Recently, Thomas Katona, the treasure of Alcona County in Michigan was charged for embezzling funds in order to send the money to Nigerian Advance Fee Scammers http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/us/18scam.html). How a public official could be duped into such a stupid action, is up to voters of Alcona County to decide. After all they reelected him twice as county treasure after he pled guilty to fraud after falsifying documents for his clients.
Mr. Katona and others that fall for these scams exhibit a degree of stupidity that is beyond my understanding. While I am not saying that those that are victims of these scams deserved to loose their money, I certainly am shaking my head at how dumb some people can be.
To prove my point, lets examine one typical example of one of the scam emails used to initiate the process of separating the unwary from their money. I recently found one of the scam letters that made it past my spam filters in my in box. We can have a look at this scam mail and wonder not only at the stupidity of the scammer but that of anyone who would be caught up in the scam. After reading the come on scam spam, check out the footnotes below!Â
Return-Path: <drjstev01@ozu.es>(1)
Delivered-To: “REMOVEDâ€Â (2)
Received: from unknown (HELO mx2.ozu.es) (194.30.33.37)
Received: from correo.ozu.es (webmail1-privado.ozu.es [10.0.6.40])
Subject: FROM DR JUDE STEVEN (3)
From: “Dr Jude Steven” <drjstev01@ozu.es>(3)
Reply-To: drjstev1@yahoo.co.uk (1)
Importance: Normal
To: undisclosed-recipients:; (4)
From the Desk of Dr. Jude Steven (5)
Manager Lloyds Tsb Bank London (6)
Private Email: drjstev1@yahoo.co.uk (7)Â
Dear Friend
My Name is Dr.Jude Steven From Harlsden, North West London , here in England. (8)I work for Lloyds Tsb Bank Corporation London. (9) I am writing you from my office that will be of an imensebenefit to both of us. (10) In my department,being the assistant manager(Greater London Regional Office), I discovered an abandoned sum of$12.5 million USA Dollars (Twelve million five hundred thousand UsaDollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customersLate Mr.Thompson Morrison American citizen who unfortunately lost hislife in the plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 which crashed onJanuary 31 2000, including his wife and only daughter. The choice ofcontacting you is aroused from the geograpgical nature of where youlive, particularly due to the sensivity of the transaction.and theconfidentiality herein. Now our bank has been waiting for any of therelatives to come-up for the claim but nobody has done that.Ipersonally has been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for 2 yearsnow, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin /WillBeneficiary to the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valuedat 12.5 Million Dollars can be paid to you. This will be disbursed or shared in these percentages,60% to me and40% to you. I have secured all necessary legal documents that can beused to back up this claim we are making. All i need is to fill in yournames to the ducuments and legalise it in the court here to prove youas the legitimate beneficiary. All I require now is your honest Co-operation, Confidentiality and Trust to enable us see this transactionthrough. I guarantee you that this will be executed under a legitimatearrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please,provide me the following: as we have 5 days to run it through. this isvery very URGENT PLEASE. 1. Full Name2. Your Telephone Number3. Your Contact Address.Your urgent response will be highly anticipated and appreciated.Please reply to my private email address below. drjstev1@yahoo.co.ukÂ
Best regards,Dr.Jude Steven
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——————————————————————————————–Correo enviado desde http://www.ozu.es (11)
  (1) Interesting this mail originated from Spanish domain, but the return address is Yahoo domain in the United Kingdom. Why would anyone use email addresses from different countries?
(2) I use a different email address each time I sign up for anything on the Internet. I listed the address this message was sent to with a business-to-business listing service. The fact the mail came to a throw away address is a big clue that perhaps the message should not be taken at face value.
(3) The Subject line shows who the message is purportedly from but in all caps, while the From line shows the same thing. Is saying it twice supposed to make it true?
(4) The stupid SOB was too lazy to look up and include my name. Boy that really make me think I am dealing with legitimate businessman. Yea right! 4 strikes in the mail headers alone, show we have real winner here!
(5) Oh here’s his name again, a third time, lets make sure we do not forget it! We get to see the name a few more times before we are done.
(6) OK, he is the manager of this big bank, but he just forgot that TSB should be capitalized. What a looser!
(7) Mr. big bank manager uses Yahoo for his private email address, which makes me real confident!
(8) Just in case I did not know that London was in England, he better let me know.
(9) Whoops, he forgot that TSB should be capitalized again. Such a small mistake from such a busy man is fully justified.
(10) His office will be of an imense benefit to both of us. Am I really supposed to believe that Lloyds of London hired a manager not only cannot spell immense but cannot form a cohesive sentence? The spelling and punctuation error are rife in this “ducumentâ€.
(11) In case I did not read the mail headers, lets make it clear the message was originated on a non British service by using a service that puts Spanish language ads at the bottom of the mail.
Obviously, whoever wrote the mail is a complete and utter moron! The story does not even ring true and was written by an illiterate idiot. The whole thing stinks of the elephant manure that must make up the majority of the scammers brains. How could anyone of even mild intelligence fall for such a scheme? Is it any wonder that most law enforcement agencies do not follow up when another blooming idiot falls for these tricks?
These Nigerian scams play on human greed. If you renounce greed, you’re in no danger. Almost all of those suggest illegal activity.