Spams & Scams

[dr wogz]

Just curious to know..

We all know of the 'Nigerian' scam. (We all shoudl know about this one..)

It's the one where an African national, for whatever reason, has billions of dollars that will be seized by the overthrowers of his governement. He / she has contacted you 'presonally' to help get the monies out of [overthrown country in Africa]. All you need do, is foward him your bank account, so he can wire teh money, and will contact you once he is safely out of teh country. For this, you get to keep a small percentage, and teh accumulated interest... A sweet deal, or so it seems....

I'm asking, becasue, I've been getting a lot of these lately. Like, at least one a month, maybe two, all over teh last 6 months. They all seems to come from Italy: me@ somewhere.it And recenly, there is one with a christian edge, I guess to pull on the devout christians & catholics..

Are you all getting more than you think is 'valid'

Is this old farce (Nigerian scam) still effective?!?!

 

[illini]

A friend of mine has a Ph.D. in physics and wound up in the telemarketing industry. Bear with me for a moment...this is actually going somewhere... His job was data mining - to use the enormous consumer databases that exist on each of us out there and assemble targeted telemarketing lists. He tells me that on average telemarketing phone calls have a 1% success rate, which is enough for an enormous profit. A good miner in his industry is one that assembles a list with a better than 1% success rate.

Now carry this over into the spam and scam e-mail arena. If it works 1 time out of 100, 1000, or even 100,000, then the spammers/scammers are making a killing. Something very Darwinian about this...

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by Dr Wogz
Just curious to know..

We all know of the 'Nigerian' scam. (We all shoudl know about this one..)

It's the one where an African national, for whatever reason, has billions of dollars that will be seized by the overthrowers of his governement. He / she has contacted you 'presonally' to help get the monies out of [overthrown country in Africa]. All you need do, is foward him your bank account, so he can wire teh money, and will contact you once he is safely out of teh country. For this, you get to keep a small percentage, and teh accumulated interest... A sweet deal, or so it seems....

I'm asking, becasue, I've been getting a lot of these lately. Like, at least one a month, maybe two, all over teh last 6 months. They all seems to come from Italy: me@ somewhere.it And recenly, there is one with a christian edge, I guess to pull on the devout christians & catholics..

Are you all getting more than you think is 'valid'

Is this old farce (Nigerian scam) still effective?!?!

Yes, it is. A college professor embezzled $320,000 from his research grant for one of these and even after having been caught swears it was for real.

Figure, some of the oldest urban myths, even ones that predate the net, are still floating around in their old form as well as mutated ones. My favorite recent example is the George W. Bush quote about Mars being in nearly the same orbit as Earth and having Oxygen, and if it has oxygen then it has water, and then we can live there. Except he never said that. Dan Quayle did. The net gives access. It does not gaurantee exposure to a particular thing.

There are a few sites around that cater to people who bait Nigerian scammers. Play along with them and waste their time and see what you can get out of them. One guy baited one and got $50, a birthday card, and a picture of the scammer with a red circle painted around one of his nipples. I baited one a couple years ago, pretending to be a Russian immigrant, and got them to promise to request I be granted a permanent visa to the US from the KGB in Moscow. Since I only had an old DOS machine (so I said) I couldn't use the PDF form they'd sent me to fill out, so I got them to send me a paper copy of it via Fedex, with the return address. Once I had that, I had them. Since it was from Qatar, I gave it over to the secret service.

Try it. It's fun.

 

[scottrc]

Originally posted by DynaSoar
Yes, it is. A college professor embezzled $320,000 from his research grant for one of these and even after having been caught swears it was for real.

Figure, some of the oldest urban myths, even ones that predate the net, are still floating around in their old form as well as mutated ones. My favorite recent example is the George W. Bush quote about Mars being in nearly the same orbit as Earth and having Oxygen, and if it has oxygen then it has water, and then we can live there. Except he never said that. Dan Quayle did. The net gives access. It does not gaurantee exposure to a particular thing.

There are a few sites around that cater to people who bait Nigerian scammers. Play along with them and waste their time and see what you can get out of them. One guy baited one and got $50, a birthday card, and a picture of the scammer with a red circle painted around one of his nipples. I baited one a couple years ago, pretending to be a Russian immigrant, and got them to promise to request I be granted a permanent visa to the US from the KGB in Moscow. Since I only had an old DOS machine (so I said) I couldn't use the PDF form they'd sent me to fill out, so I got them to send me a paper copy of it via Fedex, with the return address. Once I had that, I had them. Since it was from Qatar, I gave it over to the secret service.

Try it. It's fun.

I'd do it except for the fear of them sending me pictures of themselves 1/2 naked.

 

[rbeckey]

You are selling something on the internet. The seller sends you a certified check for the cost of the item and 50-60% more. He says it was an accounting error. He asks you to cash the check and send him the balance. He tells you his "shipping agent" will contact you for the item soon. Your bank cashes the check no questions asked. You wire him the extra per instructions. He even lets you keep a "little extra" for your trouble. Two weeks later, the bank tells you that the check was counterfeit, and takes the money FROM YOUR ACCOUNT! The shipping agent does not exsist and the cash was wired outside the US. The buyer used a yahoo account routed through an overseas server and God himself can't trace the IP. Law enforcement tells you that you are out of luck, they can't trace the bad guy, or if they can, he won't be extradited for this kind of offense.

Seller beware! This is happening with increasing frequency. Any check can be couterfeited, even a US Postal Service Money Order. You must wait until they clear your bank, even if the bank offers you cash on the spot. If it is bad check, they take the money right out of your account if they have cashed it for you.

 

[sandman]

See, the reason I know it's a scam at the beginning is simple.

Why...WHY would anyone ask ME to help them out with a financial problem?

If they are so desperate to ask the likes of ME for help, they are in a LOT of trouble already and if it were real I would only make it worse for them.

My view...if you're asking ME for financial help you are lying or...you are just too dumb to live!