Pages Tagged “419”
Blog Posts
- Call Your Mark a Sucker
Scam explains that you haven’t received your money because you’re dealing with scammers, so please send your info…
- Sure it is
I love 419 scam emails that start out by saying that sure, most of the messages like this are fake, but THIS one’s real!
- FIB Scamming
Lame 419 scam: How likely is the FBI Director to contact someone using a GMAIL address? Update 2023: I vastly underestimated the use of Gmail by government officials, didn’t I?
- Now there’s an opening line!
I just spotted an advance fee fraud pitch in the spamtraps that started out with the greeting: Dear Trusting Friend. I suppose the scammer could have meant “trusted friend,” which is still odd for an introduction, but makes a little more sense. Of course, if you take “trusting” to the extreme—i.e. gullible—you’ve just described the […]
- New trend in 419 scams: UK Artists
In the past two weeks, a new variant of the advance fee scam has dropped into our spam traps: supposed UK-based artists needing help selling their works overseas. The classic Nigerian scam involves someone claiming to be the relative of a deceased or deposed dictator, general, etc. is trying to smuggle money out of the […]
- Nigerian Scams for Auction?
eBay must have some sort of blanket advertising deal with Google, because the “sponsored links” you get for some searches really don’t make any sense. Case in point: I did a Google search for the phrase, “nigerian scam,” and saw the following ad: Wow, when they say, “Whatever it is, you can get it here.”—they […]
- Confidential? Perhaps not…
I found a 419 scam in the spamtraps that started, in typical fashion, with an all-caps name and address, then the line: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL REQUESTING What made this funny (aside from the bad grammar) was the fact that the To: line contained over 1,200 addresses! Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word […]
- Darth Vader, 419 Scammer
I had set this spam sample aside without really looking at it back at the end of March. As I checked the folder this morning, the scammer’s supposed name jumped out at me. VADER DARTH CO-OPERATIVE BANK PLC UNIVERSITY BRANCH, GROVE HOUSE OXFORD ROAD MANCHESTER UK I AM WRITING TO LET YOU KNOW HOW I […]
- Spamming for God (multicultural edition)
Various outlets have reported on the recent appearance of evangelical spam—unsolicited bulk email which promotes religious messages instead of advertising products. It’s been pointed out that since CAN-SPAM refers to commercial mail it can’t be used to stop people who bombard you with other types of messages. I’ve seen 419 scams with religious trappings for […]