Another Scam...

[sandyRoe]

I saw an old friend in the newsagents yesterday. By this morning she had managed to travel to Nigeria to attend a seminar and there, on the way from the airport to the hotel, be robbed of all her possessions. She needs a 'soft loan' of €850 to pay her hotel bill and get herself back home. At least, that's what an e-mail purporting to be from her claims.
This is clearly a scam but if you had an e-mail like this from an acquaintance you might be taken in.

[woofgang]

I have had one of these Sandy...a friend of mine and his wife and kids marooned in Africa. Problem is that this guy is unmarried and a "confirmed bachelor" if you get my drift....

[sandyRoe]

They ask for a 'soft loan'. You'd need to be soft in the head, as we say here, to fall for this.

[tonyav]

I also had one of these a couple of years ago sandy, my friend happened to be in Scotland at the same time as being in Nigeria !.

[LazyGun]

@Sandy - Never entirely sure how the scammers expect to get paid off here. I guess all of us might be moved to offer aid to an old friend genuinely in trouble, but would you not want some personal contact with the individual concerned, before wiring money or what have you?

And is it a genuine old friend of yours? If so, how did they get the details of them ( and you) in the first place?

[woofgang]

the way these things work is that they send out tens of thousands of these emails at very low cost. if less then one percent of emails get a response they are in profit and if people respond asking for more info, saying bog off etcetera then they have "live" email addresses that they can sell on for more profit.

[andy-hughes]

I'd be surprised if i get one - because i do not use Facebook or Twitter, so the scammers are unlikely to know who my friends are!

LazyGun - the law of averages says that if you scattergun enough of these 'requests' acros the net, you will get one or more 'bites' sooner or later. Sad, but true.

[sandyRoe]

They want the money sent by Western Union. I think they must have hacked into her address book and have probably sent the same message to all listed there.

[grasscarp]

I had similar 6 months ago and posted it on here. Knew it was not true as it said he had been mugged and had tears in his eyes as he was writing it (with several spelling mistakes). He is not the type to have tears in his eyes as he writes!

[LazyGun]

@ Andy - Is it some kind of virus then that adopts details specific to the recipient, or am I just being too literal in reading Sandys OP?

I am very grateful I think for my spam filters. Cannot recall the last time I saw anything resembling this...

[starone]

All my old friends have gone before me. I am the only one left so they would have a job finding someone to maroon in Nigeria and ask me for money. Apart from the fact the bog off is my reaction to these scams. Now if they could send emails from the other place I might react because that would be interesting. (take your pick from Heaven or Hell, or even Limbo)

[LazyGun]

@ Sandy - ahh, gotcha, I understand now :)

[murraymints]

Had a similar one from a friend....it originated from Nigeria..still has no idea how it happened..

[andy-hughes]

Thanks LG - i will keep an eye open.

As i always say with regard to these scams - I was born at night, but it wasn't last night!

[woofgang]

andy, that's not the way it works. At some point somewhere an email in box that contains your email address has been hacked into and the addresses nicked. This is usually because someone has sent on a circulating email without removing the cc list, or, as in my case because the email was on a group list and the person who owned the list sent out emails didn't create a group or bcc the emails but shared all the emails with every recipient. So it might not be a friend of yours but a friend of a friend of a friend. The scammers then send out emails to and from every permutation of that cache of addresses.

[I.Caramba]

These are targeted, not random. That way they're going to be contacting people some of whom really are friends of the unfortunate traveller. It does mean somebody's email has been hacked (not necessarily that of the sender).

[sandyRoe]

Curiouser and curiouser. I sent her an e-mail headed, 'Sorry to hear about you troubles in Africa', and got a reply stating that she did need the money and that I should use the details already provided to send it.

[Brinjal]

These are definitely doing the rounds. And it always seems plausible people have been taken beware

[lady-janine]

this is awful and it is such a shame that people feel that they have to help friends without checking all the details, with an extremely large block of salt, first. especially when they are so obviously suspect.

however, on a lighter note if any of you feel you want to send money to a friend. albeit a cyber one. i am waiting, patiently.

[tonyav]

Cheques in the post lj.

[lady-janine]

they are large and pink and their flying call is oink, oink. does that sound right to you tony?