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| Consumer Beware!; We'll discuss scams/phishing scams here | |
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| Topic Started: Dec 10 2008, 09:52 PM (206 Views) | |
| Jeff | Dec 10 2008, 09:52 PM Post #1 |
Destroyer of Worlds
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Today my newest e-mail account got its first scam-spam. I present it here in full in order to help you all better familiarize yourself with this and similar scam attempts. Let's read, then dissect, shall we class? Ready your scalpels, there's a lot here. Subject Line: TREAT AS URGENT Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 12:39 PM From: This sender is DomainKeys verified "Ati Tijani" <ati.tijani2@yahoo.com> To: x@yahoo.com Body: I have a new email address! You can now email me at: ati.tijani2@yahoo.com - From Dr. Atiko Tijani. Good Day,Please Read and get back to me for more details.My name is Dr. Atiko Tijani, I'm the Director of Audit and Fund Reconcilation in African Development Bank Ouagadougou Burkina Faso.I have a business proposal in the tune of US$30m, (Thirty million American Dollars only) after the successful transfer of the fund, we shall share in ratio of 40% for you and 60% for me.Should you be interested, please contact me through my private email (ati_tijani76@mail.ru) so we can commence on all arrangements and I will give you more information on how we would handle this project.Below is the website of the incident involving the late Mr. Andreas Schranner for your viewing: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/x. Please treat this business proposal with utmost confidentiality and send me the following information.1) Full names 2) Private phone number 3) Current residential address 4) Occupation 5) Age and Sex: Kind Regards,Dr. Atiko Tijani. Analysis: Oh deary me. Where DO I begin? First off, the subject line is in bold letters and tends to grab attention due to the language used (specifically the word "URGENT" tends to command more attention than, say, "IMPORTANT" though not sounding quite as inane as "CLASSIFIED".) Then this e-mail is from "Doctor" Atiko Tijani (a doctor of WHAT is left ominously unclear, much like those "9 out of 10 doctors recommend brand X" commercials). That in itself is appeal to authority. This is supposed to put your mind at ease that he/she/it is a doctor and is therefore trustworthy. To be a doctor you just need to SHOW UP to classes for 8 years and maintain at least a "C". And that's assuming that the sender isn't just full of crap. Another thing to see is that he links me to a news article. Please note that I replaced the end of the HTML code with an "x" in order to make the link not work properly. This is for the safety of everyone reading this to ensure that I'm not inadvertently linking us all to something malicious. It has "BBC" in the link (British Broadcasting Channel, I believe) so it looks authentic, but in these e-mails it's best not to take chances. Also, the link and the reasoning for having it are strangely jarring and don't flow well with the story he's giving me. I really have no idea why it's at all important, but he seems to think it is. Again, appeal to authority. (I saw it on the news...) But if this e-mail's from a doctor, why are there so many typos and improper punctuation usage? I swear, I did not edit this at all from its original form, sans making the link not work and censoring my e-mail address. Random, unnecessary capital letters, poor spacing and also inconsistent in doing so. Also worth mentioning is the doctor gave me two or three e-mails, each one being insisted upon being used. If I was dumb enough to reply to him (and I'm NOT) which e-mail would I send it to? I have no idea. Another thing I should point out is that the allegedly good doctor misspelled his occupation. How many people do you know care about their breadwinner so little as to misspell it when he was (allegedly) in no rush. Worth noting is just how needlessly long this occupation's title IS. It sounds very impressive when in short it should read "Debt Collector". This is also to intimidate you into a sort of sense of awe about this particular figure. Now, the scam's execution. The idea is that you're to, for some reason, aid in a transfer of a large sum of money from Africa to America. Why a middle man is at all needed is a fact also left out of the explanation. How many deals made by Microsoft do you know of that use a random person picked at random (let alone random 21-year-old guys from nowheresville, USA?) I hope you can't think of any, because I sure can't. Why not? Because it's DUMB. That's a surefire way to lose money, but the doctor has already netted in your interest and your trust (if you're a complete imbecile). This one is executed in a slightly more subtle way than most - whereas a lot of these scams go right for the "BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER PLEASE", this one instead asks for a brief correspondence (perhaps to build your confidence in the doc) all the while asking for otherwise harmless info (Name, address, telephone, etc). Problem is, that with name and phone number alone I can find out where you LIVE and from there, someone with minimalistic skills can pretty much find everything about who you are with minimal effort. Another thing you might be wondering is why Africa? Africa is a continent filled with chaos and uncertainty and has been since the countries who had colonies and stakes there returned them to their *ahem* "rightful owners" whereupon they all went right to Hell. A particularly popular country is Nigeria, so keep eyes peeled for that tell-tale sign. Another interesting thing to note is that he claims to work in Africa yet the e-mail addresses end with .com (American, I believe) and .ru (Russia). But what makes this scam so appealing? Well 40% of 30 million is in the neighborhood of 12 million bucks and money for nothing is any person's dream. Why do you think the lottery is so popular? People will jump in, believing in the appeals to authority and be hooked in and robbed blind. All-in-all, this is obviously a scam and if you take the bait you will more than likely get your bank accounts flush out if not worse. Best course of action? Delete it without a second look. Stay tuned for the next time I get another one of these babies to shred! |
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Come visit me and my thought processes at my website: http://www.publishedauthors.net/tdotdw/news.html "In the cold light, justice and morality always look corny and you can't wave the flag and look cool. But like it or not, society needs its heroes." - John Hart; actor who played The Lone Ranger. | |
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| Root | Dec 10 2008, 09:57 PM Post #2 |
The Speaker for the Dead
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So sad that things like these exist. But alas, you do a good job of ripping them to pieces... |
Does being the only sane one make me the insane one, in a sort of way? Though my eyes could see, I was still a blind man; Though my mind could think, I still was a madman... "Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run...there's still time to change the road you're on" | |
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| The1Kobra | Dec 11 2008, 08:35 AM Post #3 |
The Deputy of Common Sense
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I tend to just ignore those e-mails, then blacklist whomever sent them so they stop spamming my account. Some of them are so poorly done it's comical, I can probably post some and do a similar analysis/beat down when I get a spare moment from programming. Though, I do find there are so many of these things that it's just not worth the effort to bash them all. |
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| Jeff | Dec 11 2008, 09:10 AM Post #4 |
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Destroyer of Worlds
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This is to notify you that you have won £850,000.00 in the Uk Online Lottery end of year email promotion in which e-mail addresses are picked randomly by computerised balloting, powered by the Internet. Your email address was amongst those chosen for this period. Ticket no: 56475600545 188 Serial no: 5368/02 Winning number: 13.16.22.43.47.49. {28} Draw (1199) To claim your prize, please contact: MR. BRIAN ADAMS Email:mrbrianadam@hotmail.com Phone: +44 703 593 9793 Yours faithfully, Mr John Moore Online Coordinator. Analysis: I'm just stunned here, frankly. My old e-mail account gets ~1000 spams a day, so it's to the point where the filter can determine what's crap and what's mine. However, there's always the one or two that slip past the radar - as was the case with this gem. First off, I somehow won a lottery I NEVER ENTERED. If that's not the big tip-off perhaps the next point will. I DON'T LIVE IN THE UK. I don't even know the Dollar-Euro exchange rates (off-hand). This one is even more transparent than the last. But, really, my favorite part is where they assure me the lottery is "powered by the Internet." I mean, wow. It's powered... by the Internet. Do I even need to say anything more? Pardon me whilst I laugh maniacally about how more things need to be powered by the Internet. |
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Come visit me and my thought processes at my website: http://www.publishedauthors.net/tdotdw/news.html "In the cold light, justice and morality always look corny and you can't wave the flag and look cool. But like it or not, society needs its heroes." - John Hart; actor who played The Lone Ranger. | |
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| Dietaku | Dec 11 2008, 04:56 PM Post #5 |
Grade A /B/tard
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Giant Rovbots for one. Ooh! And ovens! So, that evil virueses can firebomb your house through them! |
| "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!" | |
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| The1Kobra | Dec 12 2008, 09:59 AM Post #6 |
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The Deputy of Common Sense
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It's around 67 pounds for 100 US dollars. So the total comes out to about $1,270,000, if my calculations are correct and the value of neither hyper-fluctuates in the near future. |
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| Dietaku | Dec 15 2008, 10:41 PM Post #7 |
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Grade A /B/tard
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Perhaps you can get the internet to power the exchnage rate? |
| "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!" | |
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| Jeff | Jan 13 2009, 08:15 PM Post #8 |
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Destroyer of Worlds
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[TICKET 75672] - Problem with Shipping Monday, January 18, 2038 7:59 PM From: "Shipping Services" <giftcard@www1.laveprogram.com> Add sender to Contacts To: x@yahoo.com We are continuing to have difficulties shipping you your $500 TJMaxx Gift Card. Please click on the link provided below and confirm your shipping address. With your cooperation we expect your gift card will be shipped soon. We apologize for the delay. http://4058596.x.com/c.php?aid=116&lid=2349 Thank you, Associate # 1132 Customer Support To unsubscribe from future advertisements from x.com, go to: http://4058596.x.com/c.php?aid=116&lid=2348 IncredibleHolidaySavings, LLC | 1954 First Ave. #177 | Highland Park, IL 60035 Analysis: Wow. I'm stunned. First off, I'd like to point one significant thing out here - and I think this is probably the coolest thing ever - I got an e-mail from 2038. I got an e-mail from 29 years in the future! Now THAT'S epic. /Sarcasm Mode Disengaged/ Okay, this is another one for the textbooks in just how damn common these are. Apart from the date, this e-mail contains many errors. First of which should obviously be the fact that they insist on "continued difficulties" of sending me a 500 dollar T.J. Maxx gift card. First off - I have ordered no such gift card. Second off - they misspelled the company's name. Third - I don't think I've ever BEEN INSIDE of a T.J. Maxx before. Next, more and more links. I don't trust any of them, frankly, as NONE of them have anything to do with the official site tjmaxx.com and even if they did I'd still suspect foul play. The real hitch is supposed to be the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom - for those who realize this is spam and hope to discontinue its flow, that link is probably just as toxic as any other in this e-mail. Again, for safety's sake, they have been censored. Best choice? Delete it and ignore it. The e-mail's entire crux (apart from being from THE FUTURE! sorry, I'll stop that now) is on the off chance you shop at T.J. Maxx and that you hope that by giving a mailing address can get a free gift card out of the deal of someone else's terrible luck. Even still, the layout is formulaic and recognizing the set-up on sight is the best way to prevent disaster for your computer and your bank account. |
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Come visit me and my thought processes at my website: http://www.publishedauthors.net/tdotdw/news.html "In the cold light, justice and morality always look corny and you can't wave the flag and look cool. But like it or not, society needs its heroes." - John Hart; actor who played The Lone Ranger. | |
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| Dietaku | Jan 13 2009, 08:17 PM Post #9 |
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Grade A /B/tard
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Oh, come on!. Its from FUTURE JEFF, Jeff! Try to be nicer to your future self! |
| "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE!!" | |
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| Jeff | Jan 15 2009, 12:14 AM Post #10 |
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Destroyer of Worlds
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I'm a black belt in karate Monday, January 18, 2038 7:59 PM From: "KarateChick" <karatechick@www4.lapprogram.com> Add sender to Contacts To: x@yahoo.com You have an invite to KarateChick personal profile. ******************************************************** Hey there, Just want to let you know that we can get together. I've posted some pics for you. http://4058596.x.com/c.php?aid=116&lid=2339 Copy the above link into your browser to view profile. Later, KarateChick Leave:http://4058596.x.com/c.php?aid=116&lid=2338 Analysis This one is an easy one. First off, the "E-mail from the Future" thing has lost its novelty. Second, I hadn't notice this until just now but an overwhelming number of e-mail spam I get has the same address past the "@" sign. @www4.lapprogram.com It's now safe to assume that any e-mails from this address is certifiably spam. That and the future thing. More importantly, the approach this time around is what appears to be an invitation from a lady for a date or... umm... something, she's pretty ambiguous about what she wants. Second "I'm a black belt in karate" is not a good pick-up line, no matter who's delivering it. Unless maybe it was Chuck Norris. Apart form that, it just doesn't work. Another interesting, and recurring, element of this equation is the web address that supposedly all these alleged deals and contacts use. postingdiscusscruise If you see this in ANY web address on the e-mail, it's spam. See multiple tell-tale signs, consider it trashed. I'd also like to go ahead and point out that if Karatechick or whatever her name is, is my age as of right now, she'd be 50 by the time she sent me this e-mail. That's just weird. Alternatively, if she's my age in 2038, then I'll be 50 when she's 21. No matter how you slice it, it's just uncomfortable. |
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Come visit me and my thought processes at my website: http://www.publishedauthors.net/tdotdw/news.html "In the cold light, justice and morality always look corny and you can't wave the flag and look cool. But like it or not, society needs its heroes." - John Hart; actor who played The Lone Ranger. | |
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1:25 AM Dec 7
