Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Nobody is safe with internet crooks?

The Thanet Times today carries the story of clergyman living and working in Cliftonville, defrauded by a crook he had met, online in a Christian chat room. This is fraud is one of those dangers, ever-present on the Internet made worse by the fact that the victim was trying to help a fellow Christian.

This particular fraud seems about as mean as you can get, a more frequent approach is a letter, fax or more likely an Email these days where someone has a lot of money, and they just need your help to access it, generally appealing to greed.

If you receive a lot of spam Email you will doubtless have seen with one of these letters generally known as the ''Nigerian letter''or 419 fraud, usually someone can't quite get their hands on their money and need you to help by sending yours.

These criminals are very expert at what they do, so if someone particularly from halfway around the world is asking for your money you need to ask yourself why? The same caution goes for your bank, even if an email has a link to what looks like your bank, its likely to be fake, there are even fake call centres to ring.

3 comments:

  1. FOR YOUR MOST URGENT AND SECRET CONSIDERATION.

    I am Barrister Mr Watson Ogabe and am since 2001 the chief legal officer for Shell Oil in Nigeria. Please forgive me for this insolicited email which I have sent to you as I found your respectable details in the library of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce.

    I have been securely tending a sum of £17.4m (seventeen million and four hundred thousand Great British Pounds) on behalf of Mr Turner-Centre MP late of this country's parliament who sadly and greatly missed died in the terrible aeroplane accident in Nigeria in 2002.

    I am now soliciting your help in sending this monies to the United Kingdom. Please treat this email in utmost confidence. Once the transaction is safely in the UK in return for your kind consideration in this matter you will receive 20% (twenty percent) of the entire sum.

    Do not tell anyone about this as the authorities should not know. Please now put your passport, bank details and personal matters in a brown envelope and place it behind the hot water pipes, Droit House.

    Thanking you for your kind and Christian helpfulness as ever remaining your most grateful of servants.

    Mr Barrister Watson Ogabe, Lagos

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  2. I am suprised the Rev fell for an approach from a Nigerian in a chat room.(Would you?) Take a look at this on Youtube. It is from 419eater.com. 419eater displays the results of people who have been approached by Nigerians or anyone else with a cover story such as that above posted by 11:21. In return 419eaters go along with the story but before they part with any money (which never happens) they get the scammer to do ridiculous things to proove their worth. In the example here a film maker was approached by someone claiming to be dying of cancer and got these two scum bags to act and record Monty Pythons Dead Parrot sketch. The result is hilarious. Of course they never got their money. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvyrzQldOKE

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  3. MR WATSON OGABE I would consider it a great honour to assist a man of your stature, I will also stuff a few thousand extra cash from under the flaig mattress and a packet of Mr Kipplings mini Battenburgs I was saving for elevenses, thank you for allowing me to help.

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