E-mail scams >_<

[idril]

I love fake emails. Love reading them, love responding to them, love reading stories about people who mess with them and stuff.

What really got me was that people do it to people who are adopting/giving up their pets. I was in a situation where one of the dogs with back problems needed to find a home or to be euthanized within a week. I even posted on Craigslist (never thought I'd do but I did find some good people). You can only imagine how I got a little hopeful when I got 4 emails in response to a Petfinder ad I put up about him, ALL scams. Not so funny anymore

All followed along the lines of...

" Hello
am jenny cross i saw the advert of your posted pet and i am highly intrested in adopting your pet to my good home .i lost my pet few days ago so i will like to adopt your to reduce tragedy in my mind..i will like you to tell me the present condition of the pet including the food that the pet eat..i will also like you to tell me the adoption fees including the cage if available,as pet lover i will surely take good care of the pet...if you allow me to adopt your pet you can come for the visiting of the pet if you like....i will urge you to tell me the pet name and much more about the pet..
best regard "

(The dog's fine now. He's living in Texas )

[Sparky]

Originally Posted by idril

" Hello
am jenny cross i saw the advert of your posted pet and i am highly intrested in adopting your pet to my good home .i lost my pet few days ago so i will like to adopt your to reduce tragedy in my mind..i will like you to tell me the present condition of the pet including the food that the pet eat..i will also like you to tell me the adoption fees including the cage if available,as pet lover i will surely take good care of the pet...if you allow me to adopt your pet you can come for the visiting of the pet if you like....i will urge you to tell me the pet name and much more about the pet..
best regard "

Is it a scam because they kept saying "pet" instead of "dog"? And that they asked about a cage? It does sound like a generic message, but why would someone mass-mail posters of pet adoption ads, what would it accomplish?

[antgirl1]

FROM THE DESK OF MR FREDRICK ISSA
AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING MANAGER
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK [A.D.B]
BURKINA FASO.

Trust/Confidential proposal
Dear Friend,

Please this is important and very urgent i have an urgent transaction of $20.6 million usd to transfer to your nominated account, I am mr fredrick issa, i am an Auditor, with Accounting Department,AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK [A.D.B] here in OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO.

Aftergoing through some old files in the records, I discovered that if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing. The owner of this account unfortunately died in the plane crash of Union Transport Africains Flight Boeing 727 in Cotonou, Benin republic on the december 25,2003. You will read more stories about the crash on visiting this website www.cnn.com /2003 /WORLD /africa /12 /26 /benin . crash /

No other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it,the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that his company does not know anything about this account and the amount involved is (USD 20.6 MILLION) Twenty million Six Hunderd Thousend United States Dollars.

I want to transfer the USD 20.6 MILLION) Twenty million Six Hunderd Thousend United States Dollars into a safe foreigners account abroad , but I don't know any foreigner, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money can not be approved to a local bank here, but can only be approved to any foreign account because the money is in US dollars and the former owner of the account is a foreigner too.

I know that this message will come to you as a surprise as we don't know our selves before,but be rest assure that this is life time business for both of us even for our generation to come .With believe in God that you will never let me down in this business. You are the only person that I have contacted in this business, so please reply urgently so that I will inform you the next step to take urgently, Send also your private telephone and fax number I want us to meet face to face or sign a binding agreement to bind us together so that you can receive this money into a foreign account or any account of your choice where the fund will be safe. I will fly to your country for withdrawal and sharing and other investments I am contacting you because of the need to involve a foreigner with foreign account and foreign beneficiary.

I need your full co-operation to make this work fine because the management is ready to approve this payment to any foreigner who has correct information about this account, which I will feed you with, if you are able and with capability to handle such amount in strict confidence and trust according to my instructions and advice for our mutual benefit because this opportunity will never come again in my life.

I need truthful person in this business because I don't want to make mistake I need your strong assurance and trust. With my position now in the office I can transfer this money to any foreign reliable account, which you can provide with assurance that this money will be intact pending my physical arrival in your country for sharing.

And i want to remaind you that your share has been carculated at 35% of the total sum. I'am waiting for your urgent reply so that i will give you more information about this deal.

With regards,

MR FREDRICK ISSA

$20.6 million? AW SWEET!!

[WiltsAKGirl17]

Yeah, I got this email a while back, too. It came through my junk folder, so I didn't pay it much attention-- just read it once and deleted it. When the next email came, I just hit "Mark as Unsafe."

Woot woot.

[idril]

"Is it a scam because they kept saying "pet" instead of "dog"? And that they asked about a cage? It does sound like a generic message, but why would someone mass-mail posters of pet adoption ads, what would it accomplish?

That was the only email I saved, unfortunately and it doesn't really tell the scam clearly, but other emails said they would have a pet transportation service come to my house for a fee of x amount of dollars through a cashier's check. After I caught on, I replied to two or three and all used the same tactic of a 'pet transportation service'.
Some of them were pretty blunt about it too, they said they'd like my pet and want to know of the nearest airport.

[Sparky]

Got this one just now:

Reply: an orphan cries

I am Raymond Danta the only son of Mr. Danta a licensed solid mineral
(gold, diamond, etc) exporter before he passed away. Before his death my
father, apparently, married a woman who became my stepmother because my
mother died when i was very young. My stepmother already had two children
of about my age, and they came with her to live in my Father's house. I
discovered that there was some ill-feeling from my stepmother towards me,
since then i have been badly treated; being forced to undertake work
befitting only a servant, in my father's own house. When my father died
instead of being in the state of mourns as custom demand, she went as much
as desired and claimed my father's property as well into the future
regarded as a possible danger to my live.

My father before passing away informed me privately that he had an account
valued eight million one hundred and twenty thousand euro (8,120,000euro)
which he intend to transfer into his foreign associate's account for
investment abroad on my behalf, this money he acquired from the export
contract he secured and executed under the umbrella of the government.

Truly i don't know you but considering my situation and security, couple
with an uncontrollable crisis between the rebels and government, my live
is no more protected here. I confided on your assistance and write with
every respect due to your good person and ask that you assist me to get
the money transfer to your bank account on my behalf as my late father's
foreign associate to your country for investment.

So please i want to know you better. I am willing to offer you 812,000euro
for your assistance after the successful transfer of this money for
investment; I have plans to do investment in your country, like real
estate, industrial production or any other lucrative investment you bring
to my notice in your country.

Please if you are willing to assist me, indicate your interest by sending
your phone number & address so that I can communicate with you at any
time. I will be waiting for your response.

thanks
Raymond (skype ID: raysilv)

An orphan cries??

[Cassini90125]

Didn't Cinderella start like that?

[Cassini90125]

This popped up in my mailbox this morning. As it arrived via a Yahoo! Group devoted to Foster's, some of the rest of you may have seen it, too:

You're really cute. I wanna get to know you. Here's my profile with many photos Reach me here.
(Link removed)

Uh, yeah. I got an identical copy through another Yahoo! Group as well. These things annoy the hell out of me. Both were unceremoniously deleted.

[Lynnie]

Yup, I got that just tonight in one of the "Daily Digests", although they don't come daily. Which is actually a good thing because it seems every single post made the last few months has been similar to near identical. That being said, I'm always amused when someone replies to them. I especially liked that link to some science page, as if hoping the spammer will look at it and gain some intelligence.

It was a fascinating page, actually.

[Lynnie]

I'm good at not only bumping, but also double posting today.

Eh hem...

This is circulating around MySpace right now. It was sent to me by a friend who, though bless her heart, can be gullible. After scrolling through a total of 13 headers, I finally read

Myspace system is getting too crowded!! We need you to forward this to at least 20 people. I know this seems like a large number, but we need to find out who is really using their account. If you do not send this to at least 10 Myspace members, we will delete your account. WARNING!
We want to find out which users are actually using their Myspace accounts. So if you are using your account, please pass this email to every Myspace user that you can. IF YOU DO NOT PASS this letter to anyone we will delete your account.

Sorry for this inconvenience.
-Tom

Ok, for one thing, they do delete nonactive accounts, and they know they're nonactive by looking through the database, so forwarding a PM is totally not necessary. For another thing, the more people use MySpace, the more money they make (though funding by advertisers). And third, if there was a problem, MySpace sends out an alert that pops up on your home page, they wouldn't expect you to forward a personal message to everyone you know. And, oh well whatdia' know! There's an alert that popped up just now saying

There's a chain letter going around encouraging people to forward a message in order to prove their MySpace account is active. The message says you need to do this in order to keep your MySpace account from being deleted. This is NOT true. Please do not forward these messages. You're just spamming your friends. Check out my latest blog for some MySpace updates.

And this is from the real Tom, who is employed by MySpace as the customer support rep.