E-mail scam attempts

In the last few days I have received several scam messages from Africa, sending nicely worded messages offering to give me money. As of today it adds up to $28,000,000.00.

I'm just curious how bad they can scam someone when only asking the following..


Full Names,.........
Residence Address...................
Telephone............
Fax Numbers........
Your private email contact......
Age,………………….
Sex.......................
Occupation,.................
Marital Status.........
Your Country.........
Copy of your valid international passport, I.D card or driving license

 

ENOUGH.... Usually for the US all they need is three things: Name, birthday and SS number to steal an idnetity. That is enough. Probably the passport, I.D card give them then final pieces of the puzzle. My passport, DL (both Philippines and California) and ACR gives them my date of birth and formal name.

 

Im sure they could craft some type of Fake but semi-verifiable ID with all of that information attempting to use your identity. Also several other attempts such as this is common where they will send you a fake check with an amount larger then the amount they said you could keep and ask that you send back the extra they sent via western union. So you send the over-paid amount and by the time the bank realizes the check is fake your money is already gone and sent.

 

d*mn, you need a better email address provider. I use Gmail and I rarely get spam in my spam box let alone in my inbox. As you might imagine, Google has ridiculous data and tools to detect spam and most of it doesn't even make it past the front door.

So, in this case, they would send you a check for $28,000,200 and you send them back the extra $200?

I haven't kept up with the latest in Nigerian scams, but typically once they hook you, they would ask for you to send money to pay legal / lawyer fees.

All that info they ask from you is probably just a smoke screen to make it look legit.

I doubt they would be doing any identity theft from Africa. I'm no expert, but I believe that identity theft and credit card fraud most often happens closer to home. Otherwise the credit card company gets suspicious.

They have to tell you they are from Africa because you would find out anyways, as soon as they give you the Western Union info. It makes for a more believable story if they weave their true origins in from the beginning.

 

What would be the percentage of sent E-Mails that come back with usuable information, could not be that many...
I had an attempt a few years back, were I got a mail from a friend, and the story went, that she is stranded in London after having participated in a seminar sponsored by her employers, the whole thing looked real, she asked for some money to be wired to her hotel, the sender address was hers exactly, it only was not possibly true because I knew she was in Australia in her home when I got the mail...

The same story with different people happened to two other guys living here at the same time, one was the editor of the Negros Cronicle, most likely the attack came from locals...

 

They don't have to have a high percentage of successful scams, and there are some pretty stupid people out there. They got my sister with this one, told her my other sister was stranded in the UK. Just a little bit of common sense would have told her differently, as the "stranded" sister hasn't enough money to get across the state, let alone half way around the world. Thars a sucker born ever minut!

Larry

 

This one is a bit more convincing than the others. Generally this one starts with a hack to get into your email. The scammer then blasts the message out to everyone in your contacts list.

I'm sure your sister appreciates you calling her stupid.

 

I just received this scam mail. This is the one that if you respond with your info, they will change your password and lock you out of your account. Next they send one of those BS messages that you are stranded in the U.K.

This is an old one, but people still fall for it.

Ron



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Jul 2 at 9:07 AM


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