Scam email to my own name/surname..

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 5

Ok...here's a noob ashamed of his noobishness around here..so please bear with me.

I receive the occasional scammy email of different types however something happened today which has got me a bit annoyed. I use a yahoo.com email address whenever I want to sign up for online forums or when I don't want to give any real information. My real name and surname have never been intentionally left on the net anywhere, I always use fake names, or nicknames for whatever I participate in, (usually techie and mechanical stuff forums, since I restore old bikes for a living)

Despite this precaution, here is what arrived today on my main personal address, not the yahoo one:

Dear [ MY REAL NAME , MIDDLE NAME AND SURNAME]

A Foreign Diamond consultant/contractor with the Sierra Leonean National Diamond Corporation,Mr Charles Fernandez, who here in after shall be referred to as my client, died as the result of a heart-related condition in March 12th 2005,made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at USD$19,000,000.00,(Nineteen Million Dollars).
His heart condition was due to the death of all the members of his family in the tsunami disaster on the 26th December 2004 in Sumatra Indonesia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake Upon maturity, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless. I therefore made further investigation and discovered that he did not declare any kin or relations in all his official documents, including his Bank Deposit paperwork before me.
I have contacted you to assist in distributing the money left behind by my client before it is confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this deposit valued at $7.2million dollars is lodged.
This bank has issued me a notice to contact the next of kin, or the account will be confiscated. My proposition to you is to seek your consent to present you as the next-of-kin and beneficiary of my late client, since you have the same last name with him, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you. Then we can share the amount on a mutually agreed-upon percentage.
All legal documents to back up your claim as my client's next of kin will be secured gradually and forwarded to you. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through. This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.

If this business proposition offends your moral values, do accept my apology. Please contact me at once to indicate your interest.

Regards,
Barr. Azman Davidson.
Senior Advocate/Solicitor.

What has me annoyed is that this f*** has addressed this to me personally, and even knows my middle name, which only ever goes onto official documents, even my friends don't know this name. What's getting me worried is how the hell did he do this ?

Any feedback is most welcome...here's the header in case anyone's interested :

From - Tue May 26 09:34:22 2009
X-Account-Key: account4
X-UIDL: GmailId1217a6a1bf372eb0
X-Mozilla-Status: 0003
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-Mozilla-Keys:
Delivered-To: ******@gmail.com
Received: by 10.204.68.84 with SMTP id u20cs379544bki;
Mon, 25 May 2009 17:55:23 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.224.6.79 with SMTP id 15mr7253325qay.208.1243299322373;
Mon, 25 May 2009 17:55:22 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from blu0-omc1-s18.blu0.hotmail.com (blu0-omc1-s18.blu0.hotmail.com [65.55.116.29])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 32si9718701qyk.133.2009.05.25.17.55.21;
Mon, 25 May 2009 17:55:22 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 65.55.116.29 as permitted sender) client-ip=65.55.116.29;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 65.55.116.29 as permitted sender) [email protected]
Received: from BLU132-W7 ([65.55.116.7]) by blu0-omc1-s18.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Mon, 25 May 2009 17:55:21 -0700
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Return-Path: [email protected]
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_3897ff8d-51eb-4874-96bb-f72f67748806_"
X-Originating-IP: [121.121.228.36]
Reply-To: <[email protected]>
From: AZMAN DAVIDSON <[email protected]>
To: <*********@gmail.com>
Subject: ATTENTION PLEASE................***** ***** Fernandez
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 00:55:21 +0000
Importance: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 26 May 2009 00:55:21.0609 (UTC) FILETIME=[A5624F90:01C9DD9C]

--_3897ff8d-51eb-4874-96bb-f72f67748806_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Two possibilities: Either your name and email address are out there, a Google search for your address might find it, or he bought an email list off some online retailer or other body that you have used.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 6:24 pm

i wonder could you get detils such as name and e-mail address from e-bay ( if you have used it )

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 5

Yeah, ebay is one culprit I thought of, but I don't use my main email address there anymore, the only other possibilities might actually be my Italian mobile phone operator, or maybe even Ryanair. I add credit to my phone on their website sometimes, and fly to london once a month or so (from Italy.
I'm just worried because anywhere I've used my full name was only for online credit card payments...sh** !

come to think of it though, why scam someone whose credit card info you already have...?

Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 7:46 pm

It could be that somebody - even a stranger to you - has put your email address and your full name online. It has just happened to me. I'm now, for the first time since getting an internet connection back in 1996, googleable. I'm not amused.

In this situation, the information has been put up by a family tree researcher. There is a long story (so-and-so gave it to so-and-so who passed it on to....) behind how this person got it.

My name (thankfully spelt slightly wrongly) also once appeared on some 'trace your old schoolfriends' type forum. Somebody replied to this with, 'I think she might be at this email address'. Thankfully (again) the email was with an old ISP and outdated. I don't like being 'outed' by others!

Like thud says, some searching on your name and email address might reveal something.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

My personal email address is on an open source project I did some work on. They have a file that lists all of the hundreds of people who have ever contributed code. That file alone would be a spam/scammer's dream, (except they are probably the worst people to target.) But it didn't stop there. The address was picked up by a virus writer who used it as one of a small number of possible spoofed From addresses. You would not believe how much spam I get on that address.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 8:20 pm

There's another possibility, which is those ****ing naff 'forward this to all your friends' emails - they often end up as huge chunks of real email addresses often with the person name in text.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 5

mmm good point, last one. I keep getting chain mail rubbish from tree hugging wannabees on facebook who want to save the amazon rain forest...

Actually facebook is my main suspect now, plenty of real life contacts there who know me personally....

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 11:19 pm

I believe facebook to be behind giving out my details of who I work for, because I found myself on spoke.com.

The profile they kindly created without my permission has my name, co. name, US office address (wrong) and my personal email address against it. There is only one place that has that info. And I locked down my FB profile.

I am very careful to not be googleable (good word!) I use a nickname for FB and other such sites. I'm not happy about it at all, yet I can't remove my profile without signing up to spoke.com, installing some spyware toolbar and putting my details under suppression. Which isn't deletion!

As they're a US based co. the DP laws in the UK don't apply!

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 2:51 am

Funny I just googled myself and apparently I am both a Penthouse Pet and an author of self-help books. Laughing

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 5

Yeah....I just did that and I'm a mexican lawyer......and a Bullfighter from Seville.....seriously...!

Parallel universes maybe?

Anyway, regarding facebook, I think it might have something to do with a weird email (see link) I received from the same rain forest saving blonde I was in school with. Apparently there was a facebook phishing attack and this information seems to have come from her computer

http://mashable.com/2009/05/24/goldbasebe-facebook/

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 1:16 pm

Well, I have a similar problem. I run a small company, I will not specify what we are doing, and my company's and my own data are on a lot of b2b sites. I get contacted everyday by the scammers to my corporate official email.
It is safe for me to bait them using my real data? Usually, I don't even bother to answer for scam mails, but I think now about baiting using my real identity.

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 2:18 pm

Hi Stander, Do not bait using your real email or identity in any way. Create a new email account that can not be traced to your real identity and bait from that. You can just cut and paste the emails from your real email to your new identity and move forward from there. The scammers don't remember who they sent the emails to. Gmail is a good email account to use because it hides your IP.

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 2:25 pm

Quote of previous post removed. There's no need to quote full posts. Please use @username or quote specific sections of posts. -Ima

I have baited before using anonymous account and fake names, but I think it can be more effective if they getting real information that can be verified so get him more cooperative Smile

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 2:27 pm

I am from a country any Nigerian or other WA country citizen needs visa, and there are no diplomatic missions out there.
I wonder how he will be able to make me problems?

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 2:57 pm

Quote:

any Nigerian or other WA country citizen needs visa...
I wonder how he will be able to make me problems?

You're assuming the fictional 'he' in question doesn't have friends/family/associates already in your country.

We advocate safe baiting in the most part not because of what _has_ happened to baiters, but because of what _might_. These guys are criminals, and in some cases part of fairly large organizations of such, with not insignificant resources.

In the past, some of these guys have been more than happy to kill their victims. The paying ones. The fact that you're playing with them might just elicit a similar response should you happen to pick one with some resources and/or friends.

Did I mention that they're criminals? Simple logic leads me to the conclusion that I want to protect myself. Smile

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 3:29 pm

@Stander - Don't use your real information. Seriously. It won't help your bait at all and it may put you, your friends, and your family in harm's way.

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 4:46 pm

@donmanolo

As lads are notoriously lazy, the chances are poor, that he googled you up and handselected your name to it. So we can assume, that he got a list with e-mails and names. Many of those jokes you send around the world (is this what manbiteslion meant? then sorry for repeating) contain all addies with the names in the "TO:" field (e.g. "John Doe <[email protected]; Max Muphy <[email protected]>; ..."). I receive such mails nearly daily (even from medic w/ all their patients e-mail addys or from b2b-site-admis). This is so stupid, it makes me mad :banghead:

. So I advocate to allways use BCC for massmailing of jokes, hoax, annoncements etc. (this protects your friends, not you - nobody can save you from stupid friends who send out their whole adressbook in an e-mail header to an unqualified audience Crying or Very sad

)

@Stander

I have a lot of ideas, how I could torture you, if I were a pissed off lad and had your RL details Twisted Evil

. Does yellowpages have you? So be ready for phonebombing Exclamation

I can order stuff from online-shops to be sent or at least billed to you Exclamation

I can use your name to make up an eBay a/c to con other victims Exclamation

I can use your name in my 419-scam letters of the "poor US citizen stranded w/o money and kidney in Nigeria"-format.

Using RL details in scambaitig? DONT Exclamation

Just hang around at the eater and do some reading, and youwill find zillions of ways to convince lads of your fake identity Cool

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 5:40 pm

bruckner wrote:

You're assuming the fictional 'he' in question doesn't have friends/family/associates already in your country.

Well, I am pretty sure he does not have any associates in my country, because I am from a small country of Eastern Europe and no one ever proposed me to meet someone here Smile

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 5:43 pm

Removed full quote of post, please just use @username to address a specific member. -Ima

@e6ffdyr0:
Well, I'd really want to get someone of those idiots arrested. I would be very happy if someone of this people will come one day in my office, cause my office is in the same building with local DA and 10 meters from local police office Smile

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 4:04 am

Hi Stander and welcome to Eater!

Obviously no one can stop you from baiting with your RL details. After all, you have posted information that leads one to believe you are of legal age and can do as you please. However, why?

If baiting with RL details would help get more arrests of scammers, I am pretty sure there would be some volunteers here ready to give out their RL details to every scammer they could. Sadly, arrests just don't happen often enough and I don't think they happen just from baiting alone. It takes a bit more than that.

You seem determined to do as you wish, even though you have been given some good reasons why not to do it, from baiters with more experience and knowledge then you. And the collective of Eater, with years of baiting experience under their belt, have decided that 'Bait Safe' is our mantra, first and foremost.

There simply is no reason to bait with RL details. It doesn't help your bait and can only backfire on you.

So again, why? Confused

And to the OP, donmanolo, welcome to Eater! I hope you understand how a scammer can occassionally come across your RL name/surname. It can feel a little unsettling. But it is usually harmless and in no way connects to you. You can bait them from another name or not bait them at all if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Enjoy baiting and give the lads lots of pain! Very Happy

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 8:27 am

Well, I have not yet decided, I am just thinking, what % of RL details is allowed in safe baits ...

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 8:38 am

^^^ I will tell you how much RL details I actually bait with:

1. I am in the USA. My characters are in the USA. But nowhere near where I actually live.

2. I am female. My characters are female. Just easier for me to bait that way and I do talk to lads on the phone.

And that's it. And to be honest with you, I am not at all paranoid about lads coming after me or anything like that. I am probably one of the least tinfoilhatted people here on Eater. However, why take any chances? There is simply no reason to give a lad anything RL about you. Part of the fun of baiting is getting to be someone else! Very Happy

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 8:45 am

Well, why I have thought about using RL data in bait, it is because:
1. some scammers contact me to my corporate mail to offer me "deals" which are based on what I am doing, on my company's profile on b2b sites.
2. when I tried to get them answer when writing from another emails, I get no answer. It seems that they indeed are checking who they have write when offering specific deals.

I verified one scammer, well, before he wrote me, he verified my company main site, the other site and only after that offered a deal Smile

No answer when replying from free web-mail accounts

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 10:20 am

I don't think it would be wise to risk your company being subject to the abuse or harrassment of an angry Lad. If I was in your position, this is what I would do:

1. Set up a fake gmail account, then pick a few Lads out of Surplus and bait them, just to get the feel of it all.

2. After a time of doing that and gaining experience, I would invent a company in my imagination that is similar to the real one, but dealing in something totally different, and located in a different place. Give them their own gmail account with their company name in it, eg [email protected]. (Or pick one of the Fastmail alternatives; they have some good ones which don't sound too free-webmail-ish.)

3. Answer the mails sent to the real company through the fake company, along the lines of, 'Thank you for your contact with our sister company. We have been forwarded your message and are interested in your proposal.'

4. If questioned about the name/nature of the 'sister company', merely reply, 'They traded under several names, but we have now severed contact with them due to perceived malpractices.'

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