Ever Respond to a Scam E-MaiL?

I'm sure everybody has gotten at least one of the famous "Nigerian Scam" e-mails in their lives. Y'know, the ones claiming to be from a bank president or an accountant in some far off land, who've supposedly discovered a dormant account with millions of $$ in it that belonged to an oil tycoon who died in a plane crash without any next of kin, now they need your assistance to transfer this money into the U.S., yadda yadda yadda. I find the broken English in these e-mails hilarious, and occasionally when I'm feeling mischievous I'll respond to one, usually by suggesting that the author of the e-mail perform a certain, shall we say, "anatomical impossibility" if you catch my drift. I never expected to actually get a response back from one of 'em but I did today.

This was the message "Ms. Janet Muye" of "U.K. London" sent me a couple of days ago (subject line was "I DID NOT HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN")

Quote :

Dear beloved one,

I did not hear from you again or are you no longer interested in the fund transfer of the CHARITY HOME ORGANISTION PROJECT IN YOUR REGION? Please let me know so that i will know if i have to get someone else to handle this project of ($ 5.7 million USD) You can forward your address details below and i will give you more details about the project and the fund.
NAME AND ADDRESS......
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN.....
OCCUPATION...
POSITION IN YOUR WORK....
DATE OF BIRTH...
MARITAL STATUS.........
YOUR PHONE NUMBER.....

Looking forward to hear from you soon and remain bless.
Regards
Mrs Janet Muye
UK .London

I couldn't help myself so I responded with this...

Quote :

What are you, on crack? F*ck off, scammer.

Usually that's where these conversations end, of course, but today I actually got a response from "Janet!" This is a first! I was hoping that she might verbally blast me so I could turn this into a long running e-mail battle like you see on the awesome Nigerian Scammer crushing site "419baiter," but unfortunately she didn't give me much material to work with:

Quote :

So you don't believed me ?

Pffft. Is that the best you got, Janet? Anyway, I replied:

Quote :

No, I do not "believed" you. Find another moron to pull your scam on. DON`T contact me again or I will forward your e-mail address to the FBI, the CIA, and President Barack Obama himself.

I wonder if that'll be the end of the saga?: If I hear from "Janet" again I'll keep you posted.

The funniest one of these threads I ever saw was one where the would-be victim responded that his name was James T. Kirk and even sent a driver's license with Shatner's picture on it. This thread just went on and on until the "victim" said he needed his money really quick because he'd just killed his wife because he didn't want to share the money with her.

Haha, I've responded by not responding. Two times times I've replied without writing anything to see if they'll write back, and both times they have! Makes me laugh thinking they they received no message in the email except an empty reply and they still replied back with further instructions.

There was a great program on MSNBC I think where they actually tracked the person down and played along with his scam until they exposed him. And they had another show about these scams focusing on the dumb people that actually participated. I'm sure some of you know which ones I'm talking about.

There was a story in the paper I work for a year or two ago about a local tool who sent something like $20,000 to a woman in Nigeria that he'd been corresponding with via e-mail. He said she told him that she was in modeling school and needed the $$ to come to the U.S. to start her modeling career.

I just rolled my eyes. I mean, in this day and age, how are people still dumb enough to fall for these things??

I usually ignore the emails, but I do like to yank the chains of telemarketers, especially when they call at dinner time.

My favorite one is answering before they even say hello (thank you caller ID) and in a panicked voice say "Ok thank God, John, thanks for calling me back. I got a real problem here. We've got to get rid of this body before my wife gets home. Get your truck over here as fast as possible".

When they respond, "Uhh is this Mr. [MetalGuy]?", I come back with, "Whoa, this isn't John? Forget everything you've just heard. You don't know anything. Goodbye." and hang-up.

One day the cops will arrive at my front door and I'll have some 'splaining to do.

Fat Freddy wrote:

There was a story in the paper I work for a year or two ago about a local tool who sent something like $20,000 to a woman in Nigeria that he'd been corresponding with via e-mail. He said she told him that she was in modeling school and needed the $$ to come to the U.S. to start her modeling career.

I just rolled my eyes. I mean, in this day and age, how are people still dumb enough to fall for these things??

"She" probably sent this lonely guy a bunch of fake pictures and he took the bait out of desperation and what not, and bam, he was completely suckered. The program/s I was referring to had these same types of scenarios where some scammer would send people these fake photos and create a relationship with them in order to clear out their accounts.

Never responded to one - I don't want them to know they found a real email address and try and hack into my account

thejokeriv wrote:

Never responded to one - I don't want them to know they found a real email address and try and hack into my account

That's how I always felt about them. Soon as I see one (and I don't get them very often),I hit the good old delete button.

007 wrote:

thejokeriv wrote:

Never responded to one - I don't want them to know they found a real email address and try and hack into my account

That's how I always felt about them. Soon as I see one (and I don't get them very often),I hit the good old delete button.

Probably the same reason I don't respond either.

I have never gotten one of these. My spam detector does a good job of weeding that crap out. I did send $15 to an e-mail that said I won a $40K car and just needed to pay some sundry expenses, but I found out someone else got a message just like that so I canceled the card I made the payment with.

thejokeriv wrote:

Never responded to one - I don't want them to know they found a real email address and try and hack into my account

I change my e-mail password every couple of weeks, so good luck to Nigeria if they wanna try that!!

you mean the nigerians dont send you millions of dollars??? I have been waiting by the mailbox for the last 8 months....

exact33 wrote:

you mean the nigerians dont send you millions of dollars??? I have been waiting by the mailbox for the last 8 months....

I swear I must get at least a half dozen of those messages a day. Not only from Nigeria, but from Burkina Faso, South Africa, the Ivory Coast, etc., etc.

I had no idea I was so well known internationally.

Fat Freddy wrote:

exact33 wrote:

you mean the nigerians dont send you millions of dollars??? I have been waiting by the mailbox for the last 8 months....

I swear I must get at least a half dozen of those messages a day. Not only from Nigeria, but from Burkina Faso, South Africa, the Ivory Coast, etc., etc.

I had no idea I was so well known internationally.

i take it you dont watch BBC America broadcasts

DallasBlack wrote:

I have never gotten one of these. My spam detector does a good job of weeding that crap out. I did send $15 to an e-mail that said I won a $40K car and just needed to pay some sundry expenses, but I found out someone else got a message just like that so I canceled the card I made the payment with.

That's like when my mother got a computer, got a pop-up that said she won $50,000, and she believed it! Sent all kinds of information.

Eyesore wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

I have never gotten one of these. My spam detector does a good job of weeding that crap out. I did send $15 to an e-mail that said I won a $40K car and just needed to pay some sundry expenses, but I found out someone else got a message just like that so I canceled the card I made the payment with.

That's like when my mother got a computer, got a pop-up that said she won $50,000, and she believed it! Sent all kinds of information.

If they wanted any personal information (they already had my name and address) I would not have sent them anything. It was the fact that they only wanted $15 and alredy had certain information that didn't send out any warning bells until after I sent the payment. I have entered many sweepstakes and there was some naive hope that I actually won something.

Very funny thread. Reminds me of this clip from one of my favourite shows:




I love the Yahoo images bit


Sadly, there was a guy from my home city who flew to Mali a few years ago, thinking he'd found love online. When he got there, he was kidnapped. Luckily he was able to escape, but its sad that people are so desperate that they'll believe almost anything.

I've gotten these before and love to string them along.The ones I like are the guys that go through an Ebay or Craigslist listing.You know the ones where the price seems to good to be true.They'll email all this information about the item then say they moved to Canada or whatever and its there with them.

The last one I dealt with was a Tractor on craigslist.The price seemed way too cheap so I emailed this moron and he said he had recently moved to Canada and that the tractor was there with him.I told him I wanted to see it in person and that I had family I could visit in Canada to come look at it.Haha

I would love to have these guys busted.Show up at their door with the F.B.I or something.

Got another one today that I felt was worthy of a response. This is supposedly a serviceman in Iraq who needs my help in transferring some treasure that he's found overseas. Of course, for my help he'll split it with me.

Here's the "Sergeant's" e-mail to me. Maybe it's just me, but I would think that a member of our Armed Forces would have a better command of the English language. Not to mention, I doubt he'd have a "yahoo.co.uk" e-mail address.

(Note: all errors in punctuation and/or syntax are reproduced here exactly as I received them.)

Quote :

Subject: MY DEAR RESPECTED FRIEND

My Dear Respected Friend,
I am Sgt. Kenneth O. Preston, the 13th Sergeant Major for the Combined Joint Task Force 7. Serving in Baghdad, Iraq. I am on assignment here in Iraq and have some items. I need to ship to you for safe keep.
Please could you check this site so you could understand what I am trying to say.
(**Link to BBC news story -- I didn't bother to click it but I've received variations on this message before, it's a story about the stashes of money and gold bars found in Saddam Hussein's former palaces**)
Contact me immediately if you can assist. I will only highlight more on this transaction if you meet my conditions.
Please signify your interest by responding to this e-mail.
Thanks,
Sgt. Kenneth O. Preston.

Here's my response:

Quote :

Dear Whoever You Are:
Nice try. If you're Sergeant Preston, shouldn't you be serving in the Yukon? You should be ashamed of yourself for impersonating a member of our Armed Forces. You are scum. I hope you choke.

I get these all the time but I love the ones where they are instant messages. They are the fun ones cause then you can talk live with them. I think I posted something here last year or so with the conversation I had. Good times!

Yeah, I remember when you posted that "live chat" thing. Funny stuff.

Thrasher73 wrote:

I've gotten these before and love to string them along.The ones I like are the guys that go through an Ebay or Craigslist listing.You know the ones where the price seems to good to be true.They'll email all this information about the item then say they moved to Canada or whatever and its there with them.

I've only ever used Craigslist once and the very first e-mail I got in response to my ad was a guy who was interested in what I was selling, but he was "going on vacation to London" the next day. So he was going to have his "assistant" send me a cashier's check or money order for the item "plus an extra $20 for your trouble" and arrange to pick up while he was away. When I wrote back "Sorry, I'm only accepting cash for this item" he disappeared.

When it comes to Craigslist trolling, this guy is usually pretty fantastic: http://dontevenreply.com/

DB, I've got to ask, did you not think it was suspicious that they asked you for money? If they're in a position to give away $40k, why would they need to charge you a poxy $15?

Smindas wrote:

When it comes to Craigslist trolling, this guy is usually pretty fantastic: http://dontevenreply.com/

Haha, some of the ones that guy has posted practically bring me to tears. I'm thinking of buying his book

What, you guys don't just give them your bank account info and social security numbers? These people are just giving away money and all you have to do is supply information, information, information...