Scam emails

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I just got this email in the mail.  I have watched programs on Dateline where people really fall for this stuff.  Really??  They lose hundreds of thousands of dollars by their greed.  I want to tell Ms. Fati where she can stick it.  Read for yourself. 

 

Dearest One.

Thanks for the opportunity to be your friend,I know this
mail will come to you as a surprise since we have not meet or had a previous
correspondence, please bear with me. I will really like to have a good
relationship with you. I have a special reason why I decided to contact
you.

I decided to contact you because of the urgency of my situation here
,I am Ms Fati Mbogo Edwards 25 years old girl from Liberia the only daughter of
Late Dr ,Mbogo Edwards the deputy minister of national security under the
leadership of president Charles Taylor who is now in exile after many innocent
soul were killed ,My father was killed by government of Charles Taylor ,he
accuse my father of coup attempt.

I am constrained to contact you because
of the maltreatment I, am receiving from my step mother. She planned to take
away all my late father's treasury and properties from me since the unexpected
death of my beloved Father.

Meanwhile I wanted to escape to the Europe
but she hide away my international passport and other valuable travelling
documents.Luckily she did not discover where I kept my father’s File which
contains important documents. I decided to run to the refegee camp where I am
presently seeking asylum under the United Nations High Commission for the
Refegee here in ougadugou,Republic of Burkinafaso.I wish to contact you
personally for a long term business relationship and investment assistance in
your Country.

My father of blessed memory deposited the sum of US$6,500,
000.00 in Bank with my name as the next of kin. However,I shall forward you with
the necessay documents on confirmation of your acceptance to assist me for the
transfer and investment of the fund in your country,As you will help me in an
invsetment, and i will like to complete my studies, as i was in my fist year in
the university when the crisis started.

It is my intention to compensate
you with 20% of the total money for your services and the balance shall be my
investment capital. This is the reason why I decided to contact you. Please all
communications should be through this email address only for confidential
purposes([e-mail]).

As soon as I receive your positive
response showing your interest I will put things into action immediately.In the
light of the above,I shall appreciate an urgent message indicating your ability
and willingness to handle this transaction sincerely.iam Awaiting your urgent
and positive response. Please do keep this only to your self please i beg you
not to disclose it till i come over once the fund has been
transfered.

please contact me at my email address
([e-mail]).

Thanks.

Yours Fatim.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

It takes maybe 20 words for me to delete.  They're soooo obvious.  It's amazing how people are such dummies to believe this crap.

[Debbie Taggart]

There's way worse than that out there.  I'm starting to get emails that look EXACTLY like correspondence from Amazon.  I get them from Bank of America too.  It's really scary because they're really easy to fall for. 

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I agree.  You just have to make sure you call your bank or any other institution to find out if the inquiry is legitimate and don't give out personal info when you get an email.  Pretty scary.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

I got an odd email from Amazon asking me to click on the link to verify something.  Didn't trust it so I copied the email and pasted it into an email directly to amazon.  They replied telling me that since I bought a pair of shoes at Peltz in FL using some amazon pay system (aha yes, that's true) that that was what the email was about.  OK!  Not taking a chance and clicking unnecessarily!  Gotta be vigilant with all the talk about Cryptolocker.  Ugh!

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I got the same sort of email, only it was from my mother saying her and her father were stuck in some country.  I knew it was a scam then because her fathert has been dead for years.  Big clue.

[Mary Jo Cochran]

I get those all the time.  They're almost funny.  The poor grammar, everytime I read one I am left wondering how much time it took them to learn basic English grammar.  Last name Edwards??!!!. 

 

When I put an ad on Craigslist for a roommate I was amazed at the amount of "returning to the country, does it have bed, bookcase, will you take cashier's check, are you near university. etc.

[Cynthia Dunbar]

One area where these scammers are relentless is with the elderly. Please, if any of you have an older person in your life who is perhaps alone or (God forbid) you suspect of having some age-related cognitive issues - please, please, look out for them. We forget that the world many of them lived and worked in wasn't a landscape that made you automatically suspicious and jaded. Sure, it wasn't all "Leave it to Beaver," but it also wasn't like it is now.

I have an elderly acquaintance who thinks the best of everybody and takes people at face value - so if there's a threat of "you need to do this" or "you forgot to pay this bill," this person believes it. This person is also very gregarious, which (oddly enough) makes it worse. It took less than a year of living alone, many states away from most of the family, for things to decline.

Sometimes all it takes is for a scammer on the phone to give out some nuggets of info culled from the obituary of a spouse or friend, and some folks think the person calling them is someone who actually knows and cares about them. Add cognitive decline, and it just gets magnified. Then if the person discovers they've been "had," they then become embarrassed and defensive toward actual family members and friends.

So most of us on this site are clearly savvy enough to stop these people in their tracks. But think about those you know and love who may be vulnerable - because once the scammers DO hook someone, it's incredibly destructive. And it's not always as blatant as the bank letters. Some scams can even be tracked to a dishonest home health care worker, etc., who feeds info to the scammer that will convince the elderly individual that this is a good thing. When these people do get account information, for instance, if a personal check is sent - they start opening online accounts, credit cards, and...yes, calling and convincing the Social Security Administration to get payments redirected (seriously, I've seen it).

There are plenty of older people that are "hip to the tune" and avoid these things. But others are more vulnerable and, quite frankly, lonely. So think about those you know that fall into this category and make sure to visit with them and stay involved in their lives. You may not even be able to stop the scam, but you can catch it before it snowballs.

Sorry for the long post, but this is an important aspect of the scam topic for me. People who target the elderly - to exploit the combination of kindness and confusion - make me insanely angry. It's appalling. 

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Cynthia, you're absolutely correct on every count.  I'm guilty of doing the RUFKM routine.  Your post should be read by everybody.   We all need this awareness.  It'll humble us and give us some compassion.

[Elsa Jorgensen]

This topic is very important.  Besides your own elderly friends and family, watch out wherever you are, whether in grocery stores, gas stations, etc., for people targeting older people you don't even know.  They are tricky.  My own dad fell for something in the parking lot of a grocery store, GOT IN THE CAR with the perpetrator, and went to a coffee shop.  (She pretended to be a nurse who recognized him.  My mom had had nursing care, so he assumed he just forgot.  Perpetrator sees an older man loading groceries and concludes he's a widower.)  He started getting nervous and called me.  He left and walked back to his car.  I remained calm (even though I was freaking out inside) and went and took him to the police station to file a report.  It ended up on the news.  Scary stuff, everyone.  The ploy is to get banking info, home addresses, or be followed home so a "relative" who just so happens to have a baby or small one can gain access to the house to use the restroom or something.

[Glen Warner]

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from "voicemail (at) cheapandsleazy (dot) net" with a subject line being something like "Message From Work," and there was an attachment called "VoiceMail.zip" or something similar.

There was no text in the body of the e-mail (see the first attachment).

I knew immediately it was a scam because *I* assign the addresses in use on Cheap and Sleazy, and I never created that particular address.

I also am not working, so it would be very unlikely that I would be receiving a "Message From Work" ... and I *never* mention Cheap and Sleazy when I *am* looking for work.

Thirdly, my (now former) MagicJack service used to e-mail me voice messages all the time, and the extension was *NEVER* .zip ... so what did I do?

Why, I right-clicked and saved the file to my hard drive, then went here --

http://www.virustotal.com

-- and uploaded the file to them to check.

The response was immediate (see the attached .pdf), as apparently I'm not special enough to be the only one to get this message (but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one to get one from "voicemail (at) cheapandsleazy (dot) net," though ...).  It found something called "backdoor.bot," "trojan.packed.3036," and a couple others.

Finally, when you get an e-mail supposedly from PayPal or whoever, if it has a link in it, put your mouse over it and look at the bottom of the window the link is in to see where that link actually goes ... for instance, a few years back, I got an e-mail supposedly from the IRS, also through my Cheap and Sleazy e-mail address -- which, of course, I did *NOT* use when I filed my taxes.  Mousing over the "Click Here!" link revealed a URL something like irs.gov.eu.

I know about this while "outsourcing" thing, but I don't think the IRS has been outsourced to the European Union ...!

[Debbie Taggart]

Yes, they're real tricky about those URLs too.  I had one from "Amazon" the other day whose URL read AmazonS.com.  I believe there's only one Amazon -- dot com, that is.