419 Scam Blow-by-Blow

timbos writes "Check out this six-page dissection of a 419 scam at The Register. In particular, the fake banking site that the fraudsters set up is interesting..."

Did anyone get...

[AKAImBatman]

...the new Spam mail with links? I just received a very reasonable sounding spam that talked about how some official was involved in a money scam, and recently died. It then backs up those statements with the following links:

http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?fArticl eId=2696 [businessdayonline.com]
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/headline/ f111052004.html [vanguardngr.com]

The thing was so convincing, that it went right past Google Mail's SPAM filter and landed in my inbox. (All other Nigerian scams ended up in the SPAM folder.) Takes things to a whole new level.

In case anyone's interested, here's the complete text:

Subject: Hi...partner needed

I do not want to intrude so I will be brief and try and get to the point. I
have to use this way to contact you because it is quicker and more secured
for me. In today's world, I know it is sometimes hard to believe stories from
someone you dont know because I know we have never meet. In our world a
female's rights are not equal to a man's. Hence I need to look for contacts
outside our shores. My name is Angela Afolabi. My father, Sunday Afolabi,
just died some weeks back in a London Hospital of Cancer. He was a former
Internal Affairs Minister inmy country up till last year. This was before he
fell out with the present government. And since then and up till his death,
life was not easy for me and the family, but I give thanks to god that I am
still alive.
Before the death of my father, things were not easy and though my father died
leaving a fortune to us, the Government has refused to release the funds. My
father was imprisoned for several months last year and I am sure this is what
hastened his death. He had been arrested for being involved in a National
Identity contract scheme involving a lot of money.
For more on this, go to:

http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?fArti cl eId=2696
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002 /headline/ f111052004.html

I and my family have gone through alot.
Currently, I need an agent for reasons which I will say later. I was close to
my father and you see my father revealed to me certain information about some
bond certificates and money with a firm abroad when he was sick. I never
realised he would die so soon. I am unable to act on it now for security
reasons.
As a young woman here in this country, my options are limited. So I need an
agent or a partner in this endeavour.

Thank you.

Angela.

Re:Mother nature at work.

[ROOK*CA]

Interesting, but sad article. I just find it so difficult to believe that people continue to fall for this oh so obvious scam....makes you wonder if some people would still fall for the "I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale" line.

FYI: For some funny accounts of how would be victims turn the tables on 419 scammers check out this site:

http://www.scamorama.com [scamorama.com]

Modern Civilization

[mmclar]

The problem with this is that, unless the victim is killed or sterilized by being suckered in (which they (almost?) always aren't in 419 scams, there is no refining of the human gene pool. Millions or even thousands of years ago, this kind of thing worked the way it was supposed to: Gu: "Hey Ug, come into my cave, I have some free goat meat for you!" Ug: "OK" Gu: (clubs Ug on the head and procreates with Ug's mate)

419 scams

[WarMonkey]

Fraud is wrong. Laws against it should be enforced. But even so, this whole matter raises some questions...

By increasing the speed, reach and convenience of communication, are we creating a world where those who refuse to learn are more readily identified as fools, and then allowed to screw themselves up?

Might that, on some level, be a Good Thing(tm)?

I work in tech support. I am continually amazed by the lack of critical thinking skills people exhibit.

This is not a "technical" thing. People act like retards because they have no sense of responsibility for their own selves.

At what point do we say "The world has tried to protect you from yourself long enough. It's on YOU now!"

Re:Greed

[LostCluster]

Every time I see a TV programme where someone who was interviewed who had been ripped off, I have to keep remembering that all semblence of common sense and decency went out of their minds in the pursuit of wealth.

This is an interesting component of 419 schemes that cause US law enforcement resources to not care about them. See, since any 419 scheme in order to be credible involves an offer of what would have been an illegal transfer of money to you, the fact you got burned becomes a natural consequence of your attempt to break the law.

If we have so many laws against money transfers to terrorists, just how do you think a few million is going to be given to you in any way that the IRS can't get its hands on?... You should know that if you do get the money promised in the way they promise you'd be breaking the law, and that's why law enforcement isn't behind you when you go crying "SCAM!"

What did their mothers teach them?

[i love pineapples]

I can feel bad if these victims if the scammers are taking advantage of people in a weakened state that would inhibit judgement or lend itself to gullibility, such as the elderly. However, I keep reading more and more about "average Joes" falling for this crap, which leads me to wonder-- didn't they ever hear the phrase "if it's too good to be true, it probably is"? Weren't they, at least once in their life, warned about get-rich-quick schemes?

Doesn't an alarm ever go off in their head that just screams "holy crap, this is totally sketchy!!!"??

Re:Article quote:

[fr2asbury]

And I actually had someone yesterday IM me asking if I'd heard about the AOL/MS email tracking software that was going to get him lots of money. I felt kinda bad crushing his dream, but not very.

Re:1-419-COM-CAST.

[TedCheshireAcad]

Sounds like a similar scenario from SBC Internet Service. They told my mother that "there was a problem with her IP Telephony Stack Throughput" and that they would have to send a technician out there at $50/hour for about 3 hours to fix it. I re-started her DSL modem and it worked again. Brilliant.

Re:Article quote:

[ron_ivi]

It can happen to anyone. Funny how it has some parallels to this other nigerian fraud scandal [reuters.com].

If you haven't followed it, it was essentially "If you put $150-$180 million in this offshore bank account, I'll give your company a $5 billion [corpwatch.org] contract for a Nigerian Natural Gas plant; and even kick back $5million to you personally."

Apparently even this big company that should have nown better said "sure".

Re:Mother nature at work.

[Blindman]

The problem is that it transfers resources from the stupid to the morally bankrupt. I don't know if either group deserves to spread its genes. Furthermore, a lot of the "stupid" have already spawned.

Re:1-419-COM-CAST.

[ScottGant]

I had a similar experience where a company such as SBC wanted to send someone out that would charge by the hour.

I said, that's ok, just cancel my account cause there are other ISP's in my area, thanks. Before I could hang up they of course said "wait a minute" and "got the manager" etc etc.

Needless to say, they sent someone out to fix the problem...which happened to be a real hardware/line problem...for free.

While this may not always work, it most cases it does.

Hmm

[arieswind]

Seems like a whole lot of work for 1000$, doesnt it? i can make 1000$ in about 2.5 days....

another scam-the-scammer story

[RyLaN]

Can be found at P-P-P Powerbook.com. [p-p-p-powerbook.com]
In short, the guy was contacted after he put his iBook up on eBay. He realized it was a scam, and sent the scammer a notebook instead. The forum has pictures from people who lived around the delivery zone, and were actually there when the scammer opened the faked package. Definately worth a read.

You gotta love the java ebanking

[PowerBert]

Why can't my bank store it's customers account information inside a java applet. That way I could download my account and take it with me ;)

strings account.class | grep -i welcome
Welcome Richard J Cronan
WELCOME SIMON K. YI
WELCOME DONALD GENE GILMORE
WELCOME KURT OBAN
Welcome GUENTER REITH
Welcome RAYMOND SEAH
Welcome KENNETH W. BUSSA
WELCOME VINCENT STURDIVANT
WELCOME MONIQUE RODRIQUEZ
WELCOME ROYLEAN COLLINS
WELCOME Jean Paul Bouchet
Welcome ALBERTO T ORTEGA
Welcome Orin Gillian
Welcome Teimuraz Ramazashvili
Welcome HENRY PARK
Welcome MAURICE AMANG
"WELCOME DR. HENGAMEH GHAEN-MAGHAMI

Poor old DG, or should I say "DONALD GENE GILMORE"

interestingly the java class also contains the string "Please Produce Anti-Terrorist Certificate"

Re:Article quote:

[sTalking_Goat]

Whats really starnge about this is that its not a very sophisticated scam. A few years back I was almost phone scammed but only because the scammers had a lot of info from an old lawsuit I was invovled in with about 300 other people. They called me up claiming the company had settled and they need to info before they could send me my cheque. So I started spilling my guts until she asked me for my #SS and alarm bells started going off in my head. I asked what for and she started fast talking me. They almost had me. They had a lot of info they couldn't have gotten from public records. They even had my name right, which is unusual for telemarketers because my name is long and wierd and poeple tend to chop off the end or misspell it.

Beware of shakespearean bankers

[Random_Goblin]

let's not forget the intitial e-mail from a yahoo.co.uk account

From: "Sarah Londom"

To:
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 9:40 PM
Subject: H.S.B.C.## STANDARD CLAIMS ENQUIRY?

Date: 05/06/2004
Greetings,

Transfer of Title Enquiry:H.S.B.C.

My name is Sarah Londom. I work as an executive partner for the firm Dupont consulting and Londom, Investment Brokers and Security Consultants U.K.
We are conducting an end of year consolidated financial statement for the year ending Mar.2004 under conjunctional agreement with H.S.B.C. This notary enquiry involves a client who shares your surname and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at H.S.B.C.(Republic) A Commercial and Investment arm of the parent Bank. It was brought to our knowledge that the formentioned client died in testate and nominated no next of kin to the title over the investments made with the Bank. We came to know of you via the London. Global. Database.Center (L.G.D.C.) Hence we are making this contact. The essence of this communication with you is to request that you provide us with information on 3 KEY issues.
1. Are you aware of any relative/relation who's last contact address was Brussels, Belgium?
2. Who shares a similiar name with thee?
3. Who' date of birth on file was 27/07/1932?

Thank-you for your time.

Best regards,

www.touchbirmingham.co.uk/comdir/cditem.cfm/4541
Mrs Dupont.Sarah Firth-Londom

E-Mail:[e-mail]

not going into the obvious why is this person using a yahoo account for business. What is this womans name? Sarah Londom, Sarah L Dupont, Mrs Dupont Sarah Firth-Londom... I mean isn't one name enough for this woman?
"It was brought to our knowledge that the formentioned client died in testate" do you mean aforementioned there? I think you do, and "in testate" hmm that actually means the opposite of intestate
the whole phrasing is just poor, like someone trying to sound official. I particuarly like the weird "2. Who shares a similiar name with thee?"


On the whole I find myself having very little sympathy for the sucker in this scam... these are the same stupid bastards who think sending SPAM to buy their sugar pills is a great way to make quick money... ,

Re:Mother nature at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sincerely,
the rest of the world who is tired of attempted slashdork elitism

That would be the non-SlashDot readers who read SlashDot? A small group, I'm guessing. :)

Re:Article quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Norbert J. Geisendorker, of 199 S. Cactus Ave, Brownsville Texas, that kind of information is pretty easy to obtain.

Oh, and say hi to your wife Maria for me.

Re:Article quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things really struck me about that the article linked to in the previous comment:

1st - The company was Halliburton, the one that's been generating controversey over its government contracts due to it's ties to VP Dick Cheney. Controversey or no, it's definitely a large company and it's concerning that they should fall victim. A

2nd - There was an ad for Kerry-Edwards on the page. Chance or targeted advertising?

Re:Article quote:

[snake_dad]

No bank communication I've ever seen has had such poor grammar and spelling.

But you are educated enough to spot that. I guess the intended targets are hardly equipped to detect bad spelling. (Neither am I but that's ok, I'm just a dayem ferriner ;-) )

And then this, which I think in English means "hey, wanna join my scam?"

Make the target feel smarter than the rest, and make him feel like he finally gets his (well deserved) lucky break... sinker, line, hook.

Re:Article quote:

[leapis]

I find an equal amount of technical fault in the website itself. Words are capitalized when they shouldn't be "We Provide our clients...", "on Behalf of Governments", etc. Also, the format of the phone number (all jumbled together) is one you rarely see, and never somewhere like a bank site.

And the thing that gets me the most. Why did a "leading bank" just register their domain in 2004, if they've existed since 1994? Was this the one and only bank that Y2K took out, and it took this long to get back online? I doubt it.

Re:Actually, "Clive" is a cut above

[Allen Zadr]

My favorite is that the fake dead investor was born in 1932 (coincidentally the same year as the mark's father), but then -- soon after -- the dead investor is suddenly born in 1930.

Even if you're really stupid... Would you "forget" that the dead investor was born in the same YEAR as your own father????

Re:Article quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, it even apparently happned while Cheney was running the company!

Halliburton, the oil conglomerate once headed by Dick Cheney, involved in a massive $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria on Cheney's watch? [laweekly.com]

Man, if they'll even fall for large-scale 419 scams, no wonder the fell for the 911-iraq-wmd scam.

Similar scam, but I have their $4000 check.

[volvoguy]

It's amazing how common these scams are online these days. I was contacted by someone on a dating website who claimed to live in my area but was currently working in Africa. They claimed they couldn't cash their paycheck there and asked if they could send it to me to cash and send back to them via Western Union. Assuming it was just someone goofing around, I told them to go for it and received a cashiers check in the mail about a week later for $4000. I took it right to my bank, knowing that they could check the routing numbers and such and it only took them about 30 seconds to notice that nothing on the check matched up. Apparently many people just mindlessly take these checks in and get the cash - then send it off to an address in Africa. About a week later when the bank tries to process the check, they discover it's a fake and the guy that cashed it is responsible for paying the money back. I scanned everything and sent all the info I had to everyone that could possibly be involved - Yahoo (where we chatted and emailed), UPS (who delivered the fake check), the dating website, Western Union, the FBI, my local police department... and the only response I got was from the dating website telling me the offending profile would be removed. It's kinda cool to show off my fake $4000 check from a fake African bank though. :)

Re:Article quote:

[strider_starslayer]

I don't know about your bank- but my bank sent out a letter saying that they were no longer going to circulate paper in any means, unless requested, in order to cut costs.

All my banking is done online, and the last thing I had mailed to me was a copy of a cashed cheque that I specifically requested, and I got it via e-mail.

I'd like all of my financial transactions to go that way.

Re:Article quote:

[sallen]

Yes, the "victim" was not a nice person, but he never actually committed any crimes and people did in fact steal from him

Are you sure? IANAL, so possibly one can answer. Isn't conspiracy to commit a crime in itself a crime, even if the actual crime is not perpetrated? (ie, consipiracy to commit fraud/theft, etc.) It sure seems on the surface he's certainly guilty of that. So he got stung for 1000 while trying to 'steal' millions. No sympathy here. Possibly the comment the victim is a scumbucket is irrelevant may be correct. But the victim is potentially as much a criminal as the scammer and willinging pursued that activity. I don't see that as irrelevant.