Anybody Ever Done this?

[sum1won]

My uncle recently received a bit of spam. You know, the sort that wants your bank information. He had nothing better to do, so he sent them a wordy response that claimed he was in contact with a relative of the deseaced famous person whose money they allegedly stole and wanted to smuggle, and that they were threatening legal action. So, has anybody used this tactic to dissuade phishers?

(No, I will not post the response, as parts of it are not politically correct.... So sorry)

[penguinism]

Not sure what your reply meant exactly:

he was in contact with a relative of the deseaced famous person whose money they allegedly stole and wanted to smuggle, and that they were threatening legal action.

I have had quite a few spams and email from scammers asking for my credit card/Bank Info since I am on ebay and have a Paypal account. I always take time to fill in some fake details for them (like a non exsiting credit card number) so to mess them about. This is my way of getting them back for annoying me in the first place.

[efthimios]

I never do that, I do not want them to know they have a valid email address (mine), and I just send it to the bulk folder and tick it as spam. Though I am glad to say most of my spam is correctly recognized by Yahoo so I rarely ever ever read them. Plus it is easy by now to figure out just by title and sender which is a fake and which is not. AND, even if somehow they managed to steal my account/credit card info, they couldn't do shit, I am broke and way over the limit

By replying to them you just tell them "send me more spam".

[anguille]

Don't believe they read it...i guess it's all done by computers.

[penguinism]

You don't actually reply to them(the Credit card ones) by email. They send you a link which looks like its from ebay or Paypal and you click on it to bring up a new explorer page. And then you type your details in that so there is no way they know what your email address is. Plus most of them just guess or randomly generate email address so it really don't matter to them. These cons relies on the fact that a small number of people in a large population will fall for it so they don't really bother you on an individual basis.

[honvedseg]

The other group of email scams we get all the time are usually from Nigeria, although we've gotten similar variants from a few of the ex-Soviet republics. These ask for your help in getting money out of their country by opening a joint bank account with them, and offering you a percentage of some ridiculous sum. Of course, if you do deposit money to open a joint account with them, the only transaction they'll ever make is a withdrawl. Since the whole venture is already shady, and supposedly a not-quite legal way to "get around" some law in their country, you have no legal recourse in either country.

The company I work for has also been burned by sending expensive equipment (insured, via UPS) to an address in Nigeria, which was pre-paid by credit card. The credit card transaction went through with no trouble. Of course, the credit card number later turned out to be stolen, but by that time the merchandise was already shipped. The "subcontractor" which UPS uses in that country insisted at first that they were unable to deliver to a non-existant address, then refused to return the package because it had already been delivered. UPS refused to pay on the insurance because they have no control over deliveries in Nigeria, but are still charging for the insurance anyway. At least we weren't charged for the international shipping, since the package was never delivered to the intended recipient.

[penguinism]

Yer you are right, no offence by most of the scams do seem to come from Nigeria. There is also the Over-payment cheque scam which someone tried to pull on me as well. Basically if you place an ad on the internet(say for a Car), usually quite a high price. The scammer contacts you and say that they are interested in buying your item. They then say they will pay by a cheque but for some reason(for which they invent an excuse) the cheque is for an amount way above the price you ask. For example you sell your car for ??2000 and they say they will give you a cheque for ??6000 for some reason and ask you to give the difference back. If you accept it and pay the cheque into the bank it will appear if the cheque clears. By the time they are off with your money and goods(??4000 + car) you will find the Bank has rejected the cheque because it is stolen or a good forgry. I told the person who tried that on me to F*** off and do something to themself with a bat*.

*(no not what you were thinking, I told them to hit themselves in the head).

[ste]

www.419eater.com (they scam 419 scammers... hiliarity) tried my hand at it once, but nothing funny to tell really... just caused the man some general inconveinience, which is the least I can do considering they attempt to con people out of their hard earned wonga.

[ste]

Yer you are right, no offence by most of the scams do seem to come from Nigeria. There is also the Over-payment cheque scam which someone tried to pull on me as well. Basically if you place an ad on the internet(say for a Car), usually quite a high price. The scammer contacts you and say that they are interested in buying your item. They then say they will pay by a cheque but for some reason(for which they invent an excuse) the cheque is for an amount way above the price you ask. For example you sell your car for ??2000 and they say they will give you a cheque for ??6000 for some reason and ask you to give the difference back. If you accept it and pay the cheque into the bank it will appear if the cheque clears. By the time they are off with your money and goods(??4000 + car) you will find the Bank has rejected the cheque because it is stolen or a good forgry. I told the person who tried that on me to F*** off and do something to themself with a bat*.

*(no not what you were thinking, I told them to hit themselves in the head).

that is quite common, most of the scam artists do infact originate from nigeria even though if you traceroute their IPs you end of in Israel (this is because of most of the internet in nigeria is supplied via satalitte links to Israel or so they tell me)...

The cheque scam is quite common too, it happens when someone steals your cheque book, and starts reeling off cheques, your probrably not going to notice until you get your statement... by then its too late... and the victim is out of pocket

[sum1won]

Phishers, don't live in Nigeria specifically, but that is where the IPs actually originate, as it is one of the few african countries with widespread internet access. The otehr common place is Eastern Europe, and recently, China.

[penguinism]

Hi here is an exact copy of a scarm email I got recently trying to get my credit card information. As you can see it pretents to be from Paypal and suggest that there is a problem. This is to throw people who are not aware of these problems off guard.

Among the genuine advices give by Paypal is that they will always addres you by you name in the email and not dear member etc. since this show that actually knows who you are. Also if you look at the link a it does appears from Paypal but thats a trick, it actually opens a different page to the link shown (this is due to some programming which doesn't work now because this is a quote).


Dear (my email address),

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your PayPal account may
have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security
of your account and of the PayPal network is our primary concern.
Therefore, as a prevention measure, we have temporarely limited access to
sensitive PayPal account features.
Please click on the link below to confirm your information:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run?

For more information about how to protect your account, please visit
PayPal's Security Center, accessible via the "Security Center" link located
at the bottom of each page of the PayPal website.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your
assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire PayPal
system. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.



Sincerely,

The PayPal Fraud Management Team




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