Latest 419 Scam: Asking Your Friends For A Loan
from the HOPE-TO-READ-FROM-YOU… dept
It's been interesting to see how the so-called Nigerian 419 scams have evolved over time as people have become more familiar with them. In the past, it's often been difficult to feel too sorry for victims, as they were taken in by their own greed at the possibility of sharing in a large amount of illicitly gained loot. However, it appears the recent variations play less on greed and much more on charitable emotions. Last month, we wrote about Nigerian scammers exploiting the idea of cute puppies needing a home, and now comes a report that the latest trick is to combine phishing with a 419 scam to try to get your friends to wire money to Nigeria, thinking it's to help you. It starts with a typical phishing scam, in an attempt to get your webmail password. Then, once the scammers have access to your webmail, they send an urgent email to all of your contacts, saying that you are in Nigeria, and you lost your wallet and are in serious trouble, and are requesting a quick loan wired to Nigeria. Of course, the emails seem to be sent out to just about everyone, meaning that many people will realize it's not true. At least in the example above, it's written in typically bad 419-scam "English," making it obviously fake. However, it's likely that this will continue to evolve and get better as well -- again, preying on people's best interests rather than their greed.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Use the Phone
A few years ago, they were placing calls to online businesses via the Sprint phone service for the deaf or mute and getting an operator to conduct a transaction for them while they type the correspondence into the computer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nuke em
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Nuke em
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I must look like a sucker
The bad thing is that pretty soon these email scams are going to get so good that it will soon be hard to tell which emails are real or fake even from someone that is used to these scams. I can see deleting real emails by accident coming in the near future.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This happened to me
Yahoo was completely unreasonable in "helping" me get my account back; it took well over 24 hours and would have been longer if I hadn't called back so many times & finally got one customer service rep willing to help.
Interestingly, the first e-mail they sent was to "larryweezy@yahoo.com". The total text of the message was "bvh" (not sure what that meant - maybe "big victim here."
Larryweezy's contact info is here:
http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=87400579
& http://360.yahoo.com/profile-TgumEVw9erQwxYbzQdgQjPc4
Then when my husband pretended he would agree to send money, this is who the scammer gave as the contact info:
Name : Emmanuel James
Address : 100 Allen avenue
City : Ikeja
State : Lagos,
Country : Nigeria
Zip code : 23401
Text question : To who
Answer : Emmanuel
As soon as yo make the payment please get back to me with the sender's name,address,Mtcn# so i the hotel manager can have the money picked up.
Thanks and hope to read from you soon
I would love to be able to get this info to someone trying to fight the Nigerian fraud but Yahoo CERTAINLY isn't interested (despite their claims "we really care about you!").
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Charities Are Being Hit Up Too
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Charities Are Being Hit Up Too
Advanced Fee Fraud aka 419
My favorite line from the email is this one:
She is just toooo sick (cough, wheeze) to answer the phone. And she doesn't want her relatives to know she is giving away the money. You see her husband's relatives are hovering around her death bed waiting for her to dead. And they would be really p*ssed off to find out there isn't any money.So shhhhhh let's keep this a secret (wink). And you better hurry up before I die because my relatives won't be giving you a donation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
em f;qAEhfrtu]q
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
THEY SHOULD BE A SHAMED
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
9089
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How long do I have to tolerate all the following bulshit supposed to be originated from Yahoo? Isn't there anybody responsible to bring those people to Court, for trying to deceiving me into revealing my password which should then be used against my will and without my knowledge to all my contacts for illegal purposes?
................................
.........................
Final Warning!!!
From: Yahoo Customer Service Add to Contacts
To:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are really sorry for any inconvinience this might cause you. Due to the congestion in all Yahoo! account users, Yahoo! will be shuting down all unused accounts. In order to avoid the deactivation of your account, you will have to confirm your e-mail by filling your Login Info below by clicking the reply button.
Full name: .........................................
Username: .........................................
Password: .........................................
Date Of Birth: .....................................
Occupation: .......................................
Country Of Residence: ........................
After you must have followed the instructions on the sheet, your Yahoo! account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thank you for your usual co-operation. We apologize for any inconvinience.
Yahoo! Customer Care
Case number: 2641930
Property: Account Security
Regards,
Yahoo! Account Services
-------------------------
We are really sorry for any inconvinience this might cause you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Friend Scam
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
scams should be stopped
In recent past, we have noticed many scams had happened at small or large scale. It can be stopped if we pay little attention to it. People must consider some legal services with legitimate companies such as https://www.paydaysunny.com and they can get personal loan without any hesitation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]