Nigerian Scam Letters

[Old_Hickory]

Anyone else been getting this crap sent to there e-mail accounts?I get about 3 or 4 a day. I have a yahoo email account. The wording is different in each one and the author is different,but it is basically the same garbage,all of them have come from(supposedly) Nigeria except for a couple. I bet I have gotten a hundred in the last 2 months.
Here is one of them as follows:

Attention,
I am Barrister (Dr.) Richard Gordon (ESQ) a solicitor,
I am the personal attorney to the immediate past
President of Liberia MR. CHARLES TAYLOR, who is
presently on political asylum in Nigeria.

I know this letter will come to you as a surprise as
we have not met before, but I have to contact you as I
have been instructed by my client MR. CHARLES TAYLOR
to find a trustee in this business.

I got your contact over the internet during my search
for an assistance in this business, This became
necessary as my client CHARLES TAYLOR do not want
anybody who is known to his family to be associated
with this business.

Note that this business is 100% risk free, However you
must confirm your ability to handle this business as
it involves a large sum of money. The fund FIFTY TWO
MILLION UNITED STATE DOLLARS (US$52million) was
shipped and deposited in a security company in Europe
by MR. CHARLES TAYLOR during the recent political
turmoil in his country Liberia.

Now that he is on political asylum in Nigeria, He
needs a trustworthy person like you to proceed on his
behalf to the place of the security company in order
to clear the funds for joint business Venture as he
does not have intention to bringing the funds back to
Africa. Afterwards I his attorney will come over to
your country and meet you on his behalf for final
agreement of the joint business venture.

Note that I will send to you the relevant documents
that will enable you take possession of this funds for
onward investment, All I need from you is as follows,

1, Your confirmation of your ability to handle this
business.

2, Your word that you will keep this business as
confidential as possible at all times until we
conclude this business.

3, Your telephone and fax numbers for communication.

4, Your full parmanent address.

5, My client have also promised to reward you with 25% of the total
sum($52M) as soon as
you complete the business.

As soon as I get the above information from you, I
will disclose to you the name and the country where
the security company is, I will also forward to you
the contact and the name of the director of the
security company, I will also send your name and
contact to the security company to enable them contact
you accordingly. As we make progress, I will send to
you A LETTER OF AUTHORITY AND AN AGREEMENT LETTER that
will enable you clear the funds on my client behalf.

I am waiting for your immediate response to enable us
proceed.Please contact me with this email address
rgordon_chambers@starspath.com or barrgordon@wapda.com

Yours Faithfully.
Barrister (Dr.) Richard Gordon (ESQ)

 

[thcri]

Yep,

I have gotten that one about ten times in the last week. I just delete it, don't even read the top line anymore.

murph

 

[Junkman]

I read a while back that the U.S. Government has warned the Government of Nigeria that if they didn't do something to rein in these crooks that they (Nigeria) might loose all U.S. aid money. Even this hasn't made a dent and the scam continues. The sad part is the number of people that have been caught up by the scam and have lost their life savings.

 

[Old_Hickory]

I like to mess with them some,I tell them I will get back with them as soon as I talk to the police etc. or instead of a wire transfer I would prefer cash,thats usually as far as it goes.

 

[OkeeDon]

I tell them I will have significant expenses setting up accounts, etc., to handle their business, so as a sign of good faith, they should deposit just 1/10 of 1% of the eventual reward (in this case, 25% of $52 Miliioin is $13 Million, so .1% is $13,000) into my PayPal account. I tell them if they don't have that much cash, then they are too small for me to deal with them.

The exchanges back and forth after that can get pretty funny. They're not used to people tellling them that they have to do something up front.

 

[Old_Hickory]

I wonder what would happen if you give them an account number of an actual account with zero balance in it ?

 

[Bird]

When this was a fairly new scam (to me at least) a couple of years ago, I forwarded them to our State Attorney General, but later just started deleting them. And I don't think I've gotten any in the last year.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Merry Christmas Bird,

I'm a deleter by nature. There have been so many variations of the same theme, free money, that I usually just delete when it comes up.

In my mind I always see a person on the pier nursing a hundred fishing poles. One of those poles might have the right bait. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

In this case I'm sure the spamscammer is nursing hundreds of thousands of poles.

Of course all they need is one good bite. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Old_Hickory]

Thats interesting....

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Harv,

Your analogy of the fishing poles is a good one. With email there's virtually no cost involved in casting the lines and it must work to some level as we still see the scammers using this one.

There's been a rash of fake motorcycle listings (and at least one for a Kubota tractor) on Ebay recently that use a very low 'Buy it Now' price but a 'Restricted Bidder' listing so the victim has to email the "seller" to be put on a bidder list.

Of course, many victims only want to ace out others on this "deal" and say in their email they want to use the 'Buy it Now' option and the scammer then contacts them directly to arrange a deposit, etc, and there it goes. One listing can net dozens of "poles in the water" for the scammer to work.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

 

[turnkey4099]

One would think that common sense would keep people from biting on this but nooooo. Spokane Wa had an investment broker of all people bit on it. Lost all of his money a lot of customers money before he wised up.

It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.

Harry K

 

[slowrev]

Harry,
I guess stupidity is painful when you loose all of your money over it. Many stupid things we do seem like such a good idea at the time... Take marriage for instance /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Hank]

<font color="purple"> the U.S. Government has warned the Government of Nigeria </font>

If they did, it wouldn't mean much, because the scam emails do not, for the most part, even originate from Nigeria.

And now it (the scam) is starting to appear "from" other countries. I just received one purportedly from a bank manager in China. I tracked the sending IP address, and the actual origin of the email was a dial-up account in Germany.

 

[JDgreen227]

Slowrev,

I'm sorry you have that attitude towards marriage. As for me, I have always felt the best investment I EVER made was the check I wrote for my wife's engagement ring. Of course, it helped that I picked the right person to marry.

 

[Old_Hickory]

<font color="red"> </font><font color="blue" class="small">( the U.S. Government has warned the Government of Nigeria )</font> </font>



Hank,
That is a rumour anyway about the US gov saying that.
I get the things from supposedly,Iraq/Afgahnistan/Serbia/Ivory Coast.
Some of the letters are typed very poorly,you can tell they do not understand English very well,and some are typed very well.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Re: TWISTS to Nigerian Scam Letters

There is a REVERSE scam that is similar to the Nigerian Letter Scam for when you want to sell things.

I posted this information before, but as the topic is on again I'll throw out my story. This summer I sold one of my tractors. I posted an advertisement in several places on the internet. Most of the action I got regarding the tractor were from "Americans working for a Multi-National company stationed in . . . and in need of farm equipment to modernize their agricultural economy and feed the people. . ." Mind you I was selling a 50 year old tractor and they are telling me they want to modernize things. Further, I was selling an Oliver, but they insisted that spare parts would not be an issue.

The kicker was that they were INSISTING on paying the full asking price, plus shipping, and some even offered a bonus finders fee. So I would be getting MORE for my tractor than I ever dreamed it could be worth.

They would pay with a foreign cashiers check, their "shipping agent" would give me the check upon pick up, it would be made out to me for the full amount plus the cost of shipping. I was to give them the tractor. I was also supposed to pay the shipping agent, with one of my personal checks, the cost of the shipping fees (since I was getting the fees paid to me I was, of course, at no risk). Off would go my tractor with the shipper. He would, of course, bee line it to the local bank and cash my check, and of course the foreign cashiers check would bounce in about a week, giving them plenty of time to be gone to wherever they came from . . .

There are a LOT of different twists to these scam artists. I didn't realize it the first time I got an offer from one of them, but then a similar offer arrived, and another . . . and then I put 2 + 2 together and figured out what they were trying to do.

Seller beware. Buyer beware. Everyone beware.

 

[Hank]

<font color="purple"> Some of the letters are typed very poorly,you can tell they do not understand English very well,and some are typed very well. </font>

I actually believe they all (or most of them) originate from the US.

It is quite easy for anyone nowadays, worldwide, to post emails from anywhere. The To: From: Subject: Date: fields can legally contain anything at all (they are "comment" fields as far as email delivery is concerned...IOW they mean nothing, and have nothing to do with the actual routing and delivery of the email).

I believe they are intentially written to simulate broken English, so they can better appear (to a North American) to be from a foreign country, and thereby lend weight to the scam.