have any experiences with phishing scams do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

 

Stupidest Spam of the Week The Oil Alliance

You read in the news of complex fraud cases where scammers have set up fake businesses and made deals with large companies and over the course of months swindled them out of millions.

This latest scammer seems to have been reading those stories and thinks she can do the same but without the months of preparation needed – just email some mugs and find some that want in to a shady mega bucks deal.

The email title is “Crude Oil Partnership”.

It starts “ATTN: CEO / Managing Director”.  “I have been motivated by your personal status and I have decided to approach you for a profitable partnership in a multi million dollar partnership in crude oil trading”.

There is a long involved story about how her company buys crude oil in Angola but has to buy through a 3rd party who have a government licence. The deal part is that she will help me to setup a company name and buy a licence at her expense. Then I can be the intermediary and will be paid $12 per barrel of oil purchased by her company.

With millions of barrels of oil involved that makes a big commission for me.

She also has the cheek to state “It is against my work ethics to benefit from my company’s dealings”.

Then goes to explain that she is near retirement so will take the profit for herself anyway.

The entire story is make-believe of course – probably some scammer sitting around, drinking with other criminals and invented this whole charade.

Her email address is @consultant.com which may sound impressive but is just a free email service anyone can use.

Pathetic.

To enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Francis Deals with Scam Email

Francis received the following typical scam email (complete with grammatical and spelling mistakes)

From [email protected]

Dear Partner,

I have $15.7 million dollars laying in an escrow account in my head office here in Sierra Leone, the fund was over due payment for contractor 4year ago.

I am seeking your help to present you as the beneficiary to the fund,so that you can contact my Bank Head Office for up transfer of the fund into your account. You are to forward me your details, Your Full name, Your age, Your address, Id card and Telephone number.

Mr Hassan Malik.

 

Francis replied

Dear Mr. Malik,

Thanks very much. But I don’t need your money as I have 457,452,743 billion dollars in a large suitcase I found at the side of the road.

As you only have $15.7 million would you like some of mine?

Now get lost and stop wasting my time you devious and crooked half-wit

 

Well said Sir.

Do leave a comment on this post – click on the post title then scroll down to leave your comment.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Time-Wasters Update

An email supposedly from Nat West warns us that they believe there has been unauthorised access to our account and they have temporarily frozen our account till we confirm it is OK. However we don’t have such an account so it’s a scam message.

Free electricity is a very common theme for scam messages. This latest one starts with a warning “THIS IS DISTURBING. Power companies panicked when they saw this. Click to see this secret method”.  Where this strange belief in America that there are magical ways to generate electricity at no cost is very odd and not really shared elsewhere in the world.  The ways to generate electricity are all well known and involve taking energy from somewhere (e.g. sunlight, the wind, tidal movements, geothermal energy etc) and transforming it into electricity. There are no secrets and the only thing that is disturbing is that people try to steal from the vulnerable using this type of scam.    

 A message claiming to be from The Royal bank of Scotland says that there has been a mistake in calculation of our quarterly service charge and we owe £42,243.52. The point of the message is to get us to download the attached file which is loaded with malware. No thanks.

Another advance fee scam email arrives. Michael Reed says he has an investment of £50 million in bearer bonds for a client who has died and he wants to transfer them to my name. The email is actually from malexjamass @gmail.com so Michael Reed has an identity problem and doesn’t even know my name yet wants to give me £50 million. This seems less likely than Elvis being spotted doing a gig on the moon. No thanks “Michael”.

Alaa Hameed tells me his company wants to fund any company in any project / investment of any interest or choice as he is a broker with high profile clients from Asia wanting to invest. Is it possible anyone would believe this is true? His return email address is different from the senders address which is always a bad sign and that return address is an AOL address which means personal rather than business. Plus, he doesn’t even know my name. Pathetic.

Do click on the Facebook or Twitter icons on top right to follow Fight Back Ninja.

Fightback Ninja Signature

The Fake Bride Scam

Jane Joseph claims she is British and lives in London and attends University and works part-time as a dress-maker.

The email explains her unusual situation.

I lost my father in an auto accident prompting my mother’s death because of it.

My Father, Dawson Joseph, willed me a large portion of his real estate holdings and properties valued at £10,500,000 Pounds sterling.

I have yet to place a claim on it but right now things are not good and I’d like to have it. My father’s stipulation was that I was either 30 years of age or married.

(Allowing my husband to be in control). I am 26 so only my husband can make a claim on my behalf. I’d like to offer you the opportunity to stand in as my husband and will share of it for your assistance. Your interests will be properly protected.

So, by getting someone to claim to be her husband she can claim the millions and share them with the fake husband of course.

How does the scammer benefit from this email?

Not so obvious. It could be that she just wants to marry an EU citizen to gain access to living in the EU (the email is from a Turkish address).

Or it could be that on someone agreeing to be the fake husband then there would be lots of unexpected costs to be met (by the fake husband) until she’s got as much money as possible and disappears.

Or maybe there’s another answer – if you know then send me an email.

It’s a very obvious scam email and little attempt has been made to make it seem realistic.

The email is from [email protected] rather than a personal email address

The reply email address is Turkish.

The use of phrases such as ‘auto accident’ and ‘real estate’ and ‘pounds sterling’ are clearly not ones that a British person would choose.

Don’t think I’ll get married today after all (not even for a share of £10.5 million)

Do Share this post on social media – click on the post title then scroll down to the social media share buttons.

Fightback Ninja Signature