email scam

[Chas]

Probably only of interest to Americans here.

I just got an email supposedly from the IRS that looks really official but is actually some kind of scam operation.

sender is "office at irs.gov"

it begins:

[redzonerocker]

chas,
these type of emails are pretty widespread.
whether they are irs, banks or whatever.
i did once let curiousity get the better of me (once only!) & opened one, for the simple reason of reporting the scam to the relevant bank authorities.
it was a trojan virus but was unable to get past my security system.
so, a word of warning to anyone curious enough, beware, if it looks suspect or to good to be true, it most probably is!!!!
_________________
when all are one & one is all, to be a rock & not to roll.

[sandman67]

Chas....the ".ro" in the link is a bit of a clue.....unless the IRS have an office in Romania.

These scams make me laugh.....and wonder how many terminally stupid greedy people there are about.

Here is a true story from the Sandman vault:

Once upon a time Ozman the heroin smuggler moved to the UK with his mates and family. After 10 years of hard fighting and successfully avoiding HMC&E and the Met old Ozzy had worked his way up to be the head of one of the biggest heroin gangs in the UK. He was a vicious nasty b*****d but well thats how the heroin smuggling/protection racket/prostitution and trafficking trade is.

One day he opened an email from a nice chap in Nigeria. Mr Otomu said that his chum in the Nigerian government bank had a whole load of Nigerian money that had got ink all over it. If Mr Ozman bought it all for a few million pounds, then the nice Nigerian would send him the inky cash and some solvent to wash the ink stains off.

Mr Ozman sent his money, and lo and behold a truck load of paper covered in black printers ink arrived. When he "washed" it in the solvent it came out....blank.

Mr Ozman had been ripped off. Oh dear.....what would he tell his "family" back home in Turkey. Mr Ozman sent two of his chums to Nigeria to try to find the naughty chap who ripped him off. They never came back.

so Mr O packed his suitcases, bucket and spade....and caught a plane to Turkey so he could explain to his chums and papa there where all their hard earned cash had gone.

Two weeks later he was found sans head and hands floating in the sea off Bodrum. Seems his "papa" didn't think stupidity and greed was an excuse.


True story....only the names have been changed. If a hardened gangland boss falls for the Nigerian 419 "wash wash" scam anyone can.

Moral of the story: If it sounds too good to be true.....it is.
_________________
If I can't smoke and swear I'm f****d!
"To sin by silence makes cowards of men"

[Chas]

You know, I didnt notice the "ro" at all!!

The thing is, the rest of the letter looked so damned official. ( I should have copied it) Several paragraphs of various income types and directions, signed and dated and including US.Gov etc in the form numbers etc etc. . .very cleverly done. . .and except for the "bitefight" I probably would have bought it. ( I googled it and found it was a game)

[Riversider]

I had one from "HSBC" this morning re a digital upgrade to internet banking. I contacted HSBC who asked me to send it to phishing@hsbc so they can try and trace the source. The mail looked authentic with HSBC logos and no spelling mistakes so very easy to be fooled.

[redzonerocker]

had one today from paypal.
it was a first for my normal email address ( always expect them with hotmail!!).
as i had issues with paypal recently, i followed the link & it was a phishing site
my norton security blocked & advised it was a fraudalent site so there was no problem.
just a warning to anyone that uses paypal, as it does look pretty authentic.
_________________
when all are one & one is all, to be a rock & not to roll.

[migrant]

Here in the states there have been many warnings of these type e-mails going out. Some harmless, some carrying virus and some asking for banking info to direct deposit (you know what comes next).

The IRS here has stated they will never e-mail letters, etc.

As to the spelling of follow, well, as a CPA and one who deals with the IRS daily, if all was spelled correct I'd be more suspicious!!

[Guess]

I have opened this rather than create a new topic and found that much of it is relevant to what I have to say.

There was a post a couple of years ago from Bamboo Grove regarding the Nigerian scam. I can't find it now.

I have been deleting all HSBC emails as I don't have anything to do with them. I mark them all as spam but still get at least one per week.

What I do get four or five times per week is a letter form someone in need of help. (Freudian slip maybe).

They all have very similar stories. A white person has died in an accident and left about 15 million dollars in their bank in Burkina Faso, Toga, Cote Ivorie or wherever in West Africa. They need a white person to come and get the money out saying that they are a relative. As the sender is a bank official there is no problem moving out the funds.

Curiosity got the better of me so, as the email account was of little importance to me I answered it and said I was interested and what next.

I was initially surprised when I got no reply. Then when thinking about and looking harder at the email and similar ones I figured that they all came from public domain email addresses including Yahoo and Microsoft and were quite obviously set up without any thought. E.g. James4753@hotmail.com

Soon after my response I was inundated with junk mail trying to sell me all sorts of things, but mostly financial packages. All of these were recorded along with any further African emails. I reported the situation to AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo. The junk mail then seemed to ease up a bit.

Now it is back in full flight. The African emails that I do not respond to are now using unknown (to me) ISPs.

In an unofficial replay from Hotmail I was told that the purpose of the African scam was to determine what accounts are alive or not. Apparently only 1% of email addresses given out are still used.

So why Africa? It transpires that the masters are US, Swiss and UK finance houses and other large retailers that use email to drum up business. To do Internet cold calling you need a valid current address to make it viable. The large companies use marketing companies to get them Internet business and those companies employ hundreds of Africans with PCs and Internet connections to validate addresses. Both parties get paid on results.

I am sick of wading through junk (67 today after a week's absence. If you get hassle from any suppliers send it back to them if possible and also copy the relevant watchdog.

The pretending to be the IRS is a new one to me but I guess the root cause ids the same. You just need to make the email tempting enough to arouse someone's curiosity. Viruses and Spyware should not be an issue as none I have seen have attachments.

Set up a dummy email address and try it out for yourself. To activate your email address with the banks all you need to do is send in a seemingly legitimate enquiry regarding finance followed by a thanks but no thanks and leave your dummy email address.

I did that and it worked exactly as I was told it would.
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G

[Guess]

And another one. Anybody else get this or am I really rich. They tempt people with curiosity but one thing for sure is that if it was MS they would want you to show a genuine license first. I don't have one.

Funny the email address is not Microsoft. The premises address though sounds like it could be genuine. Wrights Lane in Kensington exists and it is where the headquarters of PepsiCo UK are. Microsoft Corporations rather than Corporation. A mistake or not. Bill Gates CEO/Chairman?? I thought not any more.

This looks like a typical "are you alive" test but I am not going to try it yet. I have just counted 60 junk mails in my inbox for July alone plus all the ones in the junk folder.

Microsoft Corporations:
Customer Service
Wrights Lane,
Kensington London W85SP,
England UNITED KINGDOM
REFERENCE NO: MLY-Y/250-450890
BATCH NO: 450THL#2008

OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION.

It is obvious that this notification will come to you as a surprise but please find time to read it carefully as we congratulate you over your success in the following official publication of results of the E-mail electronic online Sweepstakes organized by Microsoft, in conjunction with the foundation for the promotion of software products, (F.P.S.) held this June 2008.

Where in your email address emerged as one of the online Winning emails in the 2nd category and therefore attracted a cash award o £450.000.00 (Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand pounds sterling) Our winners are arranged into four categories with different winning prizes accordingly in each category. They are arranged in this format below:
These are your identification numbers:-

CATEGORY NO.OF WINNERS WINNING PRIZES
1st. 2 £ 600,000.00 pounds each
2nd. 8 £ 450.000.00 pounds each
3rd. 13 £ 250,000.00 pounds each
4th. 27 £ 170,000.00 pounds each

We write to officially notify you of this award and to advise you to contact the processing office immediately upon receipt of this message for more information concerning the verification, processing and eventual payment of the above prize to you.
It is important to note that your award information was released with the following particulars attached to it.

(1) Award numbers: MLAT#2008
(2) Email ticket numbers: 1587-5896-4598-87,
(3) Batch numbers: 450THL#2008
(4) The file reference numbers: MLY-Y/250-450890
{5} Serial Numbers: McST/776/ML10101
For verification purpose be sure to include:
(1) Your contact address.
(2) Your Tel/Fax numbers.
(3) Your Nationality/Country.
{4} Your Full Names.
(5) Occupation.
(6) Your Preffered Method Of Receiving Your Price(From Below) Mode Of Price Remittance.

(1)Cash Pick-Up (You coming Down to Uk Personally to Pick Your Price).
(2)Courier Delivery Of your Certified Winning Cheque Name and other Winning Documents safely to you.

To file for your claim, Please contact your Validating Officer for VALIDATION of your winning within Twenty-nine working days of this winning notification.

Winnings that are not validated within Twenty-nine working days of winning notification are termed void and invalid. You are required to mention the above particulars of your award in every correspondence to enable the Agent validate your winning.
*******************************************************************
FOREIGN TRANSFER MANAGER
MICROSOFT SECURITY DEPARTMENT (UK).
M.S.PRO. ZONAL COORDINATOR
Phone Number: +447045774097
E-mail: mclaimsunit@hotmail.com
********************************************************************

The Microsoft Internet E-mail lottery Awards is sponsored by our CEO/Chairman, Bill Gates and a consortium of software promotion companies.The Intel Group, Toshiba, Dell Computers and other International Companies. The Microsoft internet E-mail draw is held periodically and is organized to encourage the use of the Internet and promote computer literacyworldwide.

Once again on behalf of all our staff,
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

Sincerely,
MICROSOFT LOTTERY PROMOTION DEPARTMENT
M.S.PRO. ZONAL COORDINATOR.
_________________
G

[Roel]

All (Nigerian) 419 scam variants. Received zillions of them over the years.
Here is the official warning from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/lottery.mspx

So better buy Thai lottery tickets (do not forget to ask the missus to go see a monk first to obtain the winning numbers!). Good luck.
_________________
We are all living in 'the good old days' of the future.

[Guess]

As usual Microsoft are only covering a tiny segment of the operations. I have actually never seen an email from Nigeria. Until this one mine have all come from Cote, Ivorie and Burkina Faso. Maybe that is a way of evading the Nigerian authorities.

This fake Microsoft one goes right into asking for personal details. People are obviously dumb enough to pass them on or they wouldn't bother with the scam. A lot of work and cost must go into it.

What I am now going to do is announce discontinuation of the email account as it is now almost impossible to use it, and then string them along with fake details which will check out. See what happens.
_________________
G

[HHTel]

I'm amazed that anyone can take a mail like this seriously. An e-mail address at hotmail..... come on!

But "There's nowt so funny as folk!"

[caller]

Its worth searching for the phone number from Guess's post as well - as that doesn't make a lot of sense either.

By the by Guess, next Tuesday, I'm going to a meeting all of spitting distance from the Wrights Lane address - do you want me to collect your winnings?
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I know nothing