Nigerian Scam (one of many variations)

[zencoder]

One of the many versions of the 'Nigeria scam' that have been circulating the web for some time.

I am not 100% certain of the details, but this scam usually starts with divulging of personal contact info- address, name, phone, etc. Then they will proceed to wanting to know what the victims bank account number is for the transferring of funds, and often they will ask for a small financial contribution from the victim to cover the cost of something or other, as a gesture of 'good will'. These things will all occur over a few or several emails and slowly draw the victim into a sense of security in dealing with them. Of course the funds never get deposited.

The scam preys on the gullible, trusting, and those lacking in common sense, often by offering huge amounts of money for little effort, just a small financial contribution (small in comparison to the amount being offered.)

The 'From:' address is almost always forged, and the reply-to and source addresses are often from countries and domains without the best histories for cooperation with foreign law enforcement or extradition requests.

please note anywhere you see #.#.# or #@#.# I've obfuscated my personal information

Subject:
DEAR FRIEND YOUR CONSENT NEEDED
From:
"Smith Bankole" <smith5bankole@tiscali.no>
Date:
Sat, 12 Feb 2005 06:00:04 -0800
To:
smith5bankole@tiscali.no
X-Account-Key:
account2
X-UIDL:
<420B9ABB00000332@cpfe10.be.tisc.dk>
X-Mozilla-Status:
0001
X-Mozilla-Status2:
00000000
Return-Path:
<smith5bankole@tiscali.no>
Received:
from smtp220.tiscali.dk ([62.79.79.114]) by #.#.# (InterMail vM.6.01.03.04 201-2131-111-106-20040729)
with ESMTP id <20050212140058.PFRG10334.#.#.#@smtp220.tiscali.dk> for <#@#.#>; Sat, 12 Feb 2005 09:00:58 -0500
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Message-ID:
<420B9ABB00000332@cpfe10.be.tisc.dk>
Reply-To:
smith_bankole3@hotmail.com
MIME-Version:
1.0
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-15"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
quoted-printable

DEAR FRIEND YOUR CONSENT NEEDED


Dear Friend,
 
I am Mr. Smith Bankole senior manager accounts/audit department, in Standard
Trust Bank of Nigeria Plc. Mr. Mark Cin, who was a consultant with Shell-development
company in Nigeria and a personal friend Died and left behind his deposit
in this bank (Standard Trust Bank Plc) valued $18,723,822.90 My relationship
with Mr. Mark Cin started in 1992 when I was a supervisor in Standard Trust
Bank marina branch.
 
We met in my social club annual end of the year party and I introduced him
to my bank where he opened this account some few weeks later making me the
account officer to the account and he operated this account until his death.
 
On the 21st of April 1999, Mr. Mark Cin, travelled to the gulf Oil zone
in Iraq as a member of the inspection Team to the Oil rich country, unfurtunately
he did not return to the country. Since then I have made several enquiries
to your embassy to locate any of Mr.Mark Cin extended relatives this has
also proved unsuccessful. I have made effort to service the account untill
last year 2003, the bank insist of sending the money to the treasury, To
prevent the bank to claim this money I know decided to contact any body
from your country, I decided to contact you via  your email address with
hope to get this money out of the bank.
 
I am contacting you to assist in repatriating the money left behind by Mr.
Mark before they get confiscated since the bank has declared the account
unserviceable. I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over
3years since I was recalled back to marina branch as a senior manager from
a transfer that took me to another branch of the bank.

I therefore seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased
, so that the proceeds of this account valued at $18,723,822.90(Eighteen
Million seven hundred and twenty three thousand eight hundred and twenty-two
dollars, ninety cents) can be paid to your account abroad or you may receive
it through diplomatic means which is more preferable,also if you show interest
we can negotiate in percentage on what you stand to gain for this kind gesture,
I wiil need to travell down to your country for the collection of my portion
of the money as soon as this fund get to you.
 
I and my attorney have access to all necessary legal documents that can
be used to back up any claim we may make. All I require is your honest cooperation
to enable us see this transaction through, of which we must present a forigner
with an account abroad to enable us to clear this money from the bank.
Your contact information are very neccessary, I mean your home address,
phone number and your full name.

I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that
will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with the
above email address.
 
Best regards,
Mr.Smith Bankole.

[Egaladeist]

I see people posting these scams all the time and I still don't get it...there doesn't seem to be a financial risk...do they just want to collect personal information on people...and for what purpose? To sell the equivalent of mailing lists to spammers ?

[HTRegz]

Hey Hey,

With the amount of information that they request... The goal is to gain access to your bank account. It's a huge financial risk... Take for example this one that just made it's way into my mailbox

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Delivered-To: htregz@gmail.com
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Fri, 07 Dec 2001 10:15:13 -0000
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 11:15:13 +0100
From: stmichael8030965979@yahoo.co.in
To: stmichael8030965979@yahoo.co.in
Subject: Re.friendship.
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Message-ID: <4215532c.57854db6.2272.73abSMTPIN_ADDED@mx.gmail.com>

Phone: (24 hours): 234 8030965979
please reply to:adams8030965979@hotmail.com

I am the chairman of the contract award committee of the petroluem and natural resources ministry here in Nigeria, for security reasons, I may not wish to disclose how I got your email address for now.

After due deliberation with my partner, I decided to forward to you this business proposal, we want you to assist us receive the sum of
Twenty eight million, six hundred thousand united state bills
(us28.6m) into your account. This fund resulted from an over-invoiced contract awarded by us under the budget allocation to my ministry and the bill was approved for payment by the concerned ministries. The contract was executed, commissioned and the contractor was paid his actual cost of the contract. Now, we are left with the balance of us28.6m as the over invoiced amount, which we have deliberately over estimated for our own use. Please note that the law forbids civil servants to operate or own foreign accounts hence this contact, we have agreed to share the money in the following percentages: 30 for you, 60 for us 10 for tax as may be required by your government.

Note that this transaction is very much free from all sorts of risk hence the business was carefully planned before it was successfully executed and we the officials involved in the deal have put many years in service to our ministry. We have been exercising patience for this privilege for so long not until the presidential announcement last week, that all foreign contractors owed be paid forthwith, this will enable the presidency reconcile our debt ratio with the outside world and to most of us, this is a lifetime blessing we cannot afford to miss. Upon indication of your interest to fully co-operate with us, a payment application/information form will be sent to you via email for completion.
Note that the following information: a) bankers name and address, b) account number and account name and c) your private phone number and email address will enable us seek/secure approval of the fund from the concerned government quarters/ministries within 3-4 banking days.

As soon as we confirm receipt of this money in your nominated bank account, my partner and I will come over to your country to arrange for our own share and possibly invest part of this money in your country.

Let honesty and trust be our watchword throughout this transaction. I shall furnish you with some details about myself. Your prompt reply will be highly appreciated.

Best regards.

Engr. Adams. I. S. A

This is an exact copy and paste of another email I recieved earlier... one which I've been replying to... I mean it looks good right? I'm even getting a phone number to respond to. I've bolded the initial information that they request.... With the other one I'm working on... I've also been asked for my passport, next of kin and a few other details... It only takes so much to validate yourself over a telephone.... and they want everything possible. With my college for example you could obtain the full student data (including username and password for online access) with a full name, student number and postal code... You could do it without interfaction with another person with student number and DoB or SIN. Once I've got all your student data I'm on a role... there's a lot of information stored there... It just cascades.. you get one piece of information and that leads you to another which leads you to another and it just keeps going..

Hopefully this gives you a bit better idea of why these are so big...

Peace
HT

[zencoder]

Egaladeist, IIRC the first versions of this came in the form of "we have lot's of money to move, but we need your help, can we put it in your account for 48 hours, then withdraw all of it, leaving you our fee of $1,000,000".

They want to do all the work...so you give them access to your bank account. That, or they ask for a small fee (in comparison to the 'payoff') to help with some initial expenses.