Good Day,

My name is Jim White, a member of the U.S. ARMY 3rd Infantry Division in
Iraq. I would like to share some highly classified information about my personal experience and the role which I played in the pursuit of my career serving in the U.S. ARMY. However, I would like to hold back certain information for security reasons until you have the time to visit the BBC website stated below. This will enable you to have insight as to what I'm intending to share with you. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm
Please get back to me after visiting the above referenced website to enable us to discuss the matter more. I'm uncomfortable sending this message to you without knowing if you are indeed with me or you decide to go public.

Sincerely,

Jim

Oh, well, by all means, send that highly classified information to my Gmail account.

The news story that "Sgt. White" wanted us to read, of course, was a BBC story from 2003 about a huge cache of currency ($100 million and €90 million) discovered in a Baghdad residential neighborhood. Ah, see what the scammers did there? By using an actual news story, if one that's six years old, it almost lends his story some credibility once he finally gets around to asking you to wire him your life savings.

Then, apparently someone used the Benin United Parcel Service to send me a package worth $1.5 million. Gee, I didn't think I had any relatives in Benin, let alone any who left me a big inheritance.

UNITED PARCEL SERVICE BENIN
ATTENTION ,Customer,
WE RECEIVED YOUR PARCEL IN OUR CUSTODY VALUED $1.5 MILLION TO BE SENT YOU AS SOON AS WE RECEIVED YOUR INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE FEES OF $350.00, KINDLY LET US KNOW AS SOON AS YOU ARE READY TO SEND YOUR INSURANCE FEES TO ENABLE US OBTAIN YOUR INSURANCE AND DELIVER YOUR PARCE TO YOU,
YOUR'S FAITHFULLY
MR. Daniel John.
TEL: 229-96340519
Respond to my direct email,upsexpresscourier@eze.co.za

Only $350 for insurance on a package worth several times as much as my house? SWEET.

(Photo: Fuzzy Gerdes)

Matt in Indiana corresponded with one of these scammers, became suspicious, and asked Consumerist for advice. Here's the original e-mail he received when he responded to a Craigslist ad.

Hello,
Thanks for your respond and interest in tutoring my Daughter...well
we are Germans and i want her to learn more about English for now
because she is coming to visit the USA for 1month....well she is15
years old,she understand little English and i think that will help her
understand what you are teaching,i want you to be focused in the area
of grammar and writing correct sentences because we are planning to
relocate to the USA later in the year OK..she is smart and obedient
child,i want a part time tutorial for her...well i will want you to
tutor her for 2 hrs Monday and Fridays which will be 4hrs for the 2
days which will be 16hrs for the whole 1month of tutoring....well she
will be flying to the usa from Berlin for the tutorial but will stay
with a nanny...well i will prefer the tutor take place in a library
close to you,so your location will determine where the nanny will
be....well i will want the tutor to commence in two weeks time,and i
will be offering you $700 weekly....well let me know if you have
interest in tutoring my child..
I hope to read from you soon!

Jhude Kopke

The scammers will also approach tutors who post their own ads online, or who are listed in online databases. This particular tutoring scam has been showing up online for years now.

Matt responded with some information about himself, and a few questions about the girl he was to tutor. He received the following:

Hello

How are you doing today and the family...hope you are having a great weekend over there,and thanks so much for the interest to tutor my child..well my Daughter is coming for a 4weeks visit and also for the tutorial as well in the USA,she is not coming to attend school but for you to tutor her in English only and she did not have any text book for these tutorial.she understand and able to speak little English and that will help her to understand what you are teaching her.well i will like to make an upfront payment so i can be rest assure that i have secure your services,in which i want the tutorial to start soon,And for the payment You would be receiving a check drawn from a Bank in the US from my client in the United state, since i am from Germany and payments wont be honored in a bank in the US, These check would be made out for the cost of the tutorial services you are rendering for the first week, and also for the living expense, nanny fees and the taxi driver of my child. Regarding this- I hope i can trust you with these payments, as the payment would be made out in excess, so all you have to do is cash the payment, deduct your first week payment for the tutorial, and send the remainder to the Nanny who would be contacting you with further arrangements and instructions regarding pickup/drop off of my child to the library where you would always teach her. So hope i can trust you will teach my daughter good academics and some moral respects,more so i will like to let you understand that your location will determine where my child will stay because the nanny schedule is flexible to any area in your state..well i will need some information from you which enable my client to issue out your payment..

FULL NAME:
MAILING ADDRESS (no P.O.Box please):
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
CELL PHONE:
BEST TIME TO CALL:
PRESENT JOB STATUS/POSITION:
EMAIL:

I hope to read from you soon

Warmest Regards!

Jhude Kopke

Apart from the language issue, the biggest warning sign is that the prospective employer wants you to handle paying the other employees out of the money he sends you. This is a classic advance fee scam. Stay far, far, away.

Also, no offense to Matt, but it's pretty implausible that someone would send their kid to America (particularly, Indiana) and set her up with a full-time nanny and driver so she can be tutored in English by some random college kid a few hours a week, paying the tutor $700 per week for the privilege. Plus, a nanny for a 15-year-old?

Be ever vigilant and skeptical when looking for work online. Check out our archive of stories on advance fee scams so you know what to look for.

RELATED: 8 Signs That Job You Found Online Is A Scam

(Photo: robindegrassi)

Alex received this message from a spammer purporting to be from the "Central Bank of Nigeria," promising him a $2.8 million in exchange for...well, nobody really knows what he's been hired to do.

From: Mr Dave Walker
Date: Sun, May 24, 2009 at 5:51 PM
Subject: Your Atm Debit card Payment
To:

—
The Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), working in relationship with HSBC
London has concluded to issue you a VISA CARD with which you can access
your contract amount 2.8 million USD This card center will send you an ATM
card which you will use to withdraw your money in any ATM machine in any
part of the world, but the maximum is FIVE Thousand Five Hundred United
States Dollars($5,500) per day. So if you like to receive your fund in this
way, please let us know by contacting the ATM payment department and also
send the following information as listed below:Contact Mr Dave Walker at
mrdave.walker6@gmail.com with the below details for claims.

1. Full name
2. Phone and fax number
3. Address were you want them to send the ATM card to (p.o box not
acceptable)
4. Age
5. occupation
6. Nationality
7. country of residence

Best Regards.
Mr. Dave Walker
+2348051131534

I guess this is a little more plausible than the normal Nigerian fraud script involving a huge wire transfer that needs to get out of the country ASAP. Thanks, Mr. Dave Walker. Withdrawing $5K per day from an imaginary ATM card sounds like a much better way to make a living than writing. I'll spend the proceeds on the micropony with a glittering pink mane that I've had my eye on.

(Photo: selmer)

Andy wrote:

I screwed around with him a little bit, but in almost no time he had asked me to help him send money to a friend in Nigeria. Really... I thought it was a buddy of his messing around, but it really was someone trying to get me to send money.

I ended up talking to my friend Jeff on the phone a few minutes later, and he was livid. Turns out he had his Gmail window open, was playing X-box and heard the sound pings of a chat. He was pretty surprised to see there was a full conversation is going on. He has since changed his gmail password and contacted Gmail. (Is there an appropriate contact for this type of issue?)

The chat transcript follows, with the different identities of the real Jeff and the scammer Jeff marked. Both of them chatting with Andy at the same time is a bit confusing.

Scammer!Jeff: hello
Andy:: gmornin
Scammer!Jeff: good morning
Scammer!Jeff: how was ur night
Andy:: decent. we had a graduation party for maggie
Andy:: (grad school)
Scammer!Jeff: cool
Scammer!Jeff: wqhen was that
Andy:: it was yesterday (she didn't walk, we had the party instead)
Scammer!Jeff: ok
Scammer!Jeff: where are you now
Andy:: home
Andy:: playing with Oscar
Scammer!Jeff: oh that nice
Scammer!Jeff: can you help me for just a little things right now
Andy:: ok
Scammer!Jeff: you will help me send 500$ to a friend of mine who his son has an accident in Nigeria ..
Andy:: hahaha
Scammer!Jeff: and its was so very urgent i dont mind given you back with interest
Scammer!Jeff: not funny
Andy:: what's not funny
Scammer!Jeff: i thought you are laughning about what i said
Scammer!Jeff: will you go out and help me right now and send money to him ..... by money gramm
Scammer!Jeff: its very urgenmt
Andy:: its a line from your favorite movie. Aliens 5, remember (I was trying to test him here, not very original, but I wanted to be complete obvious, just incase my buddy Jeff was just hungover or something)
Andy:: maybe you don't remember???
Andy:: how was your friend's son hurt?
Scammer!Jeff: yes i dont
Scammer!Jeff: on his ways to airport . cause he study at UK
Scammer!Jeff: so he got an accident
Andy:: that's terrible!
Andy:: how can I help? (Now I realize it truly is an interloper, and not the real Jeff being goofy, so I play along)
Scammer!Jeff: now they need money there to buy ticket so he can be transfer to Uk and he can take a proper care over there than Nigeria ... so i need you help me send him 500$
Andy:: actually I have a shitload of band-aids and morphine. I could send that instead
Scammer!Jeff: you send the money through money gramm
Andy:: what about paypal
Andy:: or moneysukdikexpress.com
Andy:: that is the fastest way to send money
Andy:: once I deposit the funds, you can print it out of any color printer
Andy:: and its real mney!
Actual!Jeff: Andy? ya here? (This is where my real buddy Jeff chimes in)
Actual!Jeff: Someone is talkin as if they were me?!!!
Actual!Jeff: WTF
Actual!Jeff: this is scary man. Just yesterday someone hacked my PayPal
Actual!Jeff: now someone is talking in Gmail as ME
Andy:: yeah dude
Andy:: I can send you the transcript
Actual!Jeff: Im seeing it
Actual!Jeff: fucked up
Andy:: i had heard of this on Facebook, but not through gmail
Actual!Jeff: yeah like I saw words coming up from ME just now, but Im playing a damn game
Andy:: unless you're pretending to be Jeff, and you still want my money
Actual!Jeff: no this is the real Jeff
Actual!Jeff: now anyways
Actual!Jeff: what should I do>
Andy:: tell me who is the 44th president of the united states
Actual!Jeff: oh jeez hell if I know. Try another toy related question
Scammer!Jeff: am not at home (This is obviously the hacker again)
Scammer!Jeff: i told you
Scammer!Jeff: DO YOU WANT TO SEND THE MONEY THOUGH PAYPAL ??
Andy:: oooh I love paypal
Scammer!Jeff: okay will is better
Scammer!Jeff: i will ask them if they can accept paypal insted of money gramm
Scammer!Jeff: that is better
Andy:: hoooray
Andy:: hooray for paypal
Andy:: hooray for your friend's son
Andy:: may he get laid soon
Actual!Jeff: dude whoever is preytendingto be me, fuck off
Andy:: so where do I put the money? This is the first time I've used paypal
Andy:: do I put it in the disk drive
Scammer!Jeff: i will send you the paypal when i got it from the friend
Scammer!Jeff: so you can send the money through paypal

Jeff knew that his new chat buddy's poor English and mention of Nigeria were red flags, and talking about things that only his friend would know, and that couldn't be learned from a cursory scan of his e-mail, was a wise move.

Change your e-mail and chat passwords to something difficult to guess or crack in order to protect yourself from this scam. If anyone's going to beg your friends for money, it should be you, amirite?

(Photo: Spencer E Holtaway)

They met Rempel the next day with a suitcase. They said it had $10.6 million in shrink-wrapped U.S. bills. Rempel wanted more proof. His new friends pulled out one bill and “cleansed” it with a liquid “formula,” which washed off some kind of stamp. Rempel was told that process made the money “legal tender.”

“I was like holy crap, is that mine?” he said. “They said ‘yes sir, it’s yours.’ It all sounded legit.”

Rempel returned to his hotel room clutching the formula and waited for the others so they could cleanse all his money. They never showed, and later told him they got held up. In the meantime, Rempel dropped the formula. The bottle broke. He called his contact who said he’d get more. Rempel returned to Leamington and waited.

A few weeks later Rempel got a call. They found more formula. It would cost $120,000.

“I thought, ‘let’s work on it, nothing is impossible,’” said Rempel.

Don't believe the internet when it says you're a big lottery winner or surprise heir. We're sure you're nice and all, but Nigerian Princes aren't going to email you. Hell, Nigeria's government is modeled after our own; they don't even have princes, something you should remember next time Africa's supposed royalty asks you to wire them money.

As with most advance fee fraud stories, Rempel's tale ends in bankruptcy and woe. "I really thought in my heart this was true," he said.

Leamington man loses $150,000 in Nigerian scam [The Windsor Star]

[Michelle Waltenburg of Tacoma] was on the Craigslist web site looking at the classified ads for pets when she came across an ad for a "lovely English bulldog puppy needing a loving and caring home."

"Something about the way they worded it jumped out at me," she said. "It was an adorable little bulldog puppy, just sitting there, looking at the camera. That's it. That's all it takes."

Michelle responded and got a quick reply from a James Campbell. He claimed to be an American working in Cameroon. He said he wanted someone in the United States to adopt his bulldog puppy, Suzy, because the weather in Africa was no good for her.

"And he said, 'No, there's no fee, but I need you to pay for the puppy to be flown home,' " Waltenburg recalled. "And I said, 'Oh cool. I can do that,' having no idea what was involved."

Waltenburg thought she was going to get a purebred puppy for free, as long as she paid for the shipping, which the "seller" said had to be wired via Western Union.

Michelle sent him $180. That's when the requests for more money started coming in.

"Unfortunately, there never was a dog and you're never going to get your money back," said Alison Preszler, with the National Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Scam artists using puppies to steal your money [KOMO 4 via All Consuming]
(Photo: anyoungkevin)

[FakeChecks.org via Red Tape Chronicles]

Gotta say, we agree with the ol' chap.

Singer Nkem Owoh was arrested early this month on suspicions of being a 419 scammer. Hit the link for the full lyrics.

"I Go Chop Your Dollar": Anthem of the Nigerian 419 Spammer [Ectoplasmosis]

I haven't sold very many things on Ebay. I run a DJ company and had a brand new Pioneer DJ CD player that sells for over $1000 that I wanted to sell on Ebay. I went through the process of selling it and the winning bidder (who had very low feedback) payed me very quickly via paypal. The address the person gave me was for her son in Nigeria. Yes, I know Nigeria I should have known, but I was naive and trusted this person. Plus, I had seen on the Paypal website that they have up to $1000 - $2000 of seller protection. So I figured if it was a scam, then I was covered.

So I received the money and went ahead and deposited it into my checking account via Paypal direct deposit. Then all of sudden after I shipped it the buyer filed a claim against me saying that I didn't ship it...

I was contacted by Paypal and provided documentation of me shipping it to the address that she gave to me. They told me that since it wasn't a Paypal verified address that I was out of luck and out of my $1100 that I sold it for. I tried calling the USPS and stopping the shipment, but it was gone already. So I was out of luck.

After a month or two of fighting with Paypal and not wanting to pay them they sent my claim to a collection agency. So I kind of had to pay it at that time or my credit would have been tainted. I ended up paying the $1100 and change to the collection agency via my credit card. I figured that my next line of defense was my credit card company. So after I paid on my credit card I contacted my credit card company and explained to them what happened. They sent me some forms to fill out and I sent them all the proof that I had that I had gotten scammed. They sent me information back saying that they talked to the collection agency and they couldn't help me with my claim.

So now I'm out the $1100 which I could really use and I don't really know where else to turn. I know I made a bad judgment call by shipping to Nigeria, but at the same time I would have never done that if I knew I didn't have any type of protection from Paypal or my credit card company.

If you have any ideas as to how I can get this money back could you please help?

- Evan

Sorry Evan, you're screwed. Paypal seller protection only works when selling to a verified address. Whenever we sell, we only sell to US, Canada, and UK, require paypal, and make it known that we will only ship to a verified address. Only then will you qualify for seller protection, and for big ticket items like yours, you need to require signature confirmation as well. Consider it a hard lesson learrned, pay your bill, and move on. Next time, a good rule of thumb is, if it involves Nigeria, it's probably a scam. Those advance fee scams filling your email where you deposit $40,000 in gold bullion and send the princess the difference ? That's also called the "Nigerian 419 Scam." Nigeria = Scamopolia. Stay away. — BEN POPKEN

After investigation, Beth found someone was running a version of the 419, or "advance fee," scam, using Beth's name, address, and photos of her apartment gleaned from her blog...

When Beth asked Beth to see the apartment, Beth said said she was in Fremont, CA and could not show it. When Beth asked if a super or a friend could show it, Beth offered to overnight the keys, after Beth moneygrams $1500. If Beth didn't like it, Beth would send her money back.

When she asked to speak to Beth, Beth said, "I would love to speak with you by phone but I can't because I'm a deaf-mute person and I am teaching in CA for a deaf-mute school."

Beth has no recourse except to ask Craigslist to remove the ad every time it goes up.

She searched far for an agency to take up her complaint and the only one who will is The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), co-sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).

Be careful what you reveal about yourself online. People can aggregate it and masquerade as you. Honesty may be in vogue, but that needn't extend to your personal details, like address, phone number, and pictures of your apartment. — BEN POPKEN

Web of Lies [3 Quarks Daily] (Thanks to Omri!)