Scamming via post

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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:45 am

Only seen this once before, but then again, I'm not that experienced. Some months ago, we got a scam letter at work from Benin posted via postal service.

This one here was sent to a driving school in DK, and is in the news today. New modality? or just a lotto lad that's tired of GomerPyle?, it sure is difficult to bait it. But, for those who wants fun, there is a telephone number.
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Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

Scamming by post came before scamming by Email.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:41 am

Many years ago, before the interweb thingy even existed, one of my customers showed me faxes he was getting, giving him a share in tankers full of oil and Nigerian Government contracts.

Of course there were problems, and fees....

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:29 am

Advanced fee fraud is thought to have originated when postal system got going, the Met Police site says "since the sixteenth century" with what was called "The Spanish Prisoner Letter" (http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm)

The original fraud was a prisoner in a Spainish jail who knew the location of a large amount of stolen cash that he would share, but he needed money to bribe guards, etc, etc...

Strangely enough I get quiet a few scammers asking for meetings in Madrid!

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:42 am

@Waldorf - Scammers are career criminals, they will always find a way to contact the unsuspecting victim.

Scamming by post is a tad 'old fashioned' in these days of mass Emails, but I suspect it could appear quite professional and legit if done properly... Confused

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:42 am

Sunshine, are you hinting that Correos España's mail services are a bit slow? Laughing

In case you actually got the original letter, I am sure we all would like to see it! Shocked

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 1:35 pm

I think that some scammers are returning to the postal service because they figure people are getting wise to email scams (and their emails are getting buried in all the other spam emails now), and have forgotten that snail-mail was where scamming began. I have seen only one so far, but it was a Canadian lottery scam, and a fake check was enclosed, which was to be banked and the money sent via WU back to the scammer for "taxes."

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:38 pm

That is really spooky. My SO's father got a 419 offer by mail only yesterday. It was posted less that 5 miles from where I live!

For your delectation

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:43 pm

What about DNA and fingerprints?!

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:49 pm

Its OK, I used gloves when I scanned it!

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:57 pm

Good! What are you going to do with the letter?

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:35 pm

I don't know about the British postal service, but the USPS takes that kind of thing very seriously, and they have investigators who love getting that kind of evidence.

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:17 am

I doubt I could get anyone here in LE to even look at the letter , never mind investigate it!

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:26 am

@Niagra ... I don't but here is one form 1910 http://www.stamporama.com/rambler/roy/prisonerletter.jpg

Plus ca change and all that

Master Baiter Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 108

^^^@music man
I had that exactly identical letter from Wang Pui to my business address a few weeks ago. The postmark was London. The name and details in the body of the letter was also "Alfred ****" (the **** being in this case my own surname) and, oddly enough, Alfred was my Father's christian name. Everything else concerning the person didn't fit with him at all, so presumably just a coincidence. The style of my name and address suggested that it was taken from a published professional membership list.

(Edited to add a bit!)

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:39 am

I posted a link to a local newspaper earlier this week about two couples scammed by letters received through the post.
Possibly targetted at the elderly who don't use the Internet.

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=147488

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:40 am

Scamming by snail mail? Nah, it'll never take off.

The choice is between using a mass e-mailer to fire off a million formats instantly to all and sundry, and, er, buying a million stamps, a million envelopes, photocopying..... no, I don't think so.

The Internet is the greatest gift ever given to the scamming world -- they're not going to move away from it.

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:19 am

My parents received a Spanish lottery scam by snail mail last week. Fortunately they realised it was a scam. Was able to rescue the letter from them and have added it to my trophy collection Smile

.

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:14 am

scamming by mail is still a big problem, my misssus has had HUNDREDS of fake lotto letters sent to her, we still get the odd one even today

we used to stuff the envelope and send it back with no stamp
it cost them postage

419Eater is my life Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 266

I have been dealing with a bunch of Scammers based in Canada.

They are pretty sophisticated.They send out hundreds of notifications of a lottery win.A toll free number to contact the 'claims agent' and a demand for $3500 payment in fees.

The also enclose a fake check for $4500.......
To the vic,its a win win situation.win the lottery or make $1000.

Aand the killer thing of it all.....they use mailing lists for people over the age of 60...that probably dont have a clue about researching on the internet Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:44 pm

^^^That's the one my friend got. When she called the number she was surprised that the man on the other end was so matter-of-fact about her "win,." She expected that he would be excited for her. That was her first clue that all was not as it seemed. Then she took the check to the bank, who were unsure about it. She went to the police, who politely took copies of everything and told her they had had over 100 queries about it already (thank goodness people did some checking). She finally took it to the post office, where they were very happy to take copies of everything.

Unfortunately, she had been carrying the envelope around in her purse for days, had taken the check and letter out of the envelope several times, and they had been handled by bank people, police, and postal workers, so they were useless for forensic evidence. But she thought it was a neat "trophy."