Recieved a 419 scam by post?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 5

In the post (as in, Royal Mail) today I got a printed letter that is quite obviously a 419 scam. The envelope had the name of a real resident here with the correct address.

Can anyone imagine where a scammer may have got such details from?

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:32 pm

Err,
The internet, telephone directory, electoral roll, newspaper etc.

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:37 pm

This is how they used to do it before the birth of the internets.

I got my first 419-by-mail when I was all of 12 years old. I saw through it even then. :p

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:55 pm

I've never had one by mail. My mother did a few years back. She thought it was ridiculous and threw it away (bless her suspicious, sceptical heart). For the first time I did get a 419 fax a few weeks ago.

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:31 pm

Breddan Butter wrote:

Err,
The internet, telephone directory, electoral roll, newspaper etc.

Yeah but other than those sources....
Can you imagine where he got the details from... Shocked

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:49 pm

Yes! Well, not me, a lotto scam was sent by post to my ex-step dad who doesnt live with my mam anymore. It was odd timing, just a couple of months after I started baiting! (I didnt bait it though)

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:37 am

could you scan it and post it with photobucket,com for all to see please Smile

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:43 am

I got one by postal mail when I was 18. Strangely enough, it was less than a month after I filled out a ballot for some "legitimate" contest to win a car. Never did win the car.

It's nice to see there are some old-school, nostalgic lads that are still out there. Nobody respects the classics anymore!

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:42 am

Believe it or not I received a few 419s via snail mail at my work address and they were hand written with real Nigerian postage stamps (which I kept). This was in the days when a fax was cutting edge communication technology.

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 1:56 pm

Wow I didnt know they used mail - our first was via fax. pretty much as soon as we got our first fax macnine back in the 90's.

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 2:29 pm

I've got plenty of scams via mail, but never a 419-er. Still, if people are still sending them I can live in hope. Smile

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

A snail mail is what brought me here almost two years ago:

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:26 pm

Great pics TS! I wonder if that particular paper lad missed the seminar on how all caps is more convincing. (Write better emails, make more moneys)

At least the postal lads (can we call them Plads?) put a small bit of time and expense into their scamming. I'll bet those guys don't do 10,000 a day.

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

Wow retro lads Shocked

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:10 am

I had a customer 15 years ago that got an airmail letter from Nigeria with the basic "contractual overpayment" jive. He kept it in a safe because he thought the FBI was going to raid him. He confided in me that he was considering opening a separate account and funding it with $100.00. I told him the best that could happen is he would lose his $100.00, and the worse was unlimited. I took a copy to my employer, who showed me about 15 of them that he kept as conversation pieces, he claimed he got one every other week.

419Eater is my life Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 264

Race wrote:

Wow I didnt know they used mail - our first was via fax. pretty much as soon as we got our first fax macnine back in the 90's.

When the 419 started they used messengers to deliver the letters. The 419 has been around since the middle ages. Kind of played to the damsel in distress ploy where a young woman would be stranded in an evil baron's castle and needs help paying her ransom. You can guess the rest of the script.

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