ooo . nooo !! again in austria - the next victim paid. !

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419Eater is my life Joined: 08 Aug 2008 Posts: 475

here a quick translation - (reworked babelfish, )
of a story in today's news:

Internet scammers get out approximately 80,000 euros of a Upper Austrian Victim . 22. May 2009, 10:15

A 55 year old man fell for the story of alleged funds by "courier and diplomat" out of South Africa.
Scammers recieved from the man who is living in district Steyr (Upper Austria) around 80,000 euros.
This was announced by Police Speakers on Wednesday.

At the end of October 2008 the victim received a call from an alleged SouthAfrican person, who was looking for a "Manager or a trustworthy person" for a funds transfer at a value of US$ 22,5 million and a promised representational allowance of 30 % . After several mails and telephone calls at the beginning of November it came to a meeting in the City of Amsterdam. The Victim met an alleged " Courier" , who also functioned as " Translator" , and one " Diplomat" of Republic of South Africa.

To the Victim an aluminum suit-case full of Dollars was shown. At that time he already had paid 15,012 euros to the funds courier and further 4,500 euros at the "Diplomats" for the alleged physical transfer of the funds from South Africa to Amsterdam. After the promise that the aforementioned of $ 22,5 million sum of money is stored temporarily for a transfer to Austria on a so-called offshore account, the Victim flew back to Austria.

After the meeting the Austrian man received a made up access code for E-banking and for a possible transaction by mail. With this code a account data sheet showed up, where it could be seen that the $22.5 M had been deposited already. Thereupon the vicitims tries of the funds transactions failed again and again, and in this fraud constantly new codes were required at high amounts (15,300 euros, 27,000, 4,500, 22,500 etc.), which were transferred to different persons.
Up to now the vicitm transferred 79,913 euros to the Scammers altogether. The Police is on search for the " Diplomat" and " Translator".

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the original-article: http://derstandard.at/?id=1242316416113

edit: there was no additional information about it. each paper had the same (press-agency) text.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 16 May 2009 Posts: 9

The police are searching for a 'diplomat and translator'. Oh! they're gonna find them aren't they? NOT!

This sorta thing sickens me, which is why I am here! Evil or Very Mad

Ian

Not quite a Newb Joined: 17 May 2009 Posts: 43

Well, CRAP! Crying or Very sad

I hate to see a story like this.

Part of me (a small part) wants to say that if the victim had 80K euros to drop on this, then his greed got the best of him...
BUT-
The more logical part of me says that there needs to be a special circle in Hell for the scammers that pulled this off. Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 1:29 pm

Greed? I dunno.

Quote:

it could be seen that the $22.5 M had been deposited already

I'm no good at currency conversions (and don't use either dollars or euros), but to put it into my own perspective: I see I have £2000 deposited in the bank. So a fee of £8 (or £80) to access it is a good investment. It must have seemed a bit like that to the victim. Just on a larger scale.

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 6:48 pm

Tom_Walker wrote:

Part of me (a small part) wants to say that if the victim had 80K euros to drop on this, then his greed got the best of him...

That 80K could be all his life savings. Scam victims mortgage their houses, borrow from friends, etc, to raise money to send to scammers.
Scammers will happily leave victims penniless.

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 7:08 pm

Even if was a greedy old bastard, born rich, barely had to work a day in his life, he didn't steal the money. He lawfully earned it, regardless how hard he actually had to work for it.

Being 55, he was getting closer toward retirement age, and likely had a large pension/401k, whatever the Austrian equivalent is. It's very possible he emptied that, and now instead of retiring at age 65, he may have to work the rest of his life.

The only thing you know for certain is they are victims of a crime.

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 8:08 pm

not talking about ths victim particularly more of a general observation .

just remeber too with unemployment on the rise and the global economy going down the lavatory fast in theese days it is more likely to be desperation not greed that makes people belive scammers .

give you an example my closest friend and her husband recently both lost thier jobs at the same time . ( yes the worked for the same company) they are now trying to get by on thier savings and the little bit of help they get from social security ( and belive me contrary to what you might read in the media thats not all that much considering the cost of living here. ) they are not skivers either they are both willing even to take low paid jobs if it means they can suport thier family , they can;t even get as low paid job right now. could you imagine if someone came along and said i have all this moeny for you , you can see how it would be tempting .

it is the scammer a fault always . not the victims .

Wannabe Baiter Joined: 08 May 2009 Posts: 90

Hello all, I joined because I want to see the end story to these type of scams. I work in a financial institution and I see a LOT of people falling for these games. One gentleman fell for it not once, not twice, but three times!! It was the fake money order, send us the extra back kind of scam. I told the person directly dealing with him to shut off his internet. It would save him thousands. Generally, the people I see with the fake check worth thousands haven't had two nickels to rub together and suddenly they are rich. And then they are even more poor. It just sucks.
If I can save one person from this by making some "poor" lad have a brain aneurysm from me talking him circles, then my job just got easier!

419Eater is my life Joined: 08 Aug 2008 Posts: 475

hi bumsnacks, welcome to Eater

maybe you could start a thread here at eater to tell about your experiences from behind the counter

we like it to spread 'brain aneurysm' in ladland.

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I am always wondering, how the victims could ignore every information and warnnings about these scams, which are available all around - newspapers, tv, etc, etc.
is it still not enough information, or do they just dont want to see it ?

Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 1:00 pm

Personally, I don't think there is enough information.

I had never read any warning until the day I googled a million hopeful terms about 'bad people who are pretending something in order to get money from you' and eventually (after about three hours) came across words like 'scam' and '419'.

That was last October.

I had once read on a penpal site, 'Don't answer replies from Nigeria or Ghana because these women only want your money.' I thought that just meant they were hoping to marry into money.

Admittedly, I don't watch TV, and don't read newspapers. But I've had an internet connection since 1996, and have still managed to never read anything on this subject. 'Man loses LotsofMoney in internet fraud' would not have been a news story I bothered to open, any more than 'Man crosses ocean in bathtub'.

I may or may not be unusual.

Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 4:16 pm

Brush4 wrote:

The police are searching for a 'diplomat and translator'. Oh! they're gonna find them aren't they? NOT!

The police are not stupid, more likely the journo had a word count to hit and that was the easiest way to put it.

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