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Page last updated 08/07/2007
All external links last last verified 08/07/2007
Please be sure to read my Work-at-Home 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. At the time, I was more interested in the message than the headers and do not have the original. This is a copy I forwarded to myself as I sent it to my father.
- 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 07/30/2007
Dear Candidate,
Mr Rick Martini here, I work for a resourceful up and coming enterprise in England (BILLS TEXILE IND LTD). I am pleased to inform you that we start a new employment project in the USA and are looking for reliable, well-motivated and able individual(s) to take care of the project needs.We propose to you this job opening as we have reviewed your work information on the career website . The job requires a flexible schedule shift. We conduct classes in creativity from which we have students from various parts of the world but our major income is made from sales of various artifacts like sculptures,photographs and paintings which we supply to a large clientel base in the united states.
Our clients make payments for our supplies every week in form of money orders and checks which are not easily converted to cash outside the US and annually we lose 45% of our income to bank charges on transfers {BUT BECAUSE THIS US MONEY ORDERS AND CHECKS CAN BE EASILY CASHED WITHIN THE US } We have opened up the post for an individual in the states to work as our representative and assist us in processing the payments from our clients for which we will pay a weekly salary of 100$ plus { YOU WILL BE PAID 10% FOR EACH TRANSACTION YOU ROUND UP} .
All you need to do is receive this payments from our client in the states,get it cashed at a bank or a quick cash spot and then deduct your commission (10%) and forward the balance to the company down here via western union money transfer. You will keep all western union transfer receipts used and forward them to us from time to time, you will also record all transactions on your computer both off line and online in case of any emergency references.
Its every optimist's dream to have a bright and secured future,where dreams are easily turned to reality.Here at Lionheart Gallery this is what we offer A chance to help build our company in the united states and in return get paid accordingly thereby helping and assisting with your current job making life much easier .
If you are interested in starting this business activity, please respond to this message with the following information as requested to commence;
(1)Your full name which will be on the Payment.
(2)Your address where clients will send the Payments..
(3)Your cell or direct phone number.
(4)Your Current Occupation .
(5)Your Age.
Congratulations if you decide to take this offer.Thank you and GOD bless.
Mr.Rick Martini
BILLS TEXILE IND LTD
Tempest Street,
Lincoln,LN2
Uk.
+4477024085077
_________________________________________________________________
Missed the show? Watch videos of the Live Earth Concert
on MSN.
http://liveearth.msn.com
[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
Received 07/30/2007
X-Apparently-To: <one_of_my_yahoo_email_addresses-removed>
via 66.196.101.28; Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:39:26 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [65.54.246.169]
Return-Path: <billstexileindltd @ hotmail.com>
Authentication-Results: mta231.mail.re4.yahoo.com from=hotmail.com;
domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 65.54.246.169 (EHLO
bay0-omc2-s33.bay0.hotmail.com) (65.54.246.169) by
mta231.mail.re4.yahoo.com with SMTP; Mon, 30 Jul 2007
09:39:23 -0700
Received: from BLU105-W16 ([10.6.56.51]) by
bay0-omc2-s33.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft
SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2668); Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:34:17 -0700
Message-ID: <BLU105-W167D0EE7AC54C89DE73ED1A1EE0 @ phx.gbl>
X-Originating-IP: [83.229.91.39]
From: "Rick Martini" <billstexileindltd @
hotmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: billstexileindltd @ hotmail.com
Subject: Job offer..Work Online From Home
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:34:13 +0000
Importance: Normal
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
MIME-Version: 1.0
Return-Path: billstexileindltd @ hotmail.com
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 30 Jul 2007 16:34:17.0986 (UTC)
FILETIME=[795DBE20:01C7D2C7]
Content-Length: 2744
Notes
Problems I see:
- Google found NO website even mentioning "Bills Texiles Ind, Ltd." or "Bills Textiles" - no "yellow pages", no addresses, no anything.
- A search of London Online shows no listing for "Bills Texile" (or Textiles); shows no address for anything resembling "Bills Texile" on Tempest Street; shows NOTHING for "Lincoln LN2"
- While "44" is the Country Code for the UK (Fone Finder International phone query results), the rest of the phone number was not found anywhere in Google. If this were a valid company, wouldn't the number be online SOMEWHERE?
- From the email proper (the part we read):
- Spacing, grammar, and spelling errors abound. (I will not delineate them here. If I do, they will know what they did wrong. Let's just say, cut-and-paste it into WORD, with error tracking turned on, and watch it light up with underlines.)
- Cut-and-paste error - The alleged company name is "BILLS TEXILE IND LTD" (all caps), and in the text, I think they missed a spot: "Here at Lionheart Gallery this is what we offer." - No where else in the text is it mentioned that we would be working for anyone but "BILLS TEXILE", except here. (I believe someone missed the pasting of the company name, there. Hope they don't get beat too badly!)
- "We conduct classes in creativity ..." ??? A "texile" company? For what? Making cloth? How to weave?
- From the email headers:
- The email address from which this was sent me is a Hotmail account, one of the free, and many would say "throw-away" email accounts. Why would a valid business offer come from a Hotmail account? Shouldn't the email address have been something like "RMartini @ billstexiles.com"?
- Quick check of IPs:
- The "originating IP" (83.229.91.39) is from Lagos, Nigeria. (figures)
- 10.6.56.51 could not be found using GeoByte.com - IP Address Locator
- 65.54.246.169 is from Chicago, Illinois.
While there may be "difficulties," I doubt that 45% of any company's income is lost to bank fees. They would simply change banks to one whose fees were MUCH less. While this looks attractive, pay attention to the details (see notes, above), and you will see that it's a scam.
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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
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