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McAfee Labs :

A fool and their money are soon parted

Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 12:27pm by Archive
Archive

I received an email from the son of a rich farmer in Zimbabwe recently, the poor guy is in a terrible predicament. His father has been assassinated and he has been left a $7.7 million inheritance, but he’s worried that Africa isn’t a safe place to invest the money. This is where I come in. He wants to give me 35% of the total if I invest the money for him in the UK!! I smell a rat”¦

The amazing thing is that thousands of people don’t. In 2006 the highest dollar loss per incident reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center was the Nigerian Scam with a median loss of $5,100. I’m amazed that so many people can fall for this well known scam that has been around, in various forms for a long time.

Out of curiosity I decided to reply and see how convincing the process is. I sent a short email suggesting I might be able to help which got the following reply:

DEAR MR,

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR RESPONDING TO MY URGENT REQUEST FOR ASISSTANCE. AM GLAD YOU HAVE AGREED TO HELP ME OUT IN THIS SITUATION. FIRST AND FOREMOST I NEED TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE SOMEBODY I CAN TRUST ON THIS VERY MATTER, I AM VERY SERIOUS. AS YOU MAY KNOW, THE AMOUNT INVOLVED IS A LOT OF MONEY, IT BELONGS TO MY FAMILY AND SO I CANNOT AFFORD TO MAKE MISTAKES IN TRANSFERRING IT OUT OF THIS COUNTRY SAFELY, I NEED TO CERTIFY THAT THE PERSON I AM ABOUT TO DEAL WITH IS ABLE TO HANDLE THIS TRANSACTION. I HOPE YOU WONT MIND TO FURNISH ME WITH YOUR COMPLETE DETAILS BELOW:

FULL NAMES, ADDRESS, OCCUPATION, AGE, TEL, MOBILE:

THIS INFORMATION WILL BE FORWARDED TO OUR FAMILY ATTORNEY WHO WILL HANDLE THE WHOLE TRANSACTION FOR US. THE ATTORNEY HAS BEEN INFORMED ALREADY ABOUT OUR FOREIGN PARTNER WHO WILL HELP US MOVE THE FUNDS OUT, BUT WE DID NOT GIVE THE NAME YET TO HIM, SO AFTER RECEIVING YOUR DETAILS, IT WILL BE GIVEN TO THE ATTORNEY AS OUR LATE FATHER BUSINESS PARTNER THAT WE HAVE BEEN WAITNG FOR. THE ATTORNEY WILL THEN CONTACT YOU AND LET YOU KNOW THE PROCESS AND REQUIRMENT TO COMPLETE THE TRANSFER. BE INFORMED THAT WHEN THE TRANSACTION IS COMMENCED, YOUR PRESENCE MIGHT BE REQUIRED HERE IN SOUTH AFRICA IN OTHER TO SIGN FOR THE RELEASE OF THE FUNDS. AFTER COMPLETING THE WHOLE PROCESS, THE FUNDS WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO A CERTIFIED BANK ACCOUNT WHICH YOU SHALL PROVIDE. LASTLY, ALSO LET ME KNOW WHERE IS SUITABLE TO INVEST THE MONEY, AFTER WE MUST HAVE MOVED IT OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA.

HOPING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON. 

THANKS AND REGARDS,

WILLIAMS ANDREW.

Attached was a Certificate of Deposit, just to reassure me:

Certificate of Deposit

 I replied with a few phoney details and after a few days he replied again:

I HAVE DELAYED IN RESPONDING TO YOU, SORRY ABOUT THAT I WAS AWAY TO MOZAMBIQUE TO PICK UP SOME MONEY FROM MY MOTHER’S SISTER. THE MONEY WAS USED TO PAY THE ATTORNEY’S RETAINERSHIP FEES WHICH HE WAS ASKING FOR BEFORE HE CAN PROCEED WITH OUR TRANSACTION. THAT IS THE REASON WHY HE HAS NOT CONTACTED YOU. HE IS ASKING FOR SEVEN THOUSAND US DOLLARS(US$ 7,000.00 USD), AND THAT WE SHOULD PROVIDE FIVE THOUSAND NOW FOR HIM TO COMMENCE, I HAVE PAID HIM THE FIVE THOUSAND US DOLLARS THIS MORNING.

I can see the scam taking shape now. There’s a missing $2,000 dollars that will need to be paid some time soon! After this I received an email from Houghton Harper Inc. who are supposedly a law firm in South Africa. They’ve even got their own website.

Dear Sir,


I have prepared the agreement between you and the Andrew Family. The documents have been attached, please print out the 3rd page and sign the area indicated in your name, scan and send it back to me. I tried calling you this morning, but it was an answering machine. When the agreement is fully ready, we can now commence the transaction immediately. Just in case you have any queries in regards to the agreement, please do not hesitate to let me know. But I can assure you the modalities is ok for both parties.
 

Kind Regards,

Bar. Jafar Da Silva.

Agreement

Agreement

Agreement

At this stage I was satisfied that I know what the process is, and I’m obviously not going to sign anything no matter how obviously fake they look so I decided to confront Mr Andrew. I told him I knew he was a spammer and asked if he gets many responses or makes any money out of it. He replied fairly quickly”¦

Hi,

Good to hear from you.Well, what can I say ?You know sometimes I begin to wonder why it has to be like this, but there are so many things involved, the reason why we do what we do.If i begin to explain, it might take ten full pages, but its OK, you know I am a spammer, that’s the way you put it, but I don’t see myself that way, i am just trying to survive, since I don’t have any other means to make ends meet, I cannot take a gun and start robbing people, I cannot see myself doing that.

Anyway, it’s nice to hear from you once again, and also coming to the knowledge of the business, that is what I call it (business), everything in this life is all about business, it doesn’t really matter the way you see it, spam or whatever, you can judge me if you want to, but the truth is, it is not your right to judge me. 99% of this world is all fraud, in Government, even in your profession, there is fraud in it, you might not be fraudulent, but there are others who are in the same field as you that are fraudulent. 

Even in trying to justify his actions this guy just can’t help using social engineering to try to make us feel sorry fo him. He makes absurd claims about George Bush and Tony Blair. This is the same kind of language that is used in the original emails when he is trying to trick me out of my money.

In Britain and America, the world most powerful Countries as we know them to be, there is fraud or spam going on all around, Going to war in Iraq is a Spam or whatever, don’t you know ? I know you will find it funny, but that is exactly what it is.

With all due respect to them, President Bush and Former Prime Minister Blair have made millions of dollars in their own pockets from the war, or what do you think is going on there, Open your eyes my friend and see what is going on around you.

The bottom line is, what we do today, we learnt from you, whether you believe it or not, and that is the truth. Finally note this fact, no man on earth is perfect, you can never find one, not even you and not in this life time, so if you think that President Bush and his Counterpart PM Blair are perfect just because they are the leaders of the two most powerful countries in the world, you better start thinking again.

Powerful language indeed. But don’t fall for it. These guys are experts at making people feel sorry for them, so sorry that they want to help them. That’s probably the single reason so many people fall for this scam, its almost perfect, help a poor guy in Africa while making a fortune at the same time. An attractive offer if it were true.

Anyway that is all for now, take care of yourself, feel free to write me anytime.  By the way my real name is Andy.

Sincerely Yours,

Andy.

And that is the last I heard from Andy!

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Comments (11)

  • Thomas August 17, 2009 10:18PM

    The law firm in question is a real firm by the way. Genuine genuine genuine, registered as a firm, fully operational. I’ve even driven past their offices. I live in SA by the way. I really doubt they even know about the scam, be interesting to find out.. Especially if you consider that if you google them, this article is right there destroying their reputation!

    Reply
  • Velska March 5, 2009 1:10AM

    These scams are still going strong. Not so long ago, a US senator was suckered into a scam like this. I put an email address (obviously not my personal mail that I have managed to keep spam-free since 2001 now) on my blogs, visible for all. I figured I can always use the advanced filtering options they provide, and if it goes too far, I’ll just cancel the account.

    Somebody sure noticed. I’ve been getting “feelers” from these scammers, and I’m trying to lead them on and make them feel comfortable enough to slip a personal detail into the conversation. No luck so far.

    Anyhow, I routinely report them to the police – they have asked to be notified, and keep a database of known scammers.

    Graeme in comment #10 is probably right, that the majority of these are generated by a small clique, mostly Nigerians (if you check the IP of the originating server, it usually turns out to be in Nigeria – although spoofed IPs are nothing new).

    Reply
  • Graeme Smith, Fife September 22, 2007 1:43PM

    I used to get these a lot… at first I would ignore them, then, like Kevin I started answering them… they were just so obvious.

    I teach in a college and together with my students we would look at them… we would then see if we could have fun with them, for example, i asked for proof they were for real and asked for a photo… which they duly sent… i argued it could be fake so they should hold up a piece of paper with some random letters on it… i told them to write the letters and numbers 1D10T (idiot)… which they did.

    I’d ask where to meet them and say I was on a Golf trip to a nearby town (after finding something on Google that is).

    I would use names like John Wayne, Bruce Lee and Dwayne Pipe (that was one of my favourites)… they ALWAYS asked for phone numbers which I refused. After 3-4 weeks of this they started to get annoyed with me and I would then confront them as Kevin did… so who’s been had :)

    They all stopped after a while which made me think it was the same set of people doing this… or that somewhere the spammers have a site with a list of good and bad email addresses (if you know what i mean).

    It’s a bit extreme doing this and can be a bit tedious but if you get the chance its always good for a laugh… especially when you tell your friends about it :)

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  • Erkki Lehtimäki August 21, 2007 12:30AM

    You really got him admit he’s a scammer? I have never managed to do that, till the end of the discussion they keep claiming they are real.

    Erkki

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  • Jussi August 17, 2007 3:20AM

    I have a feeling that those “nigerian letters” are there to make it impossible to real-money-laundries to work. If there are some fraud emails going around nobody can take any of these seriously and that’s the point … there maybe are some people who really would like to move large amounts of money out of Africa? Never say no-way!

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  • Hannu August 5, 2007 10:22AM

    The guy is a spammer and a fraud, that is for sure. But what makes you so sure that George Bush and Tony Blair have not made personal financial gain through the war that many people find unjustified and unfair?

    I am not stating that they have because I am not sure, but you are stating that it is absurd to state that Bush and Blair have made personal financial gain and I wonder where your get the idea that his claims about Bush and Blair are absurd?

    His claims may be impolite but not absurd at all.

    Best, Hannu

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  • LadyBlue August 2, 2007 1:03PM

    As much as this scam is as old as the bankers that bankrupted Africa, one nation at a time, it is true that he is a scammer/spammer and there is no justification for ripping people off, up close or just by the numbers, or by selling them a democracy with strings attached. This is what happens when people in far away places dont know anything about where their coltan comes from or where their bullets end up. This is our world today and it is getting smaller and smaller. And if I were the recipient of one of these messages I would consider the fact that the message is probably not coming from outside the United States at all, these people are the children of the military dictators that the U.S. and Britian installed and were probably educated here. If we want to stop these phishing scams we need to educate the public about the truth, that money, never, ever needs to be handled by strangers and that money no matter where it is is always welcome and moves faster and with less friction than light through air. Then we set ourselves about the work of bringing the living standard of every man woman and child to a level that justifies all the time we spend on our ever spreading bottoms in front of our P.C.’s sifting through junk mail.
    The House of Azure

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  • MichaelW July 31, 2007 5:28PM

    Interesting insight into what goes on, I for one havn’t proceeded with any of these emails and just do the obvious and delete them so it’s nice to see a report such as above.

    I’m sure myself and many others would like to see similar articles detailing other scams/frauds that have been attempted as it truley does give you some insight into who is behind our email woes and an inkling of what make them tick.

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  • Raven July 31, 2007 1:40PM

    I cannot believe some people fall for that! I think that´s by far the lamest effort to scam people´s money. Nice work there. More of these “investigations”!

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  • Justified July 31, 2007 4:40AM

    There are always people who are willing to make profit from idiots. If people are stupid enough to give their credit card number to a talking moose, theres someone who believes a story like that and pays a few thousand dollars to the “poor” man in Africa. And I sincerely believe the claim “Andy” made about Bush & Blair benefiting economically from waging war. Indirectly of course. Oil and such..

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  • ChrisCD July 27, 2007 5:25AM

    Thanks for taking the time to follow the trail a bit. I’ve always just deleted those type of “offers”. Like you, I can’t believe people fall for it. The newest iteration I’ve seen is they are setting up blogs to enlist people’s “help”.

    Reply