[Blindapple] Important message! Spammer kicked off the list!

[Aaron Howell]

Ah the good old Nigerian 419 scam
(known as such because of the section of criminal code in Nigeria which outlaws them).
Basicly, these work as follows.
you receive an email, as Jason did, promising that the sender has amazing amounts of money, which they are willing to share with you,
if you will help them to hide it from the nigerian (or other country - usually in Africa though), government.
In this scheme, the bank account is actually fairly unimportant, what is important is your address and phone number.
They keep in touch with you as though everything is going according to plan,
then all of a sudden there will be a problem of some sort with the legal process in their country,
and they will need a small sum (usually a few thousand dollars), to clear it up and continue the process.
The scam is successful because it relies on people's greed.
Your average mark will be prepared to make a small/moderate investment, if they believe that it will pay off in the long run.
As you go further along with this scam, the problems get bigger, and the amounts get larger, until either the mark runs out of money/patience,
or eventually they get "invited" to Nigeria, where they find out the game's up, and that they're not going to get anything.
(Usually after having also wasted the money for plane flights and accommodation).'
The really unlucky ones actually manage to track down the people behind the fraud, which often results in them getting assassinated.
These people are masters at what they do, and its nothing for them to bump off an unsuspecting "nigerian tourist".
So yes, heed jason's advice and  don't get yourself involved in any such schemes.
The golden rule is, if it sounds too good to be true, that's because it is.
Regards
Aaron
On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 05:46:52PM -0400, Jayson Smith wrote:
> Hello,
> Just thought everybody should know the meat of the spam message I received
> from this person who later subscribed to this list.
> This person is, according to herself, the daughter of a wealthy coco farmer
> in some foreign country, who was recently poisoned to death by his
> coworkers.  On his deathbed, he called her and told her that he had a sum of
> $22,500,000 he was giving to her, and that his wealth was why he was
> poisoned.  She wants me to help her get into this country.  And oh yeah, she
> also wants a bank account number where she can transfer the $22,500,000.
> For the service of keeping this money for her, I get to keep 20% of it.
> Now all of the following is very obvious, but here goes anyway.  Don't fall
> for it!  If you give this person, or any other spammer, a bank account
> number, you certainly won't get the huge sum of money they say you'll get.
> They always say you can keep a certain percentage of the money for your
> trouble.  Give them your bank account and it'll most likely get sucked dry
> as a bone.  Or, you could get some money then get it taken away after you've
> spent it, because it was a fraud, etc.  We had someone who this happened to,
> she put some money orders into her bank account, and didn't know the origin
> of the money orders.  Turns out, the money orders weren't even valid money
> orders, and were part of a huge scam, wherein one person offers you a
> percentage of some money if you safeguard it for them, or offers you a lot
> more than an item you're selling is worth if you'll just accept these money
> orders.  If you have already given financial information to a spammer,
> contact your financial institution(s) immediately!
> Jayson.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jayson Smith" <ratguy at bellsouth.net>
> To: "Blind Apple Discussions" <blindapple at jaybird.no-ip.info>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 3:43 PM
> Subject: [Blindapple] Important message! Spammer kicked off the list!
> 
> 
> > Hello everyone,
> > This morning, I woke up to find that a spammer had sent an Email to the
> > blindapple-owner address, then proceeded to subscribe to the list!  I only
> > realized recently that this person could have accessed the member list,
> > which makes this message extremely important for all members.  They never
> > posted anything to the list, but needless to say they have been removed
> and
> > banned from ever joining the list again.  If a similar address joins again
> > I'll be forced to either keep banning addresses or domains or take the
> > completely unwanted step of requiring moderator approval of all
> subscription
> > requests to keep this from happening again.
> > Unfortunately, the membership list was available to all subscribers at the
> > time this happened.  This has since been fixed, and someone would have to
> > know the list Admin password to get the list now.  Because of this, your
> > name and/or Email address may have been exposed to this person.
> > Important!  If you receive any Email from jennimar888 at tsamail.co.za  or,
> for
> > that matter, any other spam Email, ignore it!  Delete it!  Do not reply,
> and
> > do not get tempted into thinking some scam they are proposing might work!
> > This person's original Email to me had something to do with me
> safeguarding
> > some money this person had received.  Obviously this is some sort of scam
> > and should be avoided!  You know, I'm really sorry it has come to this.  I
> > mean, to actually subscribe to a list requires a confirmation, which means
> > that either spam bots have gotten very advanced, advanced enough to look
> > through incoming mail and follow confirmation links, or there was actually
> a
> > human at the other end of that address who confirmed.  If there was, in
> > fact, a human responsible for confirming, it's quite likely that the
> > membership list was accessed, I have no way to find this out.  Needless to
> > say, that will never happen again.
> > Jayson.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > BlindApple at jaybird.no-ip.info
> > http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/blindapple
> 
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