Stratovarius Community

Some people will do anything for money!
I got this E-Mail Scam:
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E-mail message

From: sgt.georgegreen@us.army.mil(Sgt. George Green) Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007, 11:00pm (CDT+1) To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: IMMEDIATE RESPONSE PLS. Reply to: georgegreen@mail.ru


Attention Sir/Ma,
How is everything going, I hope great?
Though i have not considered this medium to be the best manner to have approached you on this issue being that the internet has been greatly abused over the recent years and is very unsecured for informations of vital importance.
I have decided to take the chance seeing that no other means could have been faster and more efficient than the E-mail. I write to you irrespective of the fact you do not know me,but please do consider this letter as a request from a brother in dire need of assistance.
My name is George Green(Sgt)an American soldier, I am serving in the military of the 1st Armored Division here in Iraq. As you know we are being attacked by insurgents everyday and car bombs, it will come worst now Saddam Hussein was executed. During one of our rescue Mission we came across a safe that contains the total sum of $21,000,000 (Twenty one Million Us Dollars) that belongs to the revolutionaries, which I believe they use in buying weapons and ammunitions, and it was agreed by all party present that the money will be shared amongst us. You can go to this web link to read about events that took place here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm
Out of the total fund my share was $8,000,000 (Eight Million US Dollars).
I am seeking your assistance to evacuate my share of the money, which is $8,000,000 out of here to you, in as much as you can assure me that my own share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here.
This is no stolen money,and there are no dangers involved, as I have made arrangements with a UN representative based in Asia who promised to deliver the fund to any of my choosing destination. I shall be compensating you with US$2,500,000.00 (Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) on final conclusion of this project,while the rest shall be for me for my investment purposes.
One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with a third party, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please destroy this e-mail as any leakage of this information will be too bad for me.
I do not know for how long we will remain here, and I have survived two suicide bomb attacks, which prompted me to reach out for help because I will be migrating to you to invest and start a new life not as a soldier anymore. Please if this proposal is acceptable by you, kindly send me an e-mail signifying your interest including your most confidential telephone numbers for quick communication also your home address where the fund would be delivered.
As soon as I receive your email with the information, I will furnish you with full details on when and how the fund shall be delivered to you by the diplomat and he will make a contact with you before anything move.
Waiting for our urgent reply.
Best regards,
Sgt. George Green.
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I think .ru domain is Russia, isn't it?

I'm going to delete it, of course. I just thought people might see just how low some people have stooped in this world.

I just hope nobody is brainless enough to fall prey to this Bullshit!

@ beg: Huh? You really don't think he's American? Please English grammar of that letter look and say he American not is!!

I swear I could believe the story if only I were twenty years younger...

He survived two suicide attacks? He made arrangements with a UN representative?!? He will give me $2,500,000?!? Is this guy naive, stupid, retarded or just bored?

These are usually originating from Nigeria and are known as "Nigerian scams". DO NOT PAY GIVE YOUR PERSONAL CONTACTS TO THESE PEOPLE.
There are no lotteries or sweepstakes and you were not selected etc..
Google "internet scams" or "internet frauds" and find out more.
I actually have some fun with these guys sometimes and try to keep them in email correspondence and then they always ask for money to cover their "expenses" so I tell them the Western Union transfer number and then they go to the office only to find out that it isnt there. Then they come back and write a mail and then I am like oh sorry, there was one digit wrong and they go back and same thing again. One guy I managed to go there 3 times.
Then at the end I tell them that I have known from the start and that isn´t it nice this way for once:) But be careful with them, these are real criminals and they even kill people. (Sometimes one is asked to go there and some actually go and never return).

Timo, I have to admit, you know how to have fun! I was not lucky enough to get one of those e-mails, so I guess I'll have to wait before I get my chance to have fun for free.

Ah yes, I got one like that. I read through the first 3 lines before I obliterated it from my inbox.

It's amazing how many people fall for them. Simple, people: if someone comes out of nowhere and asks you to give cash (the 'release fee' as they call it) then just delete it without a second thought. No, you didn't enter the lottery of X place, you don't ever remember doing it do you? Why let some scamster attempt to convince you then?

Actually, these things have existed for ages.
The company I work for received letters like these in the mail even before e-mail took over.
I can remember people were actually asked to inform the police when they received letters like these.

My 'delete' button has become a more valuable tool over the last few years...

If this were true we'd all have 10 million $ every week. Good thing they're fake, where would we stash all that?

88speedkeys wrote:Actually, these things have existed for ages.
The company I work for received letters like these in the mail even before e-mail took over.

Yeah, these are very old things. If I remember right my father got a couple this kinda letters by snail mail many years before e-mail era. They were from West-Africa - what a surprise...

It does sound funny what Timo had done with some of them - maybe a bit working idea too, though those ppl continues doing that even if many receivers reveal it´s just scam. But I´d recommend if you get these, you better just delete them from your mailbox without even opening them.
I´ve also noticed many of those letters have the word "URGENT" in their subject.

Stealth wrote:Timo, I have to admit, you know how to have fun! I was not lucky enough to get one of those e-mails, so I guess I'll have to wait before I get my chance to have fun for free.

I'd rather stay safe and out of trouble, you never know ... just delete it !

stratobabius wrote:If this were true we'd all have 10 million $ every week. Good thing they're fake, where would we stash all that?

10 million every week?
Haha...I guess I'd have 10 millions every day

Unfortunately, Internet scams are a way of life for many criminal gangs, and a lot of innocent people have been ripped off.

One scam that I recall was a fake e-mail that reportedly came in from Wachovia Bank. It was asking customers for their user ID and password to the website so customer service could "reset" their web accounts.

I made a printscreen of the e-mail, and then sent it out to everyone in the GAL (Global Address List) at the CPA firm I was working at, at the time, advising everyone to be extremely careful regarding any personal or client related banking information.

One junior accountant asked, "How do you know that it was a fake, and didn't come from Wachovia?" I replied that I'd traced the e-mail to a rogue server from Seoul, South Korea. Junior was still not impressed, and I had to explain that Wachovia is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina (I have a cousin that is their director of e-commerce) and that it has no branch offices or anything else in Seoul.

I noticed that the reply to in the message that @Beg described was a .ru domain. One of the things that I frequently do for clients that are running Microsoft Exchange Server at their sites is to filter all foreign TLD's (top level domains), such as .ru, etc. as well as filter out foreign character sets, such as Cyrillic. This helps to cut down on that type of junk. Exchange 2003 has some sophisticated mail filters, and Exchange 2007- a 64-bit only solution, even more so. However, educating people against these types of threats is the best form of defense.

What's interesting is this is the same exact email I got over a year ago, with the exception of the name and email. It is DEFINITELY a scam.

Also notice that the article the guy posted was updated April 30th, 2003!!!

One scam that I recall was a fake e-mail that reportedly came in from Wachovia Bank. It was asking customers for their user ID and password to the website so customer service could "reset" their web accounts.

This reminds me a lot of so called "Nordea e-mail phishing" which has happened many times here in Finland most to customers of Nordea Bank. E-mails like that have been sent to the customers - and even other ppl too. I think one my old trash account got them few times, though including many spammails.

The main question in those is that does the bank send e-mails to change the passwords etc to their webservices? Of course not, I think the bank even hasn´t the slightest idea of my e-mail addresses.

That's some new variation of the Nigerian scam. In the original one some random person would write that he escaped some random African country with an enormous sum of money and he wants you to help him to invest this money somewhere and that you would get a few percents of this sum. Some people were dumb enough to meet with the scammers and to give them a quite large sums of money, supposedly to pay for the necessary transactions. Needless to say, those people never saw their money, the scammers or the alleged percents of some african dictator's treasure ...

Yes, I knew this was a total scam thing when I posted it. I have received a couple in the past that I simply deleted. This one, however, is a variation on the theme using the 'ol found money&I'll share routine. LE officials the world over have heard of these capers! Its hard to believe, but lots of folks fall for this shit. Sad.

Timo, records&my memory tell me you approached the problem verbatim, the same way a female posted she did in the old Tolkki forum, where I posted a topic about the Nigerean scams. LE education has taught me that dealing with these scammers in a "joking" manner is not advisible.Matter of fact, its best not to dal with them at all. The best way is to do as miditek&everyone else says, just delete the offending E-Mail and try to warn others.

screwing with them would be fun, but unless you're Timo Tolkki, (and even you're doing risky shit) I'd suggest settling for the phone solicitors.
"How dare you ask for my parents, they were mauled by vicous pigs! PIGS! They broke in in the middle of the night--elongated sob story" The key is to write down the companies name, so you can give them the same story when they call back (not believing you).

Rebel wrote:screwing with them would be fun, but unless you're Timo Tolkki, (and even you're doing risky shit) I'd suggest settling for the phone solicitors.
"How dare you ask for my parents, they were mauled by vicous pigs! PIGS! They broke in in the middle of the night--elongated sob story" The key is to write down the companies name, so you can give them the same story when they call back (not believing you).

That or Yep, bought, had it, hated it. They tend to leave you alone after that.

One good way to deal with telephone solicitors is to get a BIG whistle(the kind traffic policemen use)and when these engineers of persuasion call, blow that whistle right into the phone mouthpiece as hard as you can! Trust me, they won't call back anytime soon!

I would indeed recommend being very careful about dealing with any scammers on a personal basis. Given Finland's close geographical proximity to Russia, it might be a mistake to not assume that some of those people could potentially be working in underworld criminal enterprises.

Here's how to screw with 'em:

http://www.scamorama.com/smurf.html

Jabi wrote:Here's how to screw with 'em:

http://www.scamorama.com/smurf.html

Trust nobody. Remove musical instrument from its case, play it everywhere , form a band and make a million bucks. (I think Lemmy of Motörhead said something like that once in a metal magazine) I just added the making of a million (dollars).

If you don't want telephone solits calling you, just go here&register your phone number:
http://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

Oh, its only for USA people.

Trust me, it helps.