I won $1.5mil.............again

[Gordon Gekko]

Hi All,

At my work email address, I get 10 or more emails a day saying I have won money or my long lost relitive has died and left me $20mil.

Someone please explain to me, how these people make money out of it (no, i'm not thinking about doing my own scam)

These people usually just ask for a name and email address. Do they try to steal your identity??

GG

PS I have about $350mil coming to me this week, so if you need a loan, you know who to come to

PSS I will get my work to start filtering my incoming emails

 

[Television]

There's a sucker born every minute...

Some people unfortunately do reply to these emails and get sucked in by the scam. Depending on how they suck you in they could attempt to gain your money, your identity or both...

 

[JoshyBoi]

Sometimes, the scammers will need $5,000 of your own to process the transaction or they will pay you money (with a fraudulent credit card) asking that you pass it on to someone else, by which time yours is reversed...

 

[depreciator]

Plenty of people get sucked in. I read somewhere that scam income is up there in the top 10 sources of income for Nigeria. When my dad first got a computer, I wanred him about it. He was not a dill, but somebody exposed to that sort of thing for the first time could easily get sucked in. Years later he was called up for jury duty. It was an insurance fraud case. A bloke who owned a motor cycle restoration business torched his shop after losing a heap of money to the scammers. I have responded to a few them when I've been bored to see how they tackle a 'live one'. Some of them are very good.

 

[goonandtell]

yer usually they extract money from you to enable the transfer.

Like, the bank has informed me due to the large release they require government/pope/zombie approval which will cost $500 they are unable to do this before they have already put so much money on the deal and you as their now friend can surely cover the $500.

Then they might decide its safer to personally deliver it so flights might need to be paid for, as well as paying off a small debt they have which prevents them leaving the country.

I would imagine they start with small requests like 50 or 100 then as the person becomes invested start raising the stakes. They will send you fake 'western union' or 'paypall' or made up versions of them statements and emails saying its sitting in holding.

There are whole websites like 419eater setup where people have led them on to see if they can get them to do stupid stuff like take photos riding a donkey holding todays newspaper with word drawn on the forehead. Read one or two stories before about it.

 

[devank]

I had fun with one of them before. I asked him to send his photos and so on. Surely, he was wereing suit and also he had a hot wife
Then I started making up stories as I'm in financial trouble and asked him to help me out. At the end he gave up

 

[mary&mat]

I got one of the Nigerian ones to send me his passport & photo too (as he'd requested mine) as well as his Diploma & business credentials. When I got them, I told him I'd forwarded it to the AFP & they would be investigating.

Probably not him or his passport but I did fwd it to the AFP.

 

[lizzie]

it's not just online ... we recently registered a trademark and in the post received two "invoices" from bulgaria and ethiopia demanding payment to process the registration. one request was for around $14,000.

wonder how many new business owners fall for this garbage?

 

[weg]

it's not just online ... we recently registered a trademark and in the post received two "invoices" from bulgaria and ethiopia demanding payment to process the registration. one request was for around $14,000.

wonder how many new business owners fall for this garbage?

I've heard of that one before, but for invoices for advertising instead. I imagine some larger businesses with newer inexperienced staff unfamiliar with all the company's expenses, could easily let some like that slip through, especially smaller amounts which might not raise as much suspicion.

 

[Graemsay]

I keep on getting letters from the Euro Business Guide. They include an update card for supplying your details, and a statement that this is free.

But if you look at the very small print it states that by returning the card you agree to be inserted into the directory at a cost of €990 ($1400) per annum, with a minimum of three years subscription, and rolling thereafter unless two month's notice is given.

 

[DEC]

Scambaiting

 

[coastymike]

Yes and I recently got one as an SMS. Saying I had just won 300,000 Euros in the Nokia European lottery competition. Just needed to call the number on the SMS and claim my prize. What's even easier on an iphone or any smart phone you just have to press the number on the SMS and the iphone calls for you. How easy is that to scam your money. I am sure if I did call I would have had a lovely bill for hundreds of dollars. Make sure your teenagers are aware of this new one. I'm sure SMS and younger people are going to be easily enticed into these.

 

[ianvestor]

Scambaiting

This is from the Wikipedia page about scambaiting... Even reading that line has comedic effect.

baiters may introduce characters and even plot-lines from movies or television shows for comedic effect.

 

[Jacque]

I've heard of that one before, but for invoices for advertising instead. I imagine some larger businesses with newer inexperienced staff unfamiliar with all the company's expenses, could easily let some like that slip through, especially smaller amounts which might not raise as much suspicion.

We get these as well- most commonly from the Australian Business Directory. They're just binned but I agree that larger businesses may just pay them unknowingly as amounts are often small.

I always have a chuckle at the tactics of some of these more creative scammers- but unfortunately there is always going to be someone out there who's not the sharpest tool in the shed, falling for such rorts.