Scam of the week

[piccolomondo]

People wish diseases

Forget the bird flu; England is in the grip of an outbreak of esophageal cancer. At least, the e-mails in my inbox make it seem that way.

Jennifer Wilson, a London businesswoman, has it; so does Gerald Welsh, a London crude oil dealer. More remarkable is that both of these individuals, who are on the verge of death, have millions of dollars to dispose of, and that they want my help. Yours, too, probably. Most remarkable of all is that they use nearly the exact same language in asking for it.

Mr. Welsh says (all the misspelling are his):

"Dear friend,

"As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because I believe every one will die someday.

"My name is Gerald Welsh a crude oil dealer i am 51 yrs of age I lost my wife and two dauthers in a car accident here in the London. I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer and have been in the hospital hear in London for a very long time. It has defied all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have about few months to live, according to the medical experts.

"I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself) but my business and wealth. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

"I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it till date. Now that God is calling me, I have willed and shared most of my properties and assets to my immediate and extended family members, including few close friends.

"I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul, so I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth before Gods call. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations hear in London, Algeria, Malaysia, Africa and also the Tsunami victims. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my account and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan, they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them.

"The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of eight million united states dollars ($8.000.000) that I have with intercontinental & delivery Company here in Europe. I would want you to help me collect this deposit and distribute it to charity organizations in your country. I would want you to keep 20% of the funds to yourself and dispatch the rest to charity organizations. Please reply this mail as soon as possible even if you cannot handle this transaction on my behalf."

This scam has countless variants; colleague Steve Twedt reported on one from an alleged U.S. soldier seeking help in handling a stash of Saddam Hussein's cash ("Saddam's Millions Now an Internet Scam," May 1.

All of them offer a sum of money for helping someone to manage a much larger sum of money, but anyone who responds must eventually give up a sum of money to help the transaction along; thus the official term for these scams is "advance-fee fraud." At best, they are good for a laugh before you delete them.

[source]

[Cheba_Mami]

it is disguisting abusing the name of God for criminal activities. some humans are really lower than snakes. yuck!

[piccolomondo]

Ever been tempted to respond to that e-mail message offering untold millions from the relatives of a deposed African dictator?

For some, replying to such Internet scams is a rewarding hobby. They call themselves scam-baiters, and they have started taking justice into their own hands.

Scam-baiters scam the scammer. They antagonize, humiliate and frustrate scammers who think they have an unwary victim...

Their motives may seem altruistic, but not all law enforcement officials approve of their tactics, which can include entrapment and public humiliation. Many of the scam-baiters succeed in getting embarrassing photographs of their targets posted on the Internet.

"At first you might smile and think the trophy photographs are funny, but I have seen some with fraudsters in highly degrading positions,"
said Ralf Zimmermann, a crime intelligence officer in the financial and high-technology crimes division of Interpol, based in Lyon, France.
"They are fraudsters and they are not good people, but they have their human rights."

...

For all the effort and time spent by scam-baiters, not everyone is convinced that they make a difference.

read more >>

[piccolomondo]

New e-mail scams related to the Apple iPhone:

One e-mail claims you have 'won a new iPhone'. Clicking on the link however brings you to a page that attempts to exploit a number of well known Internet Explorer vulnerabilities and then downloads a malicious executable 'sys----.exe'. This executable installs itself as a service and upon review appears to be a spam bot. Anti virus coverage was very spotty this morning but has improved during the day.

Another scam aims to convince readers they need to go and buy an iPhone on what appears to be an Apple site (faked using a browser helper object). Naturally the site does not belong to Apple and you end up paying someone in Latvia. Sunbelt has a great writeup on this here.