Please be sure to read my Nigerian Scams Home Page

Things I Did, Below

I, personally, receive email in HTML format. The following was received (and looks) 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 08/18/2006 - TWO copies, one timed at 8:06AM and one at 8:17AM

Email Headers

[DO NOT send email to any of the following email addresses]

I received TWO copies of the above email, on the same day and within 11 minutes of each other. Both went to the same address, both sent by the same person. The only differences I see in the headers, below, seem to have more to do with the time and message id (which SHOULD be different for each email). The differences between the two I see are marked in red.

Now, whether this means my email address is listed twice in a large database (which is possible), is listed in TWO different databases (also possible), or the idiot emailer is typing in names and they didn't sort them first to drop duplicates (also possible), I have no clue.

I hope the "peon" they pay to send these emails doesn't get beat, but his/her SUPERVISOR does!

Received 08/18/2006 at 08:06AM

Received 08/18/2006 at 08:17AM

Notes

Problems I see:

• Obvious (to me, anyway) errors:
  • Spacing errors:
    • "... Mr.Howard Ferraro ..."
    • "... my wife andchildren.However ..."
    • "... US$775,000.00.(Seven Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand, United States Dollar Only) ..."
  • Spelling
    • "... who is a London base business man" (shouldn't this be "... London-based businessman"?)
  • Punctuation errors (Like I do so well, huh?)
    • too many to enumerate
  • Capitalization errors:
    • "...  Seven Hundred and Seventy Five Thousand, United States Dollar Only ..."
  • What?
    • "I would like you therefore, to contact him on the below info and instruct him where to send the draft to you because I have instructed him on that already."
    • "I would have love to call you from London where I currently reside but due to the recent terrorist attack Mr. Ferraro advice me not to call because all international calls are been monitored by the UK authority."
• No name in salutations (and "Dearest" is a bit strong, don't you think?)

Remember that any professional, government official or otherwise, who uses many of the phrases and words used in this email, WOULD not and SHOULD not be making errors like the above. They should use a spell-checker, and, I would think, a grammar-checker. (And I would think any secretary would catch the odd phrasing, especially listed in the "What?" section, above. Don't you?)

Did you note that this one comes across as if I'd already dealt with the individual(s)? See, this may be part of the scam, "allowing" you an in (accidentally, of course), to the deal. In other words, if you didn't think this was a scam in the first place, and DID respond, you would be cheating the one who supposedly helped the writer out in the first place, simply by being dishonest your self? Are you a cheater?

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