you know, I deal with a lot of spam. I have active honeypots that I keep up, I actively use SpamCop and KnujOn, as anyone can see, I actively work at taking down open proxies anywhere I can, and even this blog is protected from spammers on several levels. Between SpamAssassin and a series of filters, the approximately 1000+ spam I receive in my in boxes go straight to an account I have set up for dealing with spam, only occasionally one or two get through and have to be manually dealt with. I’ve been active in the 419 baiting community in the past, and even have assisted law enforcement by turning over stolen credit card numbers scammers have tried to pass through fictitious sites I have set up with the intent of luring them in. So needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of spam, scams, and other nefarious activity. But today, when this one hit my inbox, I had to laugh. Now I’ve seen a lot of 419 letters (aka, Nigerian Scam), and I have always found it amusing, the occasional liberal usage of the English language - accounting for dialect in many of the countries in question, even then the odd, and occasional disjointed, usage of the language is still a give-away that much of it is pieced together from other scammers attempts.
This one, however, must be given an “A” for effort. It’s at least original and a new approach, but even reading it at face value makes one wonder “who the hell would fall for THIS one?!?!” Enough with the introductions, here is my nomination for the WORST 419′er in history!
Attention my Dear
We have Paid the Impex Courier and Security Company the delivery fee
for the delivery of your fund
($1.5usd ) which has been credited in an ATM MASTER CARD for easy and
safe delivery.But the manager of
Central Bank Of West African States Benin Republic told me that the
ATM CARD will be re-activated before
sending it to you so that you will be able to withdraw the whole
$1.5usd before it will expire.So i told
director of Impex Courier and Security company to please help in
re-activating the card before delivering
it to you, So the only fee you will pay him is $120.00 re-activation
charges to enable him re-activate the
card before sending it to you to avoid expiry.
Below is the needed information to enable them re-activate and deliver
your ATM MASTER CARD to you
immediately.Note: the only fee you have to pay them is $120.00usd that
they will use in re-activating the
CARD and also indicate this code (ISC0081) when writen or calling he
director, because it will prove that you are the owner of the ATM MASTER CARD.
IMPEX COURIER COMPANY REPUBLIC OF BENIN
DR. KENNETH IFEZUO (DIRECTOR)
EMAIL: (REMOVED)
Telephone:(REMOVED)
SEND THE BELOW INFORMATION TO THE IMPEX COURIER AND SECURITY COMPANY
DIRECTOR ON THE ABOVE INFORMATION
1.YOUR FULL NAME:
2.YOUR HOME ADDRESS:
3.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER:
4.A COPY OF YOUR PICTURE:
5.NATIONALITY:
Do let me know immediately you receive your ATM MASTER CARD so that we
can share the joy togerther
please do not forget to indicate this code(ISC0081) to him ok.
Mr Ben Mike.
So, for a mere $120.00, I can get an “ATM Master Card” containing… yes, you read that right… $1.50!!! I guess this is some attempt at “truth in advertising” for the 419′ers, either that, or someones handler is going to be real upset with this attempt at leads (yes, they work in a tiered system where some lowly somewhere sends millions of this type of email out to generate a few “leads”, which, once they are convinced it is a valid lead, is passed on to someone more skilled at the grift).
Truth of it all is, it amazes me that people still fall for this type of scam, but yet they do. There are quite an impressive number of people each year who report being robbed of hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars from answering these 419 letters, and an untold number of people who leave it un-reported out of embarrassment for having been scammed. It’s the job of these con artist to keep you on the hook as long as possible, bilking you out of as much money as possible along the way. And when you finally get wise on them and stop sending them any money, you need to be concerned about what information you have sent them along the way - address? phone numbers? bank account numbers? copies of your drivers license or passport? Believe me, they ask for these things. And when you stop being their cash cow, harassing phone calls come in at all hours making threats to you and/or your family, bank accounts stolen, identity theft. And in the midst of all of this, you might receive another email from some official sounding “agency” in Nigeria, or whatever country you have been sending money to, offering to help you recover your stolen funds through some governmental agency that has been dictated by their president - and the grift goes on as you send more and more money trying to recover the money you have already lost. This is serious money we are talking about. There have been many legitimate stories of people who have gone to some African country to make a large exchange in attempts to receive fortunes in return, only to end up never having been heard from again. The only thing these people care about is your money - you life means nothing to them, so you can imagine what they think about your financial obligations, your credit rating, or anything else that you may care about.
While the above spam is comical, and it is amusing to read what these people come up with, rest assured that, to them, this is very serious business and these are very dangerous criminals. Don’t be tempted to try and “play along” or baiting them. The baiting community works on the philosophy that keeping as many of these criminals busy thinking they have a juicy fish on the hook keeps them away from real people who stand to be seriously hurt by the actions of these crooks, but all of this is very carefully done using internet phone numbers (NOT like vonage), layers of created email addresses, and anything else we can use to keep them away from our real identity or information (personally, I have no problems stating this openly, since I have not been in the baiting community for several years now).
Out of all of these Nigerian Scam letters I have read, one common thread seems to come through to me. They tend to claim that you are somehow entitled to some huge sum of money left by a relative you don’t have, someone is asking you to participate in illegally acquiring huge sums of money, lotteries you win in countries you have never been to, or have even participated in, in the end, they all usually comes down to you staking a claim on this fictional money that you have no legal right to. W.C. Fields said “You can’t cheat an honest man”, and the same holds true here. Once, when a scammer realized that I was baiting him, I had the opportunity to briefly ask him some questions. While he was upset at being scammed himself, he did comment that he, and many others like him, felt that those who they stole from deserve what they get because they, themselves, are being dishonest in trying to lay claim on money they know doesn’t belong to them, and the crooks take full advantage of this greed.
While there are some strides being made, this isn’t a problem that is going to go away any time soon, in fact, the Nigerian Scam has been around longer than the internet. These letters were being sent out over fax machines long before everyone had an email address, but like everything else, the internet has streamlined their operations and allow them to move much more in bulk than they ever could over fax machines. Bottom line is, you can’t cheat an honest man. There are no millions of dollars mysteriously sitting in some African bank with your name on it, there are no couriers on their way with a diplomatic dispatch of cash, there is no kind soul overseas wanting to invest in your home business, and if you didn’t put money into a lottery, chances are you didn’t win one. If the dollar signs are lighting up your eyes, maybe it’s time to re-read what you are considering (if you really were important enough to have millions of dollars coming to you, don’t you think they would already have your name, phone number, etc?). While W.C. Fields may have been right, these people are banking on P.T. Barnum… “there’s a sucker born every minute”.
T
