![Welcome to Orange Frog Productions Scams, Shams & Flim-Flams Section [Banner]](images/ssff/ofp_banner_ssff.jpg)
Please be sure to read my Lottery Scams Home Page
NOTE: All external links on this page open a new window.
Things I Did, Below
I, personally, receive email in HTML format. The following was received (and looked) like I received it.
- I removed my email addresses. These came to various accounts and some no longer exist. There are places on this site you can get hold of me if you wish or need to. They are protected from spambots using JavaScript, but all you have to do is click on them.
- All scammer and related email addresses, and any actual website links have been changed, at least putting spaces into them. They appear as underlined blue links, though they aren't.
- Any notes I added in the actual letter are in square brackets ("[" "]"), are bold, red in color, and highlighted. If what I found "behind the links" (email or website) are different than what was displayed, I will include them in this type of note.
- All spelling, spacing, line-wrapping, and punctuation errors are the ones that appeared in the original received email. (I may or may not analyze some or all of these.)
Scam Example
Received 10/21/2007
NOTE: I actually received TWO COPIES of this one ... one at 07:13PM and one at 07:45PM.
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2007 7:46 PM
Subject: US$1.000.000 PAYMENT NOTIFICATION
Dear Sanders,
This is to inform you that on 19th Day of October, 2007,We received a payment credit instruction from the British Government in collaboration with,IMF,NNPC,and World Bank to credit your account with US $1.000.000 ( One Million United States Dollars Only) from the Government Foreign reserve account.
Be informed that the above Government Agencies in Conjunction with YAHOO! & MICROSOFT WINDOWS, arranged and gathered all the e-mail addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to All email Address.Ten (10) beneficiaries was selected for the last quater of the year through Electronic Balloting System (EBS) without the candidate applying, we congratulate you for being one of the people selected.
IMF,and World Bank through this debt relief funds assisted project is working to promote sustainable development, eliminate world poverty and eliminate financial burdens on beneficiaries in each of these countries,US of America, Canada, UnitedKingdom,Asia ,Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
Authorized and Regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Central Bank Of Nigeria where your draw falls has been mandated to release and transfer these funds to you.Adhering to the principles of Banking Code.You have been assigned new payment allocation numbers as seen herewith: Payment Allocation Code:YBM-EBS-718AF And beneficiary's id: YBM-EBS-360AF as stated in your Payment Approval File.
You are therefore advised to send the required information to the Payment Officer to enable him to process and transfer your funds to you through any Mode of Payment of your Choice.These numbers above fall within the Bank's Location file for your payment.Send your Identification Numbers,Full Names and your reachable telephone number to him immediately.
In view of this notification, you are urgently requested to reconfirm your new payment codes as seen submitted here in your reply message to the Payment Officer ,who has the statutory rights to remit the funds to you without unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks.Feel free to Call/Contact him using the info below:
Attn:Prof Charles Soludo
Executive Governor
Central Bank of Nigeria
E-mail:cbnpaymentofficer @ yahoo.fr
Tel:+234-8051536951
Be Warned : All beneficiaries are meant to receive their
payments on or before 14 banking days
from the day of this notification.All unclaimed funds
shall be returned back to the Government
reserve account as forfeited payments.
Congratulations!!!
Mrs. Rose Cole
For: Secretary of States,UK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invite your mail contacts to join your friends list with
Windows Live Spaces. It's easy! Try it!
[Behind this link:
<http:// spaces.live.com /spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us>]
[NOTE: I left names, email addresses, and phone numbers in here for the search engines to find. DO NOT TRY TO CONTACT THEM! I'm SURE you will be ripped off! -LE]
Email Headers
(for 07:13PM email)
[DO NOT send email to any of the following email addresses]
X-Message-Delivery:
Vj0zLjQuMDt1cz0wO2k9MDtsPTA7YT0w
X-Message-Status: n:0
X-SID-PRA: MRS ROSE COLE . <
X-SID-Result: Pass
X-Message-Info: /UPnKeip+FzmxvcJ1NfV8xrZoXmk
Received: from bay0-omc3-s7.bay0.hotmail.com
([65.54.246.207]) by bay0-imc3-s31.bay0.hotmail.com with
Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2444);
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:13:14 -0700
Received: from BAY139-W32 ([64.4.43.67]) by
bay0-omc3-s7.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft
SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:13:07 -0700
Message-ID: <
Return-Path:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_3b1fcc94-0d34-45f2-9dc3-b4fceb7c4fb1_"
X-Originating-IP: [72.3.137.83]
From: "MRS ROSE COLE ." <
Subject: US$1.000.000 PAYMENT NOTIFICATION
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:13:07 +1200
Importance: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
Bcc:
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Oct 2007 23:13:07.0916 (UTC)
FILETIME=[F10088C0:01C81437]
Email Headers
(for 07:45PM email)
[DO NOT send email to any of the following email addresses]
X-Message-Delivery:
Vj0zLjQuMDt1cz0wO2k9MDtsPTA7YT0w
X-Message-Status: n:0
X-SID-PRA: MRS ROSE COLE . <
X-SID-Result: Pass
X-Message-Info: bPCY57aSH9vRmyBXVrMu+SgWh/80jJndaCIB/[space
added]
cthu3QaO9y0ypy19Lo5M+geinEc4qViuB+qDiBlL7YS0aCN+A==
Received: from bay0-omc1-s4.bay0.hotmail.com
([65.54.246.76]) by bay0-imc1-s29.bay0.hotmail.com with
Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2444);
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:46:46 -0700
Received: from BAY109-W28 ([64.4.19.128]) by
bay0-omc1-s4.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft
SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:46:41 -0700
Message-ID: <
Return-Path:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_ba1ab746-00a5-4f19-b8f8-7a0e200c9c9c_"
X-Originating-IP: [72.3.137.83]
From: "MRS ROSE COLE ." <
Subject: US$1.000.000 PAYMENT NOTIFICATION
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:46:41 +1200
Importance: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
Bcc:
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Oct 2007 23:46:41.0769 (UTC)
FILETIME=[A15A1D90:01C8143C]
Notes
NOTE: Both emails contained the same content.
Problems I see:
- Besides the general sloppiness (spelling and spacing, especially), the first thing I noticed is that this email is on the "Bank of Nigeria". ANY time I receive an unsolicited email with "Nigeria" ANYWHERE in it, it raises a red flag for me.
- All of the email addresses are free email accounts (Hotmail.com
and Yahoo.fr [yahoo France]).
- Why would "Rose Cole; For Secretary of States,UK" be
sending me email from TWO DIFFERENT EMAIL ADDRESSES?
(wdbnkimf294 @ hotmail.com andwdbnkimf273 @ hotmail.com) S/he wouldn't. Was this an error (me getting the same email from two different addresses)? Probably... Even so... - Why would "Rose Cole; For: Secretary of States,UK" be using any free email address? If s/he works for the UK Government, s/he wouldn't. The email would be from a UK government address.
- Why would the "CBN Payment Officer" of either the British Government or of the "Central Bank of Nigeria" use a free Yahoo email account from France? They wouldn't. The email address would correspond to a UK Government site, or to a "Central Bank of Nigeria" site.
- Why would "Rose Cole; For Secretary of States,UK" be
sending me email from TWO DIFFERENT EMAIL ADDRESSES?
- Why would the UK Government deposit money in a Nigerian Bank for an American winner? They wouldn't. An electronic transfer would be used.
- Note that there IS no "To:" email address - only a blank BCC (Blind Carbon Copy), which indicates that this is what was used to send the email. Now, the letter indicates there were 10 winners, but still... Wouldn't they have sent the email directly TO ME, and not use a general mailing list?
- If I didn't enter (in any way), then the only way they
would have gotten this email address is to
- TROLL for it (the word I use for Spammers and others who use "spam-bots" and their like to ... "troll" the web for email addresses);
- One of the VERY FEW businesses or FRIENDS that have this as one of my email addresses must have SOLD it to them (according to their privacy policies, they would never/shouldn't have done so);
- They bought a mailing list from a TROLLER, SPAMMER or HACKER or someone else who gathers email addresses, and put... everyone(?) on it?
Why would a trust someone who attaches emails from the world, received in such a fashion to a lottery ticket?
- I didn't see that many blatent English language errors in this one, as I do in so many other scam emails, but (again, relating to sloppiness), the many word and line-spacing problems. (And again, in a business letter related to hundreds of thousands of dollars, AND supposedly from the UK, who pride themselves on their command of the English language, why so many of this type of error?)
As you can see, a little analysis (and healthy skepticism) about the "something for nothing" (not even having to APPLY! WOW!) offered, can save me from:
- actually getting on someone's mailing list (least troublesome);
- beginning a process that will take weeks and cost me thousands of dollars - well, all they can get out my accounts;
just to end up with nothing, or worse, owing MY bank thousands of dollars, and possibly being prosecuted.
Send comments/questions about this page to Bill Sanders at:
Return to OFPv2/SSFF - Scams - Lottery Scams Home page
Send email to Bill Sanders
()
with questions or comments about this page or site.
This site, all text and graphics (unless otherwise noted) on it
were designed, developed and published by Bill Sanders of Orange Frog Productions.
It and it's CSS was validated and complies with both the:
CSS and
HTML 4.01
validators from W3C.
NOTE: All CSS validates except the "New Window Buttons"
which include some invalid code (ie: hacks),
added PicoSearch Tables,
and warnings for using transparent backgrounds when color foregrounds defined.
Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Bill Sanders / Full site last modified: October 21, 2006
Any reproduction, printing, or selling of this content is
prohibited without express written consent from William D.
Sanders.
