When Phishers And 419ers Mate
from the fun-for-the-whole-scamming-family dept
This isn’t particularly new, as we’ve seen a few in the past as well, but Jeremy Wagstaff has noticed that the latest scam emails hitting his inbox seem to be combinations of 419 and phishing scams. They read like 419 scams, but rather than asking you to help sneak millions out of some war-torn country, they simply ask you to launder money for stray dogs in Russia. It’s always interesting to see how these scams evolve over time.
Comments on “When Phishers And 419ers Mate”
Which is more powerful, greed or puppies?
I do a lot of work for a lot of different industries, one that has always stuck me as interesting is the world of pets.
While I’m not against pet owners, and pet ownership, and while I’m sure that most pet owners are well adjusted and normal people, it seems like there are tons of people out there who are willing to go completely bust and into debt to help animals (whether or not they actually do any good is a question that is frequently raised, and most of the time, animal industry professionals will tell you that these people do worse for the animals than had they been allowed to roam free).
The interesting thing is, the kinds of people who engage in financially distructive animal ownership don’t have any common financial status. Many of them are millionaires and many of them don’t have a dime to their name.
My point is, there are TONS of people out there who lack any kind of judgement when it comes to caring for animals, and they are more than willing to give up the entire bank for their cause.
So if you ask me, these scammers are hitting a sure thing market, and I can only think that they are going to wonder why they haven’t done it earlier.
It never ceases to amaze me...
How many people are willing to make a ‘blind’ payment to whomever asks them for money over the internet. I know of a couple of people in the recent past who lost quite a large amount of money to people online. One was a ‘business plan’, one of those multi-level marketing ‘programs’, and the other actually fell for the Nigerian scam. (As an aside, I showed this guy the same type of e-mail that I had received. He was pissed that they had offered me thirty million and they only offered him fifteen…) Yet, these folks were certain that their money was well spent…
Re: It never ceases to amaze me...
I come from Nigeria and part of a team helping to fight the scourge of internet based 419 in the country. It is a terrible thing indeed because it has given most of us here a bad name, but 419 succeeds because the average African believes that the average whiteman, inspite of his technology and education, is a simpleton and easy to con out of his money. So far the white man has continued to “cooperate”. The “mugu” concept dwells around the greed of the “oyibo” (white man). If the person writing the letter appends the title “Dr” to his name, it makes it more believable. The latest is to address themselves in the “Mrs” title… yeah, a married woman is not likely to con you. Mugus continue to fall for these tricks because they are .. well from the standpoint here, stupid and greedy. Even where we have taken pains to inform some of would be victims of what is going on, they’re like Gaderene swine of the bible, headed for destruction even if you tried to stop them. 419 was a growth industry here, but it is dying, even if the number of emails sent are getting higher. Advice: If it sounds too good to be true, just run like hell. Don’t even try to respond. Remember these people can conjour anything on this earth to prove they are real and you cannot tell the difference between the documents they show and the real thing. Just run.
Re: Re: It never ceases to amaze me...
I responded that I was having a small cash-flow problem, but if the individual could loan me $20 000 for 90 days I’d be glad to help him launder the $250 million or whatever it was. I wonder how I would explain the several million dollars if I actually got it. What would my bank say?
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well recently i was searching for cars on a website. i saw an unbelievable deal and wrote to the seller.it turned out tht she was located in the UK, and was ready to ship the car, including customs and insurance and all other costs to the US. haha
unbelievable wht ppl put their minds into.