[Karen]

I get an email today, addressed to my husbands email address. (I get his emails)

The email is addressed to me, using my first and last name. The 'sender' is a lawyer who is processing settlements from my 'uncle' who supposedly died in 2001. He even gave 'my uncle' a name... isn't that sweet.

What is wrong with this picture?

1) A lawyer making initial contact using a 'contact us' form on my husband's website.

2) A lawyer sending an email in the first place... gee, I would have expected that a lawyer would be able to afford a phone.

3) The odds are that if I am female (and last time I checked I was) that my last name would be my husband's. Wouldn't that make him the 'next of kin'? Why not contact him through his own website?

And the best one:

4) This 'lawyer' has a hotmail address. No phone number, no law firm name, no street address, just a hotmail email account.

And here is the breakdown that he proposes, and I quote:

1. 30% for you
2. 60% for me
3. 10% to be set aside for any expenses to be incurred in course of this transaction.

Isn't that generous?


Karen

[Onyx]

To many of us it all just seems far too unbelievable, but amazingly there are many people out there who would be taken in by it. The thing with spam is that it costs next to noting to reach millions of people. If just 1% of them take things further then you have a very good chance of making some money!

It's the same with 419 scams. I can't believe anyone would fall for that rubbish, but every day plenty of people do. Sad state of the internet I'm afraid

[Karen]

Originally posted by Onyx
It's the same with 419 scams.

What's a 419 scam?

Karen

[LucasK]

Well I've gotten emails from some guy claiming to be from South Africa (strangely when I checked out his IP it belonged to a Zimbabwean host). He's offered to "invest" 14 million dollars into my company (whose name he doesn't seem to know).

I played with him a bit, and he somehow believes I am the CEO of some illegal arms firm. I offered to send armed bandits to collect the money, but he's insistent on a bank transfer. Shame really.

[Onyx]

Originally posted by Karen
What's a 419 scam?

Karen

Sorry Karen - been busy this week so only just catching up on YE. A 419 scam - also known as advance fee fraud - is so named after section 419 of the Nigerian legal code. What happens is you receive an email from someone claiming to be quite high up in the Nigerian Government or some big company and they are trying to get a load of money out of the country. It just so happens that they're relying on you to help them! If you agree to shelter their millions in cash they'll give you a percentage profit. But then something goes wrong and they ask you to forward them a few thousand dollars to cover the bank charges for the transfer. Greed kicks in and people send off the money, but never hear from the scammer again.

More info here: http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml

You can spot one of these emails a mile away as the language they use borders on hillarious. It's become quite common to bait these scammers now and get them to do stupid things before you'll release the money or in some cases get them to send you a few hundred dollars in order to release the thousands. Scam the scammer! The following makes for very amusing reading...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3887493.stm