07 March 2019

Why is stuff like this allowed to exist ?

Good day to you.

My name is [redacted], a renowned Togo based lawyer. I am writing in connection to your late relative who died along with his wife and only Son in an auto accident.

I have contacted you for the repartration of his money valued at sixteen million five hundred thousand dollars and the also the claiming of his estate. Get back to me for more clarification; Looking forward to hearing from you

Yours faithfully, [redacted]. 
I redacted the name in order to not give the scammer any publicity. We have all received emails like this, and any sensible person recognizes it as fake.  In fact my understanding is that scams like this are intentionally written in this floridly bogus style so as not to accidentally entrap any sophisticated computer users, their targets being only the totally naive internet users and those with mental impairments.

As the son of an elderly mother who had advanced dementia, it annoys me that this type of material continues to exist.  I understand that much of it arises overseas in places beyond the jurisdiction of the American court system, but I can't believe that no mechanism exists to shut it down or punish the malefactors. 

12 comments:

  1. that is the well known 'Nigeria 419' scam: Nigerian (419) Scam

    you can google up sites where the siters lead these scammers on and on and on.

    I-)

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  2. People with clueless parents should hire penetration testers to try to scam them, and if it works then start the process of taking guardianship. Usually we wait until after the money is gone.

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  3. Substitute Spain for Togo and it is much like the one my very alert Mother got in the U.S. Postal Service mail yesterday. Nothing on the envelope indicated who it was from or what it was about. It is in the circular file.

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  4. I am the head of an organisation that travels globally and punishes scammers that feed off the gullible.
    We work on a voluntary basis and receive no government funding.
    However our costs are high and to continue to protect you we need some financial assistance.
    Please protect yourself from future scamming by donating to our worthy cause.
    We cannot protect you without your help.
    Send dollars to me at (redacted)

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  5. I often wish my email client offered a "Reply with Letter Bomb" button.

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  6. Unfortunately the very few that will fall for this will be most hurt from such a scam.

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  7. There are scam-baiters that have posted videos on Youtube. Recently I saw one where the very savvy fake victim got the "Microsoft Tech Support" scammer to bollix up his own PC. You can actually hear the guy crying.

    I was not sympathetic.

    Lurker111

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  8. Four days ago I got a phone call from my /real bank/, initially in Spanish, but then we cleared that up, in their attempt to collect a debt from someone named Reynardo Palomares, which is a cool name, even cooler than Ramon Navarro, but I don't know that person. And yesterday a woman called to ask /me/ if I was "calling about the car." I said, "What car?" She said, "I thought you were calling me about the car." I said, "When did I call you?" She said, "Just now, and I called you back." "No," I said, "I haven't used the phone all day." "That's weird. Well. Sorry. Bye." "Wait," I said, "Did you call me by dialing, or by tapping on the number that appeared?" She said, "I tapped on your number." That's ominous.

    As regards the so-called Nigeria email scam, my favorite version is where they're pretending to be a rich woman dying of cancer who wants to transfer $10.500.000.00 USD to me to do the work of the Lord, but first I should send my personal information right away, because of the cancer and all, and then "God be MANY BLESSINGS up you."

    Also, my spam trap is catching more and more emails from fancifully named right-wing political/religious organizations that seem to assume I'm fully on board with their bullshit, and clicking on Unsubscribe would alert them to my potential chump-hood. I don't think it's just you, TYWKIWDBY. I think it's everybody.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, I know it's not just me. What I don't understand is why someone - like state's attorneys general - can't crack down on these practices.

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  9. More on the reasons, why those e-mails are like they are:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/06/22/why-nigerian-e-mail-scams-are-so-crude-and-obvious/
    And some (sometimes hillarious) ways to fight them:
    https://lifehacker.com/this-chatbot-wastes-scammers-time-and-its-glorious-1820334967

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  10. Why would they intentionally not want to rip off sophisticated computer users? Isn't money money?

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