*SCAM-A-LICIOUS*

Attention

I am Sir Earl Evans, one of the Director of Barclays Bank, London, United
Kingdom.

On the 2nd of January 2005, I received a call that one of my customer died in
the Tsunami Disaster with his wife and only child while on vacation at Phuket
Island in Thailand. Since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of
my customer’s extended relatives and until date have not succeeded. I have
contacted you to assist in repatriating the money left behind by my client
before it gets confiscated by our bank or declared unserviceable by our bank
where this deposit is lodged.

Now, the bank Directors has called a board meeting regarding this Funds. So my
main motive right now is to share this great opportunity with you by
presenting you as the Next of Kin to the Deceased since all his banking
details are with me as his personal Account Officer. And the deceased Account
valued at £10, 000.000 (Ten million pounds).

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the biological relatives of my late
client, I hereby seek your consent to present you to the bank as next-of-kin
of the deceased since you are a foreigner, so that the proceeds of this
account valued at £10, 000.000 (Ten Million pounds) can be transferred to you
as inheritance and thereafter, you and I can share the money; 50% to me and
40% to you, while 10% will be donated to the Tsunami Disaster Charity Fund. We
shall start the first transfer with £5, 000.000.00 (Five Million pounds),
upon the successful actualization of the first transfer without any
disappointment from your side, we shall re-apply for the payment of the
remaining amount to your account. I have the original copy of Certificate of
Deposit of the funds, which will be used to substantiate our inheritance
claims.All I require is your consent and honest co-operation to enable us see
the deal through.

Furthermore, I guarantee that the transaction will be executed under a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Here
goes my personal e-mail address: sirearlevans@gmail.com

Yours faithfully,
Sir Earl Evans
Barclays Bank

More bullshit from West Africa. Its incredible how much of this shit comes from that place.

DEAR SIR,

I AM A FINANCIAL CONSULTANT BASED IN COTE D’IVOIRE.I HAVE A CLIENT A

WIDOW SHE HAS USD 25,000,000 WITH A
PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTMENT TRUST

COMPANY FOR SAFE KEEPING ONLY AND INVESTMENT ABROAD.

SHE WISHES TO INVEST THIS MONEY IN A COUNTRY WITH STABLE ECONOMY.

HER INTEREST IS IN COMPANIES WITH POTENTIALS FOR RAPID GROWTH IN LONG

TERMS. MY CLIENT
IS INTERESTED IN PLACING PART OF HER FUND IN YOUR

COMPANY TO BOOST THE PRODUCTIVITY RATE AND ENHANCE THE OUT PUT OF THE COMPANY.

IF YOUR COUNTRY’S BY LAWS ALLOW FOREIGN INVESTMENT,DON’T HESITATE TO

CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY TO COMMENCE NEGOTIATIONS THROUGH THIS MY E MAIL.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

DR. CHARLES COULIBALY.

Part two of the Dating Scams series: Dating Scams (Part 1)

Here is sample letter from a “woman” named Sadia. She is from Ghana, she is part American Indian and African. She enjoys long walks in the part and is an English Literary genius:

hello my love
ho are u am very happy to get ur mail ,well am happy that u have ask me more about well my real name is sadia ampah mmum is not a real musilm but my father he is from here in Ghana and he his real musilm dear,well i have beenn liveing here for very love time love now i want both of us to know each other better bcz i need some to spend the rest of my life with him and i have met u so i how u will be real for me in life.
well u asking how about my government her in Ghana well love here is a freedom county and there are plenty buness over here and many people love this country but the work payment over here is not good the government who is in power now is N.P.P PART.AIN FEW MOUTH THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ELECTION LOVE WELL MY LOVE I WILL BE HAPPY IF U SHOW ME ANY MISTAKE AND CORRECT ME IN MY NEXT MESSAGE I WILL BE HAPPY WITH THAT MY NEXT LANGUGUE IS FANTE THE SPEAK IT HERE IN GHANA LOVE I WILL LIKE TO END HERE HOPE TO HEAR U SOON GOOD BYE TAKE CARE I LOVE HOPE TO HEAR U SOON I LOVE BUT WHTA WORK DO U DO BYE.

This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I think I’m in love.

BEWARE OF DATING SITE SCAMS. There are a lot of false profiles out on the dating sites. The false ones are typically free member parasites and not usually paying members. Many of the false profiles are harmless member stealer’s. They are on there to flirt with you and try and get you to come to some other dating site. But some are trying to steal your heart to get to your money.

ONLINE DATING SCAM TACTICS:

Step 1) Take the Bait

You meet someone on a dating site (Adult Friend Finder, Match, okcupid, etc). This person has posted a picture of themselves and they are gorgeous!
Their profiles says something like:

I am a caring ,loving, honest, respectful and i believe in god and real people to hop to meet meet my real love here

There profile seems perfect. They sounds sweet, loving and caring. Their picture (if they have one) looks incredible. They seem to live pretty close.

What’s really going on? More than likely it is some ugly dude from a third world country who just learned to use a computer. They found a hot picture and posted it on the dating site. They are the exact opposite of what ever they said on their profile: they are uncaring, dishonest and don’t respect anyone… not even themselves.

Step 2) The Out of Country Story

You send them a message. They reply and tell you that they’d rather talk to you on email (usually hotmail or yahoo). They then proceed to tell you that they are currently in another country (Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, England), but they have some sort of connection to the states in your local area. They’ll say they’re relatives are there or they do business their and they’d love to meet you sometime.

What’s really going on? They really are outside of whatever country you are (usually Nigeria, Ghana, West Africa – this is one of the top scams in that region).

Step 3) Relationship Deception

What they do next is get a steady relationship with you. They will send more pictures. They will want to know more about you so they can cater to your ego. They will tell you they love you, tell you how good you look, how great you are. Basically, anything get the relationship going.

What’s really going on? They are lying to you and 20 other people on 5 or 6 different dating sites.

Step 4) A Crisis: they Need Money

There are various lies they may use to get money. They will ask for cash to buy the ticket to come visit you or they will tell you a tragedy has occurred and they need your help maybe even with a promise to pay you back.

What’s really going on? They are attempting to take your money and spend it on bullshit.

Clues to Spot Dating Scams:

– Pictures look too professional. Magazine quality photos should be a dead give away. If they send a series of pics and each one looks like a “model posed” photo shoot, be suspicious.
– BAD GRAMMAR & SPELLING. They are typically not very well educated and it will sometimes come through loud the clear via very choppy English and slight stupid logic. Sometimes it is as bad as a 3rd grader (a dumb 3rd grader).
– Western Africa. Be suspicious of ANYTHING from from Ghana, Mali and especially Nigeria.
– Too much love, too fast. They will almost immediately start talking about “I love you”, “I miss you” – don’t be flattered… they don’t love you… trust me.

Disclaimer: Miracles do happen. Maybe you’ve just met a West African supermodel, with bad grammar, who has fallen madly in love with you in the course of two or three emails.

Conclusion:
I’ve dealt with these scammers on ebay, email, dating sites and in chat rooms and one thing I’ve noticed is that they are actually not very smart. They are just ruthless. They take advantage of people’s trust, kindness and generosity. They are not so much predators as they are parasites that jump from host to host. They feed on the infrastructure and wealth of Western Civilization and have nothing at all to contribute to humanity but ignorance and greed. The sad thing is that these few greedy, idiots are giving ALL West Africans a bad name on the Web and these nations (particularly Ghana & Nigeria) are among the richest nations in Africa with the greatest potential of having great success in any and all endeavors. Its a real shame.

Richest African Countries 2006: GDP Per Country

1. South Africa … $606.4 billion in international$ (up 8% from 2005)
2. Algeria … $262.2 billion (up 8.5%)
3. Nigeria … $181.8 billion (up 10.2%)
4. Morocco … $150.8 billion (up 4.8%)
5. Sudan … $98.8 billion (up 11.2%)
6. Tunisia … $91.4 billion (up 7.4%)
7. Ethiopia … $78.4 billion (up 12%)
8. Ghana … $59.4 billion (up 9.1%)

Black holes have nothing one the suck power of the coming data mines.

I realize this as I now spend 90% of my working day adding data to a massive DoD database. Don’t worry its not your data, its some computer type shit… no big deal.

YOU are already in a database. YOu and your whole family. Me and my whole family. I’m not paranoid. I’m stating a fact. Welcome to the Information Age. Each age has its ups and downs. Databases aren’t all bad.

They make life more searchable and data more livable. Between outspace and innerspace, cyberspace parallels all like a meta-dimension. And when you take your leave from this world, your residual self image will remain like a ghost, a spirit multiplexed all over the world accessible to a billion souls yet to be born.

Johnny Cash says it best.

If you go to that URL – I don’t recommend it – the page looks like a Skype page and it is designed to trick you into giving up your login name and password – and possibly more.

Alan Gray @ newsblaze:
“Over the past few weeks, Chinese hackers targeted Google Adwords account holders, sending out scam emails designed to look like messages directly from Google. The messages aimed to catch business people unawares and trick them into giving up their account information.”

read more | digg story

Lawmakers are looking to make harsher punishments for botnet herders. Botnet laws are sure to shake things up. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law & Internet Spyware (I-SPY) Prevention Act are examples of such laws. Once passed, these laws will be a signifigant change to federal computer law.

“Today’s botnet herders have hundreds of thousands of computers at their command and use technically sophisticated ways to hide their headquarters, making it easy for them to make millions from spam and credit card theft. They can also be used to direct floods of fake traffic at a targeted website in order to bring down a rival, extract protection money or less frequently, used to make a political point in the case of attacks on Estonia and the Church of Scientology.” — Wired

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff speaks about computer security at the RSA Conference on information security in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 8, 2008.

To all would be Information Technology specialist, geeks, and security professionals! Do not put all your eggs in one basket. The corporate world isn’t all that great. Do you really want to be a corporatized zombie in a cubicle farm? Do you want be a work junkie strung out on caffeine with coffee ivy jammed directly into your left ventricle? These are not rhetorical questions. Verily, I say unto you from the front lines of corporate and government mind fields, financial stability is no more unless you have multiple streams of passive income.

I too once dreamed of corporate back rubs, company cars, company Visas. But I’m telling you that on the bottom end of the corporate and government ladder, Robin Leech is not going to wish you Champaign dreams and Strawberry wishes. Robin Leech is going to make you fix his bloody computer and hook up his filthy 802.11g wireless. Robin Leech is going to piss on you like Robert Kelly did to that teenage girl… and you know what the sad part about that is.. you are going to learn to love that golden shower.

Listen. Seriously. All joking aside. I am not an ingrate. I appreciate my employment. I enjoy technology, security and even some of my trips to Hawaii :). I get paid more money than anyone in my family (which isn’t saying much) but one thing I’ve come to realize is that TIME is infinitely more valuable than money (especially the US dollar circa 2008). I figure the only way to get more time is to become completely self employed. Which is something I’d like to do via blogging, one of my favorite pass times (aside from pr0nagraphy). This blog actually makes me a few hundred dollars every month. The crazy things is that Steve Pavilina and Darren Rowse make more in one month from their blogs than many people make in one year. That is what I want to do. And if you are smart (and I KNOW you are) you do too. Start blogging yesterday. Talk about anything to start then turn it into a cash machine as you learn from the Jedi Knights of blogging.

Blog you will, hmm. — Master Yoda