We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
The Inheritance Scam
Options
Comments
-
Go over to 419eater.com - a whole community of very specific advice on this very subject. There you can learn and collaborate with all kinds of evil types who do this regularly, and they'll also help you to do so safely. It is called 'scambaiting', and head over to the forum at 419eater.com and you'll soon get stuck in :-)
I took a quick look - hours of fun beckons!! Hehehe!!0 -
davidlizard wrote: »Re personal info - I do not respond to any scams sent to my normal email addresses - I have a couple of email addresses specifically for this sort of thing. These are publicised them on the web - typically in guestbooks - and a steady stream of scams appears. There's nothing that can link me to these email addresses.
Concerning passports, I usually act totally thick (which can wind them up brilliantly) when they ask me for a scan of my passport, and after the usual DLLs renamed as jpg trick, I eventually send them a copy of the front cover of my passport.
One little issue with sending them passports, albeit heavily doctored, is that they can be used by these Nigerians in future scams.
Concerning bank details - they normally only use these to prepare what appears to be official documentation which they email back for signing - all part of the scam.
Good idea!! I already have one I set up a few years ago when I was contemplating "playing away"! I could use that in future.
Great idea! I'll try that next time. Don't get the "DLL" thing though. Can someone explain this please?
Surely they'll know the general layout of a passport anyway, it's the content they're after, isn't it?0 -
I thought I was being pretty innovative in playing these guys along. But it looks more like that I've tapped into a rich seam of similarly mischievously minded individuals here!!0
-
Isn't one of the main ideas to get them to make as many pointless trips to the WU office as possible, on the false hope you have sent them them cash to pay all the imaginary fees required to release the inheritance to you?"You were only supposed to blow the bl**dy doors off!!"0
-
What they want is a scan of your passport. They expect you to send a nice jpeg image of the page with the photo on.
Obviously you are not going to do this. So pick a system file which is part of the operating system on the PC - one of the DLL files in the System32 folder on XP is fine, copy it and rename it to "passport.jpg" and send it off to them. Of course they will not be able to open it. You can then shout at them, tell them it opens fine on your PC and it must be a problem with theirs.
What often happens is they then give up, say they have been able to open it (!!!) and move on to the next stage of the scam. So they don't need the passport.0 -
davidlizard wrote: »What they want is a scan of your passport. They expect you to send a nice jpeg image of the page with the photo on.
Obviously you are not going to do this. So pick a system file which is part of the operating system on the PC - one of the DLL files in the System32 folder on XP is fine, copy it and rename it to "passport.jpg" and send it off to them. Of course they will not be able to open it. You can then shout at them, tell them it opens fine on your PC and it must be a problem with theirs.
What often happens is they then give up, say they have been able to open it (!!!) and move on to the next stage of the scam. So they don't need the passport.
Ah! Got it! Just any old file - renamed!! Neat!!0 -
A few things to bear in mind :
1 Although some of these criminals are low level "lads" in net cafes some of them are also murderers, kidnappers, torturers, extorters etc and most of them connect to large gangs of murderers and robbers. Murder and robbery are normal everyday occurrences in Africa.
The FBI states on its website that the Nigerian government is partly or mostly funded by 419s and that 419s are the third to fifth biggest earner for Nigeria.
It's very big business, very successful, with tentacles all over the world in every country.
Law enforcement in every country has universally completely failed to stop the menace which is why, of course, many people get lots of emails about it all the time. Governments are mostly not bothering to try to stop it, on the contrary, mostly they collude with it and allow it to happen everywhere all the time.
2 Although some of the criminals are thick and ignorant some of them have hacker friends and so may send key loggers and various malware in the emails to you and then find out all about you and your home address and your habits and everything you've written in emails. Then also sometimes they'll take your identity and any bank details on your computer and rip off as much as they can and or do identity theft and open up whatever accounts in your name that they can and rip them off. Sometimes this then can ruin your life if you then can't get any credit and such like.
3 As the poster suggests, bear in mind that there are lots of Nigerian and African criminals here in UK, several hundred thousand of them, lots of them in every part of the country, and the people manipulating you may not all be in Africa but could be just a few streets away from you or in the same or next town as you. So once they've read the contents of your computer they can come and get you any time they want, if they want to.
4 As the other poster suggests, do look at 419eater and some of the similar ones and take note of the need to be serious about your personal safety. The FBI website and various websites list some of the murders that some of the hardcore crims do and there's been quite a few so far, all around the world.
5 Bear in mind that there's virtually no law enforcement or rule of law in UK or Africa so if it goes wrong then you're likely to be on your own.
Yes, scambaiting isn't really safe for amateurs. Not really.0 -
it would be hilarious if they 'knew' said offshore institution and got authorization from them to debit your account in advance. dont play with fire.Target Savings by end 2009: 20,000
current savings: 20,500 (target hit yippee!)
Debts: 8000 (student loan so doesnt count)
new target savings by Feb 2010: 30,0000 -
Im upset, friends have got this E-Mail, but I haven't .0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 351.2K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.7K Spending & Discounts
- 244.2K Work, Benefits & Business
- 599.2K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177K Life & Family
- 257.6K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards