Scam Letters-How do you deal with them?

Hi guys,

I just received the following in my e-mail:

I was wondering how you guys deal with these sort of e-mails:

"From: "Prince Simon Wilfred" Add to Address Book
Subject: URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE/INVESTMENT
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 10:30:25 +0000
To:


From Prince Simon Wilfred,
Tel: +27 83 356 6265
[email protected]



Dear Sir/Madam,

It is with due respect, trust and humility that i write you this
proposal,
which I believe will be a great interest to you i found your contact
while I
was doing a private research on the internet for a reliable and capable
foreign partner that will assist my family and I.this is the most
reason why
I contacted you.

I am Prince Simon Wilfred the son of Dr. James Wilfred of Zimbabwe.
During
the current war against farmers in Zimbabwe and from the support of our
president ROBERT MUGABE to claim all the white owned farms in our
country,
all the white and black farmers were ordered to surrender their farms
to his
party members and his followers.

My father who was one of the best farmers in our country and treasurer
of
the farmers co-operation did not support his idea and so the party
members
invaded my fathers farms and burnt everything in the farm, killed my
father
and made away with a lot of items in my fathers farm. After the death
of my
father I, my mother and younger sister decided to move out of Zimbabwe
because our lives was in danger with the DOCUMENTS of a fund which my
father
deposited in one of the security company in SOUTH AFRICA. The amount
stated
in the document is US$27.5M (TWENTY SEVEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND
UNITED STATE DOLLARS)since our arrival to SOUTH AFRICA we have gone to
the
SECURITY COMPANY and meet with them. but now in terms to invest the
money here, we cannot do so due to the policy and law of this country
so
with the advice from our family attorney I decided to make a contact
with an
overseas firm who will assist me and my family to move this money out
of
South Africa, because we are asylum seekers here in South Africa,
and cannot continue to suffer when we have such amount of money in the
security company.

So, if you consider this proposal, my family and I have agreed to give
you
25% of the total sum for helping us to move this money out to your
country
and 5% will be mapped out for expenses both of us may incurred during
this
transaction and 70% will be for me and my family to invest in your
country.
All I want is for you to furnish me with all your banking details and
your
personal phone and fax number for easy communication. You can contact
me on
the above and below telephone number and E-mail address.

Note: This transaction is 100% risk free and absolutely confidential
Then,
if you are interested to help me and my family please contact me with
this
E-mail [[email protected]] and phone number +27 83 356 6265.

Thanks and God bless you.

Best Regards,
PRINCE SIMON WILFRED
For the family.

You can as well read more about the crises in my country and about this
situation on the following THREE sites:

www.cnn.com...
www.guardian.co.uk...

www.dailynews.zimbabwe.com"

What a load of crap!

Uggh....I've gotten a few of those....The first time I got one was about 3 years ago - They keep getting more melo-dramatic as time goes by...

I guess the easiest thing to do is to block that email address and delete the message...

I actually knew someone who I worked with who replied and sent money to one of these scumbags...His creditors, in a nut-shell, basically told him he was an idiot and refused to assist in recovering the money...

Its easy Ignore them. Super easy, well for some.

I guess I ought to ask, at this point:

1. Who are the people that spend so much time, painstakingly drafting these letters (can they be traced), will they ever be traced

2. Where do they appropraite the target's address from

3. Is this a criminal offence (mail/wire fraud) to make knowing misleading statements with an intent to defraud, and to attempt to obtain money from unsuspecting people.

I buy the deal that there's an idiot born every minute, and that these idiots should not send away their money to such schemes and scams.

But what I really would like to know is who apprehends the would be perpetrators, if indeed this is a crime and not just a casual, silly joke?

Comments, suggestions, input appreciated.

Originally posted by aSEEKER
I guess I ought to ask, at this point:

1. Who are the people that spend so much time

People who care nothing about who they hurt or steal from.

I have received the typical "we need help depositing money in a US account" scam a bunch of times.

The most recent one is persistant as hell. They send me a notice about 3 times a week.
The first one told me that my account had been accessed and they needed to verify my information: name, address, account number and pin. uhh...yeah.

here is the latest one:

Dear customer,

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your SunTrust Bank account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account and of the SunTrust Bank network is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to sensitive SunTrust Bank account features.

Please follow steps for verification proces in order to regain access to your account:


www.suntrust.com...

sadly, I'll bet someone falls for this one.

BG

I get them all the time from "pay pal" needing to verify info...what the people sending don;t know is that I don;t have a pay pal account, so that is flag one...I forwared the email to the real pay pal and let them deal with it...as for the Nigeria scams and others, I like to play with them by responding and asking if they will send ME money to cover my cost of sending them money

So far no money.....

From a legal point of view, and I am no lawyer, I 'feel' these scams are legal offences. Maybe someone can shed some light on this.

I suppose also that I am one of those fools born every minute.

[Edited on 16-11-2004 by aSEEKER]

Originally posted by aSEEKER
From a legal point of view, and I am no lawyer, I 'feel' these scams are legal offences. Maybe someone can shed some light on this.

I suppose also that I am one of those fools born every minute.

[Edited on 16-11-2004 by aSEEKER]

There are things you can do....

What To Do If You Receive A Nigerian Scam/419 Letter
1. DO NOT RESPOND TO THE 419 SOLICITATION.
2. Notify your Own Nation's National Law Enforcement Agency and your Own Nation's Foreign Office.

3. File a Complaint with the Nigerian Embassy or High Commission in your nation.

4. File a complaint via email with the Central Bank of Nigeria.

home.rica.net...


Always remember this rule...
If it sounds to good to be true...........

Thanks netstorm for the useful link.

BTW, I'm just wondering in all my naivete how comes they're from mainly one nation.