A Cynical Look on Idiots continued.

Well, it's been a while, and I know we haven't posted much, but here's a nice snippet of a four part series. It's only four parts because he never responded to my last email. Oh well. No effort was made on my part to make me seem convincing, as you will undoubtedly see, in my responses. All spelling errors on my part are intentional. All spelling errors on his, I assume, are not.

I'm not going to be bothered formatting these so the original is before my response, so you're getting copypasta out of my inbox. Here's the first gem.

----
Prince Allen,

I respec yur wisses and hav deceded to halp you in eny wai posseble. Imail me bakk ASAP,

Insolently yurs,

Dr. Samuel Carson Adam Mitchell



--- On Mon, 6/7/10, PRINCE ALLEN SHEHAN wrote:

From: PRINCE ALLEN SHEHAN
Subject: UPDATE ME (ASAP)
To:
Date: Monday, June 7, 2010, 7:35 AM

Hello Dear,

Complement's I am Prince Allen from Somalia, am 24 year old I have one sisters named Susan she is 21 years old, I am the First born of my parent the name of my Mum is Mrs. Mariah Shehan she died when she was 57years old, My dad name is Dr. General Ali Shehan we are from a royal family in Somalia.

Well I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you as well, but I contacted you by faith and due to the present situation that we are facing here, as times goes on you will get to know me well and my rest family.

We just arrive to Ghana through the(UN) cargo ship, during the civil war in my country, rebels came to our palace and they were looking for my late father, Sordidly one of the rebel shout my dad four gun shout on his chest, I and my Mum took my dad to the hospital for treatment the doctor said that before anything can be done that we most provide police report, before taking my dad to the police custody for doctor report on our way back to the hospital he died, that is how I lost my dad, before he give up he explain so many things to me as his only son.

Before the death of my late father he use to deal on gold and diamond stones, I have not disclose this to anyone and I also want you to keep it as a confidential, it is about my family and most especially how I can build a better future for my family, please I want you to keep this as a secret do not disclose to any other person,I lost My Mum on the mouth of Oct 17th 2009 and before she died she hand over some of my late father document’s to me, which my late father told me about, some years back my late father use to travel for contracts.

My late father had a business with one Security Company named power Security Company in Ghana, the document’s stated that my late father deposited three trunk boxes under Power Security Company, but the content is not reveal to anyone, my late father personally disclose the content of the three trunk boxes to me, My late father said That the two white boxes each contain $15.7million Us dollars the other box contain 98kg of AU dust gold.

This is the reason why I contacted you, we need a foreign beneficiary who can help us to handle our investment in a foreign land, before the death of my late father he said that we should not invest the money and gold in West Africa, that many people in Africa are bad and they may kill us and take it from us, we want you to understand that if you help us I promise to give you 20% out of the total fund and 5% shall be aside for any expenses, we need to talk more better as time goes on I shall introduce you to the company to prepare all the legal document for the delivery of my boxes to you in your country, the company said that they also make doorstep delivery.

I shall await for your kind email and I will direct you on how to contact the security company, all I need from you is honesty and truth and I promise you I shall never let you down, have a nice day and take care

pls try and contact me on this imail adress princeallen01@aol.com

Regards,
Prince Allen Shehan

A Cynical Look on Idiots Part 2

I'm not sure if the Scammer knew what he initially sent me or not. His story seems to skip a large gap where I'm actually supposed to be informed on what's going on. He seems to think I should already know that this is a scheme to get the money for ourselves-- I do-- but not because he told me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friend,
Thanks for your mailI must thank you first for your response . Please be contacting me through this my private box for security reasons. The time frame is the best time to do the transaction because after the long years of absence, the bank has decided to transfer this fund to the bank treasury if unclaimed at the end of the fiscal year 2010 ,that is why everything has to be done speedily if you wish that we make a success in this transaction. The owner of the said fund was a gold merchant from Germany and he got the money from the proceeds he made while he was mining in Sierra Leone before the war broke out there. I will give you further information about him later. My concern is for you to keep absolute secret. I have given you the details of the transaction hereunder to enable you know whether you can run the transaction with me.

Sorry that I did not respond immediately as you expected because I was putting things in order before getting back to you and also I was praying over the transaction because I do not want to get in to any wrong hand.

I do not know you before but your carefulness in responding to my mail interested me that is why I decided to give you all the details to know whether you can make the transaction with me. You do not need to worry on how to be the next of kin because it is what will be used in filling the application that matters. You can either be a next of kin or partner or anything depending on what I decide. No one is aware of this fund and again the deceased has no one coming again for the fund.
I want you to know that if you are serious towards this transaction, we are going to make success.

You have to know whether you have the capacity to receive this money when transferred to your account but my concern is for you to maintain absolute confidentiality.
The percentage is subject to review depending on your committment to help me with full devotion. I am also ready to do charity works with part of the fund after we have succeeded.

Be sure that you have no risks to fear about.
The guarantee is that I am working in the same bank and will also serve as an insider on your behalf.

I am sure also that no one is coming later to ask you whether you are the real next of kin or not because I studied every thing before contacting you and moreover, I cannot involve myself to danger in the same bank where I am working.

I see this as an opportunity for me to be great and I want you also to be honest with me after the fund has been transferred to your account.

I want you to know that you were not the person I had in mind before sending out my message but another person that bears similar name like yours who was formerly living in my country but I couldn't get his email address when I searched for it and in place I got yours.

Don’t be afraid because I am here to give you all the guidelines required.
I want you to tell me more about yourself also.
I have some questions for you.

1. Are you married and of what age are you?
2. what do you wish we can invest on when I will come to your country.
3. Are there things you want to ask me?
4. I need you to tell me whether you are capable of receiving this amount or not when transferred.

For me, I am married with three kids and has worked in this same bank for years.
I will give you the updates when I hear from you.

Below is my personal data

Feel free to ask me any question you need to know concerning this transaction
Below is my complete information:

(1) NAME: MR MUSA AKIM
(2) AGE: 48

(3) PLACE OF BIRTH: Ouagadougou .

(4) HEIGHT: 1.75

(5) WEIGHT: 84 kg , Not Permanent.

(6) SEX: Male.

(7) QUALIFICATION: M.B.A in Economics And P. H. D in Banking and Finance Awarded

(8) OCCUPATION: Banker.

(9) WORKING EXPERIENCE :( T.I.C) Insurance Banjul Gambia & Presently In (Boa) Ouagadougou Burkina-Faso.

(10) MARITAL STATUS: Married With 3 Children.

Waiting for your mail and call as urgency implies. Also i am waiting for your response before sending you the application which is the first step of the claim.

00226 76 23 24 16

Mr Musa Akim

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm going to respond by asking him a whole lot off pointless questions, and letting him know that he never told me the deal.

Just so I understand correctly, please answer these questions.

You have found a way to claim this money by association of next of kin? You didn't say anything about that earlier.

What happened to that gold mine after the war?
What's it like to be a doctor?
Where did you go to school?
What's it like to liek mudkipz?
You said your height was 1.75, are you really only 2 inches tall?
Are you a leprechaun?

Please answer these questions for me,
and may the mighty balls of god fertilize your egg.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hopefully he'll answer one of the more crazy questions.
I'll post the next exchange soon.

A Cynical Look on Idiots Part 1

I've had enough of getting these Nigerian e-mail scams-- let's play a game.

I'm going to play the part of someone who actually falls for this, and see how far these guys will actually try to go in order to get a wire from me.

This is the beginning of a new series, and it's going to be hilarious.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

DEAR FRIEND,

I am Mr. musa akim,

the Auditor of foreign remittance department BANK OF AFRICA,

I discovered an abandoned sum of (USD$25. million dollars) that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in a plane crash in kenya, with his family during their vacation journey.an American and resident BURKINA FASO.site to know more.http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/07/20/kenya.crash/ if you are interested kindly contact me on my private email adress , musa_akim66@live.fr

I'm waiting to hear from you soon,
Thanks and God bless.

MR musa akim

----------------------------------------------------------------------

My response:

Hello Mr. Musa Akim,

I heard about this plane crash and am very concerned. I also herd u liek mudkipz. That is a lot of money to go to waste. Please let me know additional details.

I thank you for your time,
and may the glory of God propel you to the highest orifice.

-Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll post an update soon. This should be interesting.
Note:
The links appear to be broken after coming out of the e-mail.
I wouldn't bother clicking them.

A Cynical Look On E-Mail Scams

It would appear that Scam E-mails have become much more prevalent recently. This can be a very dangerous thing to someone not skeptical of becoming the worlds next million or billionaire over a lottery contest they never entered. Nor is it safe to someone who believes that they will really be getting the sizable yet non-existent inheritance of a dead African doctor for only the cost of a five thousand dollar wire.

Because we are skeptical, let's take a look at one.
This was sent to me a day ago:

Skip down to the second line if you don't want to read what I guess this person calls "Writing"

Sender:
"FEDEX DELIVERY COMPANY"
To:
undisclosed-recipients
Subject:
[ No Subject ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTN:
We want to acknowledge the receipt of your email in this office and also want you to know that these package(Conferable Bank Draft of $800.000.00United States Dollars) will not be deliver to you without some proper identification. I have never met you before like I said and to be able to carry out our duties effectively, We must be convinced that you are who the testament says you are.Re-confirm to us through the below via email;
Claims Requirements
1. Name in full---------------------2.Address---------------------------
3. Sex--------------------------------4.Country--------------------------
5. Marital Status------------------6. Age -------------------------------
7. Next Of Kin----------------------8. Occupation-----------------------
9. Phone/Fax-----------------------10. Annual Income
The above requested information will enable us deliver your parcel correctly without any mistake or delivering your parcel to a wrong person. Furthermore,you might be asking yourself how comes this email,check or draft, Anyway,your check was brought to this office by a Lottery Fiduciary Agent Or Claim Agent, signifying that you are a rightful winner to their Lottery Award selected randomly from 10 lucky email addresses which your email address is one of the lucky email address. FedEx courier service company mailing you as per your parcel that was brought to this company to be delivered to you by lottery groups, along the delivery process that brought a misunderstanding between you and the lottery claim agent and in regards of their request as per their insurance certificate cost and tax fee which happened to be the course of your parcel being pending for the past months/one year. Meanwhile we are hereby happy to inform you that the FedEx Company has finalized everything with the nicon insurance company of Nigeria and the internal revenue office as the company organization has also listed 24 valuable parcels to be intact in their office after the released of the parcels from the nicon insurance company and internal revenue office. We inform you once again that your parcel that contains the sum of $800.000.00 United States Dollars, is among the 24 parcels listed which is now in our office and also with your name as the receiver despise that we lost your private residential addresss, which is an indication that you can now re-send your residential address,telephone as stated above back to the FedEx company where your parcel can be delivered to you without hesitation.
Meanwhile remember that the sender of this parcel to you thats the fudiciary agent still ownes this company the sum of $500.00 before incident occurs Note this fee is not just for delivery but with the stamduty, this company has spend out of their incomes in the process by recovery back your parcel so dear customer we once again appreciate your patronage in our favour. Without hesitations you are to pay for just the balance left by your sender since we have lost his contact.so that your parcel can be delivered to your residential address before it accumulate a demurrage after one week only,as you know your parcel is not just an ordinary parcel but with a huge amount and I think you understand what I mean by accumulating a demurrage? Which you will not allow to happen to your recovery parcel that almost gone if not for the love that the good God have for you by favoring you with his favour because it was god who did it not by your power but by the spirit say the lord. We assure you that your parcel will arrive at your country in two days time and it will get to your door step the third day as soon as this company receive the balance left by you and the tracking number of your parcel will be sent to you via e-mail immediately so that you can track it yourself to see your parcel coming on the way and you will also know when it will arrive at your country because we operate in trust and loyalty in your favour.
AND ALSO WITH YOUR SWIFT RESPONCE ON HOW THE PAYMENT OF ($500.00) FOR DELIVERY CAN BE MADE BY YOU.
Get back to us as soon as possible for payment detail for your delivery.

Mr. Russell E
Email: fedexdeliveryservice@w.cn
Tel: +234 805 312-02-32
FEDEX COURIER MANAGING DIRECTOR.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The easiest way to tell if an E-mail sent to you is "a fake" is to just throw a big portion into a search engine. It will probably show up under Scam titles all over the place, like the page you are viewing now.

At a glance- Notice that the scammer did not fill out a subject, this makes it easier to get around spam filters that might normally keep it out of the main inbox. Because so many people send real e-mails without a subject line, the spam filters have little choice but to allow them. Also notice that the e-mail claims to be from Fedex, a well recognized transportation company. If the e-mail really was from Fedex, the address would be from (blank)@Fedex.com not a simple @hotmail.com account. This scammer was such a half-wit that he didn't even spoof his e-mail address.(Be careful, some do.) Apart from that, the phone number our brilliant scammer left isn't based in the US--Fedex is a US company.

Down to the fun stuff- Remember our article about chain posts on facebook? The same principal pertaining to grammar goes here. This e-mail is absolutely appalling, and though I know of some managers that should be required to pass some sort of test before they're in charge of anyone, I'm quite sure that Fedex wouldn't hire a "Managing Director" that didn't know what English was... In fact, I doubt the person who wrote this could even manage to spell "English"

Apart from the incredible amount of spelling errors that a simple spell check would have fixed, which I will put in bold, there are quite a few sentences that don't even seem to make sense.
As an example:
" Which you will not allow to happen to your recovery parcel that almost gone if not for the love that the good God have for you by favoring you with his favour because it was god who did it not by your power but by the spirit say the lord."
..... What?

The further one goes on in the E-mail, the less sense it starts to make. It's almost as if two different people wrote the e-mail.

Other Hints- The scammers give away their location when they talk about nicon,which is some sort of phony insurance company based in Nigeria. (The home of the majority of scammers) The writer also constantly refers to him or her self in the E-mail, and originally, the only purpose of the E-mail was to obtain contact information.
So, I gave them Contact information--not mine of course.

1. Name in full---------------------2.Address---------------------------
3. Sex--------------------------------4.Country--------------------------
5. Marital Status------------------6. Age -------------------------------
7. Next Of Kin----------------------8. Occupation-----------------------
9. Phone/Fax-----------------------10. Annual Income

1. Name: You're An Idiot
2. Address: Up Yours
3. Sex: Not from you
4. Country: Nicetrytopia
5. Marital Status: Maybe
6. Age: 1337
7. Next of Kin: My Uncle's Sister's Brother's Roommate's Cousin
8. Occupation: Mocking you
9. Phone: 588-2300-Empire -- Today!
10. Annual Income: -13 and 1 half Trytopia Dollars

If I get a response, I'll post it here.

Summary- Logically, we could have gotten rid of this one with just what we have at a glance. This is a scam to get $500 dollars out of you, and whatever else is in the account that you used. Also, after spending too long reading this gibberish, I have obtained a very large headache.
From this we can conclude that this particular scam e-mail causes loss of money and or headaches.