Scammer alert

[Esav Benyamin]

Several of our members got an email from
joe aleksiejczyk <italianpsycho14@gmail.com>

It's a scam based on the Nigerian 419 scam which you can read about here: http://www.419eater.com/ but this guy sounds more like a beggar in the street or the ones who used to approach us in the bus terminal.

Here's his sob story:

please i need your help urgently as soon as possible

hi
i am writing with tears filled in my eyes please i am stuck in UK
(united kingdom)were i went to visit a resort of mine and i was
mugged at a gun point i lost everything i had on me including my
credit card please i need you to loan me some few bucks to get my
ticket fee back home i need you to loan me 800pounds i promise to
refund it back as soon as i get back home hope to read from you as
soon as possible you can wired the money via westernunion and get back
to me with the senders first and last name and the tracking number
please here is the email to get to me mollyford39@yahoo.com hope to
read from you soon

 

[TKAZ]

I could never understand this crap.

doesn't the scammer when writing the email realize that we are going to question the bad grammer and spelling?

he states he's a resort business owner and he writes like that? WTF?

It blows my mind that people actually fall for these fishing emails.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

It's a BIG business. I sent an email notice to the list he spammed and just got a reply back from Facebook. He may have gotten some of the names from there originally, too.

 

[CKE2]

I got hit with that email today....I did not even open it though...thought it was a virus.

 

[Cougar Allen]

It blows my mind that people actually fall for these fishing emails.

If there's a chance in a million that someone will fall for it, and he sends out 50,000,000 emails ...

 

[Psychopomp]

I handle a lot of Western Union transactions at work, and one thing I always ask someone who's sending a large amount of money overseas is "are you sure you know the person you're sending to?"

Another similar scam is people posing as grandchildren in trouble sending dozens of messages hoping that some poor old lady will think it's really her grandchild in trouble.

To prevent these scams, Western Union requires senders to include the receiver's name exactly as it appears on their government issued photo ID, and that the receiver has said ID at the time of pickup. If the name is more than two letters off, the agent is not allowed to pay out (I won't pay out if any letter is missing or wrong).

It's so simple to keep from getting scammed, it amazes me that people do get scammed... all the time.