5. The modalities have been finalized.

What a lovely word modalities is. It was essentially never used for the most part until the scammers brought it back into vogue - at least within the scambaiting community, we just plain love the word.. It means “The ceremonial forms, protocols, or conditions that surround formal agreements or negotiations”.

4. As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.

This one is used a lot by the scammers. It will often be combined with a tale about cancer that has “defiled all forms of medicine”. Considering that the definition of defiled is - morally blemished; stained or impure I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they have absolutely no idea what the majority of words in the emails they send out actually mean. Other than of course money, and Western Union and Moneygram, which in their dictionary = money anyway.

3. Be rest assured that this business is 100% risk free.

Is there anything in life that is 100% risk free? I think not. But once you know this statement is used to convince people to take part in something slightly dodgy, you will start to see the words risk free jump out at you from the most unexpected places. I’ve even seen it in brochures from banks. My advice is, when you see the words risk free, be afraid very afraid!

2. Message received, content well noted.

This statement is usually an enormous lie, because the chances of a Nigerian Scammer actually reading an email that you send is fairly low. In fact my previous email to them might have been full of curses and insults and they will still say this. If they had noted the content, I think they might be a bit upset with me and they might have something to say about the names I called them.

1. I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise.

This sentence has spawned much hilarity among the scambaiters. If one of scambaiter calls another scambaiter, the likelihood of the answering scambaiter saying “This call comes to me as a surprise” is about 99%. In fact the temptation to make the title of every post on my blog a variation of this is quite high.

Popularity: 19% [?]

As many of you know I am a scambaiter. I bait the Nigerian 419 scammers who try to steal money from people. One of the things I collect is fake checks. There’s more info on what I do and how I do it in this post - Snoskred Made 5 Million Dollars Online This Year.

I regularly check the PO box where the scammers send their checks to me, and I contact the companies who appear on the checks to let them know their bank account information is being used by scammers. Sometimes this is no easy task. I prefer to send them an email if possible but many companies don’t get back to me and I want to make sure they received the warning so I have to get on the telephone to speak to someone - and that is not the easiest task either. Especially given that I am in Australia and I receive checks with company names from many countries. I use Skype to make the calls, it is fairly cheap but the calls do add up.

How do the scammers get the bank information of these companies? They simply call and ask for it, claiming they have to make a payment. Most companies give out their bank information far too easily. But you know who gives out their banking information much more easily than a business? A charity.

I have feared this day was coming for a while now. Look what I just received.

Yes, this is supposedly a check from the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Only I know that it hasn’t come from them at all. I baited the scammer and they sent me this check. And guess where the scammer wanted me to send money to? And how they wanted me to send the money? No really, go on and guess. I bet you’ll never get it right! Here’s an email from the scammer who sent me this check.

---

Dearest Chloe,This is to inform you that you will be receiving a cheque for $35,000 via fed ex today. As soon as you have received the package, you are required to send within 24 hours the sum of $2500 via western union money transfer to my supplier in west africa with the information below;

Name: Steve Thompson
Address: Lagos Nigeria

Ensure the transfer information of the western union is sent to me such as, sender’s name and address, 10 digits money transfer control numbers and security test question and answer.

I look forward to your positive response as soon as possible

Regards,
Michael Brown

---

You’ll note I have edited out all the bank information on the check. That is because any scammer could create a counterfeit check with just a printer, some paper, and your bank account information - the stuff that appears along the bottom of your checks is all they need - and those counterfeit checks WILL BE CASHED if you have money in your account.This causes a problem for companies and charities because in general they do have money in their account - and some companies and charities do not have someone like an accountant in house watching the outgoing money.

Michael is apparently very unhappy with Chloe. He sent the check via Fedex, and that means he can see when it has been collected.

---

Dear Chloe,I am miserable to learn from you that you didn’t receive the package that was sent to you via fedex, whose tracking number indicates that it has been delivered to you. I called fedex and I was told the package has been delivered to you, so I can’t figure out what exactly you are talking about.

I will sincerely appreciate you call the local fedex outlet around you with the tracking number I previousely gave to you and find out the through position of the payment that was sent to you.

Please ensure you do so and get back to me with a positive response.

But mind you, should anything happens to my money, you will have yourself to blame for it because you will have the FBI to face.

Regards,

Michael Brown

---

Those scammers just love to threaten their victims with the FBI. They will steal money from anyone they possibly can. It is a pity there is no FBI in their country who might actually arrest them. The police in Nigeria are terribly corrupt.

Popularity: 23% [?]

I notice there’s a lot of new readers on the feed, and also a lot of new visitors to the site. Welcome to Life In The Country - please feel free to comment and de-lurk and let me know where I can find your blog to check you out.

Those of you new to the blog probably won’t be aware of this but for the past month I have been a part of a campaign run by a small group of scambaiters to collect scammer bank account information which is then passed along to the police. You can read more about the campaign if you like - A Journey Along The Road To Stopping Online Scammers - so far we have collected thousands of bank accounts many of which have already been passed along to the authorities.

Once we send them the initial email the scammers are baited by the computer for as long as the scammer will keep sending emails, which can be a lot of emails. We don’t have to worry about what they’re saying, and any bank account information is automatically put aside by the computer. Yep, it’s a smart computer!

Today one of the baiters responsible for passing the bank account information on to the police contacted me on Skype. He let me know he was baiting one of the scammers manually now, after seeing an email the scammer had been sending to us because it was quite well written and he thought the scammer might turn out to be a fun bait. The email went like this -

I sent this directly to you via The Curse Of The Wicked Soul. Cradling the powers of the Orunmila to Wizard Of Ingoni, I have unleashed an army of seventy-two spirits and demons. The Eiye Efe will gaze from above as the summons of the spirits appear before your eyes.

My cosmic powers have grown from the fears of deception and will reek havoc and spill the blood of the guilt. I have carved marks of evil into your conscience and your spiritual blindness will direct you to fall into the hands of proper authorities. The curse will begin when I attach this written segment of your soul “hope you are Christian, in the name of the almight God. help me thanks”.

For you have only made me wiser. Money is just paper in which I used to buy your soul. If you would like it returned unharmed, you must make ammends to the deception you have brought amongst yourself. If you do not, you will live for eternity in the firey pits of hell and in fear of Bytor, Light of Darkness,
Centurion Of Evil, Devil’s Prince.

The Police and the FBI will be on this case if the funds are not sent back to my friend who gave us loan by today. Did you think you’ll eat somebody’s money? and walk away with it.
“Wizard” Waskowiak Owner of Your Soul

One wonders - if he has “the powers of the Orunmila to Wizard Of Ingoni” and he has “unleashed an army of seventy-two spirits and demons” then precisely why does he need the Police and the FBI?

However, a visit to Scroogle later and the truth was revealed - this scammer stole this threat from somewhere else and just modified it to suit his purpose.

I checked to see if he had written any more emails to the computer and it turns out he did send one more -
Hello,
You have to listen carefully,i am not here to play with you if you don’t send the pay slip to show my bank as an evidence that you have made the transfer to the account then i promise you that my actions will start today if you do not harken to my voice, So be it.To aviod the wrath that will follow suit you have to go immediately to the bank to collect the pay slip, scan and send it to my email, so that all these botherings will stop

It seems he’s not quite as literary with his threats when he has to make them up on his own rather than steal them from elsewhere.

It’s funny because I haven’t noticed any botherings but now that my soul is owned and my conscience is smarting from the carving of marks of evil into it, perhaps I just didn’t notice the botherings?

I already had a fair idea I would be spending eternity in the firey pits of hell. It’s nice to have it confirmed for sure though - because there is no way I am sending him any money!

Sometimes as a baiter you will get these scammers frothing at the mouth and threatening all kinds of unusual things. It is champagne comedy. However it is even more fun when you get them on the telephone. I don’t know if this lad sent a phone number but if he did I’ve got some Skype credit burning a hole in my pocket. I might give him a call. If you wanted to listen to a couple of calls I’ve done in the past, here’s a couple of my favourites, one of which has no nasty language, one which has some mild swearing.

Snoskred’s baiting character Anukah calls an offshore bank. Click here to listen.

Snoskred’s baiting character Beyonce (Yes, the real one, well not quite the real one! Complete with US accent) has a discussion with a scammer about tax. Listen to his shock, surprise and dismay when Beyonce tells him she has a way to get out of paying the $240,000 tax he says she has to pay - consequently meaning he doesn’t get any money! The scammer tries to explain why she *should* pay the tax, but Beyonce is unthrilled. I love the despair at around 8:40 into the call, it is classic! There is an F word or two, so be aware of that, don’t listen if the F word offends you. Click here to listen.

Popularity: 22% [?]

I’m going to ask everyone reading this to do something for me today at the bottom of this post. One of the first posts I read in my Google Reader today was from Christine’s blog. thirtysomething had a nasty scam experience.

Honestly, it makes me feel so useless. Here I sit, a friend of Christine’s, a scambaiter, someone who has tried here on my blog to educate people about scams, and just one degree of separation later here is a friend of Christine’s *almost* being scammed. I say almost because she did not lose any money that I know of - but worse still she quit a real job to take a fake one.

Educating people about scams online is one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life, because every time I think the word is getting out proof comes back to me as a surprise that it is not.

I have the knowledge to stop people from being scammed but it still isn’t enough. I can’t make the word go far enough. I can’t seem to get other people to write about the scams and link back to information I have here on the site about them.

The elderly, the stay at home Mom’s, the disabled, the depressed, the lonely, the vulnerable - these are the people who get scammed the most.

Experiences like the one thirtysomething had are why I still bait scammers. This is why I volunteer at victim support websites. This is why Sephy and I have spent the last 5 days furiously working to get a new scam warning website online.

I hear about terrible things happening to scam victims every single day. It could have been a lot worse. Just recently I spoke with an elderly lady who lost her entire life savings when a fraudulent check bounced. Scam victims are often arrested for check fraud. That is why I try to get the word out there on the internet so that people are not scammed.

What You Can Do Now -

Let the readers of your blog know about the Scam-O-Matic - a web form which can look at an email and tell you if the email looks like a known scam. Is this email a scam? Ask the Scam-O-Matic

While You’re At It -

Let the readers of your blog know about the new blog we have just launched. Scam Warning is a blog which automatically posts scam emails online. Many scam victims are prevented from being scammed because they search for the email address, telephone number, name or other information which appears in emails they receive from the scammers. You can also help by linking to Scam Warning in your sidebar.

Report Your Scammer Emails Online

I heartily encourage anyone receiving scam emails to report them via the Scam-O-Matic. The scam-o-matic can be found here - The scam-o-matic - all scammer email addresses and emails put into the scam-o-matic are added to a blacklist which can save other people from being scammed. All scammer emails are baited by scambaiters. All the emails you submit will end up appearing on the new blog we have just created.

Reporting Scam Emails is the number one way you can hurt scammers.

You can also report scams to the blacklist in other ways, take a look here for options.

Other ways YOU can help!

• Mention today’s blog post on YOUR blog so all the readers of your blog can be educated on this important topic. Feel free to link to this post.
• Link to these articles I have written about scams -
• Internet Safety & Scams - What You Need To Know.
• Snoskred made 5 MILLION DOLLARS online this year!
• Snoskred on Fake Check Scams and Scambaiting
• Stumble this blog post and the above articles with Stumbleupon, if you are a member.
• Email a link to today’s blog post and the above articles to your friends and family.
• Ask me via email to guest post on your blog on the topic of scams to help educate your readers.
• If you know anyone who has any questions about these scams I am only an email away. However there are some great websites on the internet that try to help as well -
• Fraudwatchers
• Scam Victims United
• Fraud Aid
• Now you know about this scam - there are so many others out there. Always ask if you’re not sure. The Fraudwatchers forum “Is this a Scam” is a good place to post a question you might have.

Steal This Post

Steal This
If you want a text copy of this blog post all ready to go in html format that you can simply copy and paste into your blog you can find it by clicking right here Steal This Post. I don’t normally encourage “content theft” but this is for a good cause. Please Steal This Post. Encourage your readers who may not know me from a bar of soap to do the same. Don’t make me beg. Help stop internet scams today.

Further Reading And Viewing -

About the 419 Scam
The Fraudwatchers Forums - Scam Related Articles
Scam Victims United
Gullibility can make you a millionaire - Herald Sun
The Big Sting (video) - 60 Minutes Australia - story transcript of the video (this video is truly incredible, well worth watching as the team go arresting scammers in Nigeria - something that rarely happens due to police corruption)
Another Big Sting style video - 60 Minutes Australia - story transcript of the video
Common Scams on Ebay - a guide
United Kingdom - Metropolitan Police Fraud Alert.

Popularity: 31% [?]

We bloggers want to put an email address out there on our blogs for people to contact us with. The spammers have “data mining” software, which grabs those email addresses off the internet and loads them into their spam email programs. So how can you protect yourself from this deluge of unwanted email?

Never Unsubscribe - Never Reply

I got an email this morning from a friend of mine, who mentioned receiving a spam email from Romania. This one was actually personally addressed to their email address, which often tricks people into thinking they had actually subscribed to receive these emails.

The bottom line is, spammers send these emails out in the hope that people will unsubscribe - or reply to the email asking them not to email again. Can you figure the logic in people who reply to scammers and spammers saying “Don’t email me again, ever.” - You never asked them to email you and asking them not to email you makes no sense at all. Like they’re going to do anything you ask them to do!!!

Once they have confirmed there is a real human being reading emails at that email address, they can sell it on to other spammers and make big money out of it. So set yourself a policy of never reply, never unsubscribe.

Is It Possible To Not Get Spam Emails?

Yes it is. You just have to keep your email address completely private. As in, you don’t give it to anyone, anywhere. Of course, that defeats the purpose of having an email address! You want people to be able to get in touch with you - you just don’t want spammers and scammers getting in touch.

What Can I Do?

There is a mail service known as Trust My Mail. I found out about this service a couple of years ago when scam victims were asking me - how can I make sure scammers can’t email me?

How Does It Work?

You get to choose a question which people have to answer before their email is put into your inbox. When someone sends you an email, they will receive the following message in return - click for a bigger image - When the person who sent you email clicks on the link within the email they were sent (or copies and pastes it into their browser, which is always the wiser thing to do on the internet) they will see this screen - Once they have answered it correctly the first time, that person is then always able to send you mail. You can put the answer to the question right below your email address on your website, and spammers and scammers will never find it - remember they do not visit your site to get your email address, they harvest it using data mining programs.

What If People Don’t Respond?

You can see pending messages, and if you recognise the address or know the person sending you mail, you can approve them yourself as well. I recommend you check your pending messages once every 24 hours.

Even better, you can now ask Trust My Mail (thanks to their new mail forwarding service) to forward messages on to another email address - and to send messages like you normally would, quite simply. This means you can keep your real email address 100% private on the internet, protecting you from spammers and scammers - and family members who forward every email you send to every man and his dog - and often to scammers and spammers as well!

It’s all free, by the way. And there’s no ads. No this is not a sponsored post, I just referred a lot of scam victims to Trust My Mail and always found people were happy with it - and it was easy for them to use, which is important..

I Don’t Like That Idea - Options?

There are a couple of other options which are relatively simple that may not stop the spammers and scammers completely, but at least makes it harder for them.

Make Your Email Address An Image -

You may have seen this kind of image around the place - note this email address I don’t use anymore so don’t ya’all email me at it! This is easily generated online thanks to this wonderful website - Email Icon Generator.

The only trouble with this is, your email address needs to be simple enough that people can work it out from the image. Try to use letters only because numbers will be confusing. You will find some people will get the address wrong or simply not bother, though. It is almost as bad as those Captcha word generator things for comments.

Put An Extra Word Into Your Email Address -

Then tell people underneath which word to remove. For example (this is not a real email address) emailmePOOP@mail.com <--- take out the Poop to reach me. The only trouble with this is people find it annoying and troublesome and might not email you at all. People used to use NOSPAM as the word to take out - don't use that word anymore, the scammers and spammers have worked that trick out. They're not complete nitwits, ya'all! ;)
Use One Email For The Net -

This is the solution I have chosen for myself. Make an email address which is for the web only and which receives email only - never use it for subscribing to things or personal emails or responding to anything. Be very aware that emails which arrive in there can potentially be spams and scams, and never unsubscribe to anything sent to that address - because you never USED that address to subscribe.

Make another email address for personal correspondance and keep that one to yourself and friends only. There’s no limit on how many email addresses you can have.

I use 5 different email addresses for this blog. One here for people to contact me with, one which receives all the comments people post on my blog, one which I use to email people back with, one which I use for things I have signed up for which are blog related, and one which I use when I reply to comments.

Stumble It -

I hope this might be useful information and helpful to everyone out there on the net, if you found it to be useful please stumble it.

Over To You!

What are you doing to protect yourself from spam and scammers? Do you receive a lot of scam or spam emails?

Popularity: 23% [?]

I’ve already made 5 million online this year, so I’m not looking for any jobs online. If you are looking for work online, you need to read my guest post over at I’ve Tried That so you can avoid the scams.

Snoskred on Fake Check Scams and Scambaiting

Don’t forget to pass the message on to your friends and family. You won’t forgive yourself if they get scammed and you had the knowledge to stop it from happening.

Let your friends and family know about the Scam-O-Matic - a web form which can look at an email and tell you if the email looks like a known scam. Is this email a scam? Ask the Scam-O-Matic.

Popularity: 18% [?]

This article is a must read, not because I’m going to tell you how you can make your OWN 5 million online but because I have some very important information for you.

What I want to talk to you about is how NOT to make money online.

I currently have 5 million dollars worth of fake checks in my possession.

In some countries these are called bank drafts, or cheques*. Truly, I do have them. I’ll give you a link to take a look at them a little further down the page and there’s some photos here in this article too. They came to me from scammers on the internet, who I scam baited - that means I pretended to be a real victim.

I don’t suggest you do the same thing but I do suggest you read this article and please help me to get the word out there on the internet about this scam and other scams. Below I talk about some of the ways you can help.

Something you may not know about checks -

When banks say a check has “cleared” they simply mean the funds are available to you.

The funds being made available is no guarantee of the check being good.

A check can bounce up to a *year* after you bank it.

Seriously! The funds are available to you because in many countries (e.g. the USA, Australia and others) the funds have to be made available by law, however if it turns out to be counterfeit or stolen or the issuer does not have sufficient funds in their account the bank will quickly make the funds UNavailable to you. If you have spent the funds, they will put you into the minus - and charge you for that as well, usually. If you did bank a fake or stolen check at first it would seem to clear, the funds would be there for you to withdraw and spend.

Don’t trust that teller -

You might even ask the teller - has this check cleared, and you would usually be told YES - absolutely it has. Just like most victims this happens to. They do not get training in this area. In fact most people who work in banks don’t know how checks really work. The scammers DO know how checks work and they make full use of this lack of education.

How you get the fake check -

- A scammer might email you with a work at home job offer like a payment officer, a company representative or book keeper.
- You may apply for a job you have seen advertised.
- You may be selling something online (possibly via Ebay or Craigslist or Etsy but these scammers will try anywhere you can sell things).
- You might be a breeder of dogs, cats, any animal - they will pretend to want to buy one of the animals.
- You might have a rental house or holiday home and they pretend they want to rent it from you.
- There’s thousands of other possible scenarios but essentially it boils down to someone you don’t know wanting to pay you.
- They don’t just use checks either - they may offer money orders or travellers checks.
- Often they will send a check for more than the item you are selling is worth, and they want you to send the balance back to them. They will use many excuses for doing this.
- They may send you a check and once it has cleared they will no longer want the item - someone in their family will be ill or die and they need the money back urgently
- They will usually want you to send the money by Western Union, Moneygram or deposited into a bank account they give you.

When you send the money -

So the check has cleared, and you figure everything is fine if the bank says the check has cleared. Some victims have even asked to have it in writing, because they were so sure the check would *not* clear. Victims have been given confirmation in writing only to find having something in writing from the bank won’t help when things go wrong.

Within days, weeks, months, up to a year later the bank will find it was counterfeit or stolen and they will take the money back and hold YOU responsible. In the US, you could actually be arrested for check fraud. Many scam victims have been - an example and a good article here.

About my checks -

The Nigerian 419 scammers have been very helpful to me because they have sent me an awful lot of fakes - fake checks - cheques - bank drafts - money orders - travellers checks. Some good, some terrible. When I started out trying to collect a few fake checks I thought it would be cool to hang them on a wall, sort of like a gallery of fraudulent instruments. And so I did.. I now have so many I would need to actually devote a room full of walls to it. These are in addition to the ones hung on my wall already. I laminate them so they’ll stay in good condition. Here’s a bit of a closer look at the 16 new fraudulent instruments from scammers I just laminated today. Click any of the pictures for a bigger view. You’ll note there is a lot of pink painting done on these checks - that is because scammers only need a few vital details in order to counterfeit a check. These are generally your name and your bank account information. When that information is present on a real-looking check, the bank will always pay it! The scammers don’t need to steal checks, they just print them out.

NEVER give out your bank details online.

Many companies have their details available on the net in case you want to make a payment to them - and scammers take full advantage of that. They make checks with the details of those companies and often these checks take the longest to bounce - it isn’t until the accountant spots the transactions later that the bank will find out the checks were not written by the company. That is why most of these checks have company names on them. I always contact the companies whose names appear on the checks to let them know what is going on.

How Snoskred baits check scammers -

- I use a safe post office box which cannot be traced back to me - do not try this at home, kids. These guys are criminals. Giving them your home address to send fake checks to is not a good idea.
- I use the Scambaits special tool (available to all members of the forums) to bait the scammers. This involves minimum effort on my part. The tool does all the baiting for me. All I have to do is click my mouse once, and then checks come to me as a surprise in the mail. The tool takes care of all communication with the scammer, writes the emails, sends them, and it is truly amazing.
- If you want to try baiting scammers, Scambaits has a mentor program which can get you baiting safely. Please don’t try it without knowing how to stay safe. Nobody wants a scammer turning up on their doorstep.

You can see all my fake checks up close and personal here - Snoskred’s Fake Checks from Scammers.

Just one other note..

about assuming scam victims must be stupid.. Don’t assume, it makes an ass out of you and me, as the old saying goes.

Thousands of new people join the internet every day. Many of them are elderly and have their entire life savings just waiting to send to a scammer who gets in and hooks them before they know it is a scam. Many are stay at home moms who are looking for a bit of extra income. Many are new to computers. Just because YOU are aware of these scams does not automatically mean everyone else is.

People fall for these scams constantly and it has nothing to do with intelligence or greed or any other things like that. They simply have not been educated that these are scams. The scammers are always thinking up new scams, so never think YOU are safe from being scammed - they might try something on you that you haven’t heard of yet. This happens to experienced internet users daily. Nobody is 100% immune - don’t fool yourself into being fooled by a scammer.

You have to realize these scammers work full time on these scams - this is what they do for a living and they know how to get money out of people. There’s another problem in that people associate Nigeria with these scams - and the scammers know this, so they pretend they are elsewhere in the world. So some people who know about NIGERIAN scams think - this has nothing to do with Nigeria, this person is in the UK, US, Europe, Australia, it must be ok.

Many scammers use FREE services like this to get a UK telephone number which redirects to their Nigerian mobile phone. So a victim calls a UK number to speak to them - never knowing their call is redirected to Nigeria. These free services are available for other countries too.

The scammers are criminals, and the victims are victims of a crime - and they are unlikely to report it because people will think they are stupid. This means our law enforcement people cannot get an accurate picture of how big a problem this is.

Make sure you tell your friends and family about these scams - if you assume they know, you might find out you are wrong. If it happens to someone you love, you’ll realize I am right, it’s not about intelligence. It’s about lack of education - and YOU have the power to educate them.

How YOU can help!

- Mention today’s blog post on YOUR blog so all the readers of your blog can be educated on this important topic. Feel free to link to this post.
- Link to this article in my internet safety series which speaks about these scams.
- Ask me via email to guest post on your blog on the topic of scams to help educate your readers.
- If you know anyone who has any questions about these scams I am only an email away. However there are some great websites on the internet that try to help as well - Fraudwatchers Scam Victims United - Fraud Aid -
- Let the readers of your blog know about the Scam-O-Matic - a web form which can look at an email and tell you if the email looks like a known scam. Is this email a scam? Ask the Scam-O-Matic -
- Stumble this blog post with Stumbleupon, if you are a member.
- Email a link to today’s blog post to your friends and family.
- Now you know about this scam - there are so many others out there. Always ask if you’re not sure. The Fraudwatchers forum “Is this a Scam” is a good place to post a question you might have.

Further Reading And Viewing -

More About Job Scams - A Guest Post By Snoskred
About the 419 Scam
The Fraudwatchers Forums - Scam Related Articles
Scam Victims United
Gullibility can make you a millionaire - Herald Sun
The Big Sting (video) - 60 Minutes Australia - story transcript of the video (this video is truly incredible, well worth watching as the team go arresting scammers in Nigeria - something that rarely happens due to police corruption)
Another Big Sting style video - 60 Minutes Australia - story transcript of the video
Common Scams on Ebay - a guide
United Kingdom - Metropolitan Police Fraud Alert.

For those in the USA -

Consumer group warns of growing check scam.

Please note this quote in the above article by the executive vice-president of the American Banking Association: “Federal law requires banks to make the funds you deposit available quickly, but it’s important for consumers to know that just because you can withdraw the money doesn’t mean the check is good,” said Edward Yingling, executive vice president for ABA.”

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Please leave a comment if you had never heard of these scams before, if you or someone you know has been scammed, or if you have any thoughts on this topic, I’d love to hear from you. You can also email me.

* I apologise for using the word check though here in Australia we call them cheques, I’m so used to emailing US scam victims on this topic and they don’t know what “cheques” are usually.

Popularity: 100% [?]

The 419 scammers have found Bumpzee and looks like they intend to make use of the private messaging function.. Please report any such messages to Bumpzee via the report abuse option found below the message. If you’re not sure about a message you receive and want advice before you report it, email or PM me, I’ll check it out for you. If the email message you receive has an email address for the scammer I’d love to have the address, we scambaiters will bait them and keep them busy.

If we stamp on these guys fast and hard, they will give up and go elsewhere.

Bumpzee Hot Dating Spam?! This is a new example of what they’re sending on Bumpzee. Sadly, no gorgeous women are coming to ya’all as a surprise via Bumpzee private messaging..

Popularity: 20% [?]

Eric from MyBlogLog dropped by and left a comment, which I would like to respond to here.

Thanks for dropping by, Eric. I’d like to show you the bigger picture. You seem to be seeing one tree in the forest. There’s a lot of trees to be seen, and here are some things you might want to consider.

You think that a 419 scammer can’t set up a blog and make it interesting enough that people will join their communities? These guys are not stupid. They create fake banking websites constantly and some of them are good enough that the *banks* wonder how they’re doing it. They would probably steal content from lesser known bloggers, but how would any of us ever know that they were scammers until they sent us the scam email?

Plenty of people would not even know they were scammers once they GOT the scam email. The situation with education on this topic is not good. New people join the internet every day, many of them elderly people with life savings in the bank.

You think the scammers speak a different language and it would give them away? Incorrect. When you receive a scam letter with terrible spelling and grammar - that is actually TACTICS on their part, because they want the great white hope to think they are less educated and easy to manipulate. They can write just as well as you or I.

You forget that SCAMMING PEOPLE IS THEIR FULL TIME JOB. They get up in the morning and go to the internet cafe. Email isn’t working too well for them these days, and they are always looking for new ways of contacting the “maga” - their word for scam victim. They’re already using social networks. Tagged is their current favourite, it seems, but they are always looking for the next big thing. They work in large gangs, and they have “lower down” scammers doing all the grunt work. Those guys are constantly thinking up new ways to scam people in order to get higher up the chain.

If someone joins your community, most people join theirs in return. I’ve done it myself. I’m sure others have too. That’s the way these social networking things work. So if a scammer signs up and goes around joining communities, its likely they would get a lot of members fairly quickly, who they can then spam.

If you don’t think it is possible, you’re wrong. These guys will use any chance they can. Ask Ebay and Paypal. The next thing you know they’ll be sending out phishing emails to get blogger logins - yes, that is one way they will be able to spam people, by stealing the accounts of established bloggers. They’ll target the bloggers signed up to a lot of communities. Have you organised an education drive on a phishing scam, ever? People fall for it so easily, and they will fall for it just as easily on this occasion. You ready to deal with the fall out of bloggers having their passwords stolen?

Ebay can’t manage to get the message through to people. Paypal can’t manage to get the message through to people. Banks and ISP’s can’t manage to get the message through to people. We scambaiters can’t get the message through to people and trust me, we’re not resting on our laurels. The Anti Phishing Working Group can’t get that message through to people and look at all the influential members they have to help them out. Thousands of online email, banking, Ebay, paypal and ISP accounts are compromised daily. Do you think you’ll be an exception and able to get the message through to all 180,000 members of MyBlogLog?

Even Yahoo has problems with this - the scammers send out emails which look like this - You probably look at it and think - who would fall for that? People fall for these phishing tricks all the time. I’m not kidding. If MyBlogLog people got a message that said - we’re spring cleaning, please log in to show us you wish to remain a member - and it linked to a fake site the scammers set up which looked exactly like MyBlogLog and it asked people to log in..

These guys got game. Some of them have teamed up with the Vlads - scammers from Romania and Russia, in order to do these phishing scams and fake sites. You want to take them all on and make yourself and every member of MyBlogLog a target? Ask Ebay how well that worked out for them. They never took this problem seriously and now it is such a huge problem for them, it’s given them a very bad name, and frankly they will never overcome it. New auction sites setting up know about this problem and take steps to avoid it.

Having a private messaging system is bad enough - the scammers will turn up at some point. I have already received 419 scams via Bumpzee private messaging. But you give them a mechanism to get their 419 messages out en masse to a large group of people, and all they have to do is join a bunch of communities? Sold! That’s a lot easier than messaging people one on one. But if you offer them messaging one on one, they’ll take that. I would recommend you get rid of the private messages as well, in order to keep them off MyBlogLog.

Now you can say ok, we’ll ban all Nigerian IP addresses. That won’t work, the scammers are all over the world - the US, UK, Europe, Middle East, even here in Australia. Canada has a huge group of check scammers working there, sending out fake checks, take a look at some of their work (checks they sent to me) here. There are large scammer contingents in Houston, Atlanta, Amsterdam, London, Abu Dhabi, Romania, Johannesburg and Delhi. This is a global problem without anyone working on a global solution.

There is so much more to this issue than the one tree in the forest that you are seeing. That’s why people are so angry and upset about it - they LIVE with the spam and scams, and they do not want you to offer another mechanism for them to receive that. It won’t go away by your saying “We’re keeping this system, thanks for your feedback” - no, what will happen then is you will lose a lot of your members. Maybe that’s not important to you now you’ve sold out to Yahoo.

You’ve grabbed a tiger by the tail here. How about letting it go and listening to your members? If you don’t believe me or the other outspoken ones, put in a poll and see for yourself - I personally feel the majority of people on MyBlogLog do not want this community messaging system. Many of them will just quietly leave, or stop using MyBlogLog.

Other people who have written about this topic -

MyBlogLog Community Mass Message SPAM Controversy - Alex (new)
Mybloglog messaging system and why I think it sucks - Yack Yack
MyBlogLog Mass Messaging - Swallow Spam or Die - Avinash
MyBlogLog New Features - The Abusive and the Incomplete - Andy Beard
Think Twice Before You Launch A New Service - MyBlogLog - Jon
Community Messages on MyBlogLog - Meg

Popularity: 15% [?]

For those users of the internet who wish to continue using MyBlogLog but want to show their users that they will never spam them using the Community Messages system, I have good news for you.

Jon from Smart Wealthy Rich created a little image you can put in your sidebar, probably under your MyBlogLog widget, to let people know you won’t be spamming them anytime soon. He also made a commitment, and I’d like to make my own commitment to readers of my blog here and now -

My Commitment -

I will not use the community message service, and you will not receive any mass message from me on MyBlogLog. I may use the private message system to reply to you if you message me, or if I have something specific to say to you personally, though usually I would just send you an email or contact you via your blog.

It’s nothing personal.

If you did send out a message to your community, don’t take this like a slap in the face. You probably thought it was a great new feature and a good way to get in touch with everyone at once. But that’s what your *blog* is for. You can make your own commitment if you also feel strongly about this, and display the image on your own blog.

Communities are great, I have gained a lot from being a part of them, but I’m reading your blog daily in google reader and if you have a message to send to members of your community your blog is the place to do it, not via a mass message to all people in your community on MyBlogLog.

Please note, I am not talking about private messaging. Sending one message to someone is not spam. In my opinion, people should not be able to send more than one message at a time. If they want to sit there and message every member of their community individually that is fine, I have no issue with that. It’s when they are able to type one message and instantly send it to hundreds of people that it becomes spam - and a potential problem for every member of MyBlogLog.

It’s a real shame because MyBlogLog has such potential but the moment you allow a system where spam like this can happen and be easily done, you are just opening up a can of worms - the *real* spammers and scammers will be along in no time. I get enough “Enlarge your penis” mail (especially for someone who doesn’t OWN a penis, being female!) through my normal email addresses, thanks very much.

The Nigerian 419 lads will really love this system and I say that because I know them very well and they already abuse similar systems on dating sites and other community sites, and they’ll be along before you can blink, joining OUR communities in order to send US mails intending to SCAM us out of our hard earned money. Worst of all, they WILL get money from people who don’t know anything about those scams. I do not think MyBlogLog really wants to provide a service for scammers - they want to provide a service for bloggers.

The solution is to quickly get rid of this community messaging system. However from what I am reading on the MyBlogLog blog, they seem to want to keep this or wait until people give them feedback. I think that’s a mistake. People will leave, and there’s other sites out there providing the same service, but without the spam.

Also, I don’t belong to a lot of communities yet, but I do read on average 200+ blogs a day. One of the blog communities I read on the RSS feed has over 200 blogs posting to it. In point number 4 of Eric’s blog post - “I’ll leave it for other people to debate why someone would join 5,000 communities” - it sounds like a judgment of people who belong to a lot of communities and that people who belong to less communities won’t have an issue.

At this time I think I belong to less than 5 communities, NOBODY has spammed me, not ONE person, yet I have a problem with this because I can see the potential for disaster and because I know scammers well.. If you have an issue with people belonging to a certain amount of communities, put in a limit. Don’t use this to justify the community messaging system.

I was about to sign up for the MyBlogLog Pro service because they do offer a lot of great features, especially the stats, they are some of the best I have seen on the web but I’ll take a raincheck for now until I see how this plays out.

Meg from Dipping into the Blogpond posted on this topic here, so go and read it if you’re not aware of the situation. Other posts I found are here -

Mybloglog messaging system and why I think it sucks - Yack Yack
MyBlogLog Mass Messaging - Swallow Spam or Die - Avinash
MyBlogLog New Features - The Abusive and the Incomplete - Andy Beard
Think Twice Before You Launch A New Service - MyBlogLog - Jon

Popularity: 28% [?]

Almost anything you demand, it seems. Previously in my other scambaits, I’ve got them to p@int butterflies on their f@ces, pose naked (don’t worry, I covered up the rude bits, still be careful and don’t click if you don’t want to see an almost naked man) or holding a sign or holding my characters photograph. Other scambaiters have gone even further. It is now getting difficult for me to think of new things to ask them to do.

But one day I was a bit bored, I had some spare time, and so I wrote a new baiting script and hooked up a few lads to it. I don’t do any baiting manually these days, it’s all done with tools that make it mostly automatic for me.

Scammers complain wildly when you ask them to do something for you instead of you just rolling over and sending them money by Western Union or Moneygram or into their bank account. They practically cry. They try to negotiate their way out of what I’m asking them to do. They bargain. They tell me they’re under house arrest, or don’t have a camera and need me to send money to buy them one, or they want me to send my photo to them in the same pose before they will do as I ask. They then search the internet for photographs of what I have asked them to do and send that to me, pretending it is them. No way, I can google too, you know. (that’s why I put the @ in p@int f@ces, so they don’t wind up here!)

So today, less than a month after I set this script up, I got my first *real* photo back. I’d asked the lads to p@int their f@ces like Gene Simmons from Kiss, and this lad did make a little bit of an effort.It’s a bad quality pic but I am reasonably sure it is genuine. I’m going to rewrite this script and see if I can’t get some more lads to do it.

For more on scams see these posts Internet Safety Part Six and Sephy’s Don ChiChi scambait. I also point your attention to this bait by Sephy - Tyr@’s Boy Friday with some great scammer pics, but warning, he does get down to his underwear. Also, my first ever scambait - The Lad Formerly Known As, involving a very long story but a lot of fun along the way.

Popularity: 14% [?]

From yesterday’s post, Em had a question -

What is your opinion of spam filters. My gmail one seems to work quite well and the spam doesn’t bother me because I don’t see it…

I’ve got about 40 gmail accounts actually. Being a scambaiter, you tend to have a lot of email addresses. The spam stuff, like viagra and cialis and people trying to sell you stuff, gmail does reasonably well with. However, they do NOT do as well with the *scam* emails, and also phishing gets through on a regular basis.

You might not be getting much in the way of spam as yet, but if you have an email address which is anywhere out there on the internet, it will be coming to you as a surprise some time in the future. Here’s a screenshot from one of my email accounts which is on a scam blog. The people emailing it do not know it is on a scam blog because they use an email extractor program to get the addresses.

The emails you see there arrived over the space of less than an hour. That account regularly receives around 40 emails per hour. That’s 960 emails a day. Can you imagine how this would mess up your inbox?

For most people, a single gmail account with a spam filter might work just fine - until someone gives out your email address somewhere. It’ll start out being 3-4 spam emails a day, and keep going upwards until you want to throw things at people you’re getting so much of it. If you have one email account which you use for everything, it’s a real nightmare when that happens. And you would be surprised at whom is doing what with your email address as we speak.

I’ve done a lot of email warnings to scam victims over the years, and many times some of these people have decided I am their friend and added me to their forwards list. They then send me any “joke” or “inspirational” email that they stumble across during their interweb travels. The trouble is, they add all the email addresses as “cc” - carbon copy, which means me and everyone else who got the mail can see who it was sent to! That means, if a scammer or spammer gets their hands on it, they have a bunch of new targets to email.

So there’s the lesson for today - use BCC when you want to email to more than one person. *Blind* carbon copy - it means nobody else can see who you sent that mail to.

The reason I am suggesting the email plan rather than just one gmail account is because if you break it down into groups it is much less of a hassle when that account is compromised. I say when because it is highly likely to happen. Spam and Scam is getting worse, and there really isn’t much that can be done to stop it, so it is much better to be prepared.

I hope that answers the question.

Popularity: 25% [?]