Samuel's Blog

Time to have fun with a scammer

September 16th, 2006 at 12:57am

Oh how I love wasting the time (and money) of scammers. It’s easy to waste the money of phone based scammers, especially when they have free call numbers setup to divert overseas…at their own cost, but it is just as enjoyable to waste the time of email based scammers.

Last month Clayton Northcutt had plenty of fun doing just that, and this month I am going to have some fun.

Occasionally some spam slips through Gmail’s spam filters and lands in my inbox, such as this one from Dr. Mona Diop, an illiterate bank manager, with a need to steal the money of dead people.

Dear ,

My name is Dr Mona Diop,am the branch and computer manager here in our bank.I have only written to seek your indulgence and assistance. I wish to make a transfer involving a huge amount of base £15,000,000.00 {Fifteen Million B.Pounds Sterlings}of Late Mr Mark Smith out of the bank,he died since 1995,till now the account remains dormat.I am proposing to make this transfer to a designated bank account of your choice. Thus, for your indulgence and support,

I propose an offer of 20% of the total amount to be yours after the transfer has been successfully concluded.Your full name and phone number/fax is need in the first place.Kindly reply me stating your interest, and I shall furnish you with the details and necessary proceedures with which to make the transfer progress. I am anxiously awaiting your response through my confidential/bank email address:
mona_diop02@yahoo.com
Thanks and God bless
Dr Mona Diop,
Manger.
………………………….
My Informations will be given
to you in my next mail.

Fairly standard, nothing new or interesting about this one, but she (or maybe even he) did send it twice, and on both occasions it slipped past the spam filter, so I felt like replying.

Dear Spammer Mona,

Banks do not use yahoo email addresses, and if you were a manager, you would be able to write an email without dozens of spelling and gramatical errors.

I must ask you a question though, why is everything from Rivers just so comfortable?

Kind regards,
Samuel

For those of you who aren’t subjected to Australian television…there is a clothing shop called “Rivers” which has an advertising campaign featuring a slideshow of their current discounts, and a poorly recorded voiceover where a person keeps repeating the phrase “Why is everything from Rivers just so comfortable”. The ad annoys the heck out of me, so I thought it was an appropriate question to ask a spammer, alas she/him/it didn’t answer the question.

Dear Samuel ,

what you have to believe this is my personal email address so if you can believe with then try and get back to me so that i will direct the way to take ,

thanks

Dr Mona

Sorry Mona, but you didn’t address two of my points, and your scam isn’t interesting, so I shall refrain from contacting you again.

Last night, another, slightly more interesting spammed scam landed in my inbox.

From: mike david <global4com@spinfinder.com>
Reply-To: global4com@spinfinder.com
To: smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com
Date: Sep 15, 2006 9:51 PM
Subject: consignment

Dear Friend

I need your assistance to help me in receiving my funds form a security office in the Netherlands .
I am obliged to inform you that I have succeeded in receiving ( fourteen million dollars ) from a partner that work with the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) South African .

My partner initiated this idea so everything was perfectly done because we strike this deal with one Lady accountant who works with the Federal Ministry of Finance also she rendered a tremendous help to us and everything worked out successfully .

I will appreciate your assistance in receiving the Funds and I have decided to compensate you with the sum of $850,000 in Cash (Eight Hundred and fifty Thousand United States Dollars).

I am doing this simply to show you that it is good to do good things to the right people always.
So if you can help please contact my personal assistant with the security office in the Netherlands
Mr Brown with this e-mail address
( spin-diplomta@spinfinder.com )

Please tell him that you will like to pick up my consignment and do not tell him that the five million is in the Box, also do let me know immediately you receive a reply from Mr Brown .

I am very busy here in London because of the investment projects,So feel free to get in touch with him to send the consignment to you without any delay and I will fax him the paper works in-other for you to pick it up.

Best Regards
Mike David

Mr. Brown? Alternating amounts of money in a box/case? Secrecy even from those involved? And no bank accounts in sight? I’m reminded of Clayton’s fun, and intend on seeing where this one goes, so I, as requested, made contact with Mr. Brown.

From: Samuel Gordon-Stewart <smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com> Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: spin-diplomta@spinfinder.com
Date: Sep 16, 2006 12:27 AM
Subject: consignment of Mike David

Dear Mr. Brown,

I am writing to you in regards to an email I received from Mr. Mike David. He asked me to write to you about picking up his consignment, and asked that I express my interest in picking up the consignment.

I eargerly await your reply on this important matter.

Yours with kind regards and wishing you a blissful day,

Samuel Gordon-Stewart

I just had to honour Clayton by adding in the blissful day reference (see Clayton’s story and you’ll understand). I googled spinfinder.com, it would appear that many people have received scam emails from this domain, and the site itself appears to be one of those strange attempts at being a web portal that bombards you with ads, and some of the ads on that page do redirect you through adware and spyware laden sites on their way through to the target sites.

I now await a reply from Mr. Brown.

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Bizarreness,Lunacy/Idiots

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