High Impact, Real Fun on the Web

The Coolness Factor

Always on the lookout for new and interesting stuff on the web, I found this last month courtesy of ReadWriteWeb. In an article about what was then the new release of the GoogleApps they used a really cool new tool called Play The News, created by the guys over at ImpactGames. Let me tell you: on my coolness gauge, this thing registers off the scale.

The best way to tell you what it’s about is to quote their site. So read along from their FAQ:

What is “Play the News”?

An engaging, community driven experience – imagine fantasy sports meets the evening news. Play the News is a web-based platform that brings interactive gaming elements to the online ‘news media’ industry changing the paradigm of news consumption from passive reading to active engagement. The experience is made up of the “game” component, or news games, and the community of participation around them such as commenting, rankings, and many features to come. The profile allows you to build a snapshot of your socio-political profile over time on a range of issues.

What is a news game?

A news game is a short interaction aimed at accomplishing three things. The first is to give you background and context around the headline or event being presented, and to highlight a core issue to be examined. The second is to allow you to role-play and put yourself in the shoes of the different perspectives to voice your opinion on the subject. The last is to give you the chance to test yourself or show how smart you are by predicting what will happen in the real world.

How do you score my predictions?

Your prediction vote is scored against reality. When one or more of the actions presented in the game happens in the real world, the game will be closed. Your prediction will be scored as either Correct or Wrong. In some cases, events in the real world will unfold in ways the creator of the game couldn’t anticipate. In this case your score will not be affected for that particular role or game.

The prediction chart lists the Best Predictors in the community. It is calculated around the principle of Standard Deviation. The fundamental idea is to treat predictions as a dice roll. Anyone that moves beyond pure chance (for example, beyond having 1 out of 4, or 25% correct, if there are 4 potential actions) gets a higher value. The more “dice rolls” you have (ie predictions you made) the more difficult it becomes to have correct predictions. Having 1 out of 1 is much easier than having 10 out of 10, and is rewarded accordingly.

Okay enough of the words, lets get some action here! I am pleased to present to you one of the games currently in play, concerning the Olympics, China, Tibet, and all that’s been going on lately in that news story. (For those of you with 1024 screen width, I apologize for the game not fitting properly. The current version of the game doesn’t allow me to resize it.) Enjoy!


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I am Jon, and I think I might like playing reality.

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WTF is RSS?

Expletive Abbreviated

Just what is RSS? It’s what gets me what I want, when what I want is more information. And face it, that’s every waking moment, isn’t it? I’ve been meaning to write a short bit about this for awhile now, and frankly, have been so busy that I just neglected it. I apologize. This is something you really need, if you don’t have it already.

RSS is generally considered to mean “Really Simple Syndication”. It gives you a way to automatically search your favorite news sites and blogs for whatever is new, saving you the time of looking all over the web for what you know is there. I’ve been using it for a couple of years now, and I couldn’t get by without it. There are over 200 individual RSS feeds that I keep up with, representing such diverse areas as poetry, science news, world news, web and tech news, and blogs from around the world. There is simply no way I can keep up with all that by visiting the sites individually. RSS keeps it all available, showing at a glance when something new or pertinent has been published on the web.

Daniela Barbosa
, who authors one of the blogs I follow, recently posted the following video on RSS.(Thanks for reminding me, Daniela!) I have to take a moment here to compliment the guys who created the video. Those guys at CommonCraft are video masters. This is perhaps the best explanation of RSS I have seen. Enjoy…


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I am Jon. Click “FeedMe!”, down below, to start getting my RSS feed, or choose the EMail option. Either way works great.

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Fake UNICEF Organisation Donation EMail

The Shotgun Approach

At first glance, this seemed a reasonably well constructed piece of scamabilia, but as you’ll see, a closer scrutiny revealed major flaws. There are issues with grammar, capitalization, and even spelling mistakes. That last one is hilarious, because these guys misspelled the name of the UNICEF Organization, the group they claim to represent.

Follow along as we dissect a pitiful attempt at scamming. As usual, I’ve BOLDED some parts. You’ll see italics used where there may be no mistakes, just a basic lack of understanding of western culture.

UNICEF ORGANISATION DONATION.(Funny, but the only time they spell UNICEF right is here, where they misspell “ORGANIZATION)
Unicef Organisation
(Should read: UNICEF Organization.)

http://www.unicef.org(This link actually took you to UNICEF. So what?)
Concern.
The Unicef Orgnasation
( Misspelled words), Would(Caps?) like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development. The Unicef Orgnasation(Spelling again) was formed in 1947 after WWII to help children displaced by the war. It was then called the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (If you copy those 2 sentences and paste them into Google and search, you will find that except for the spelling of the word “organizations”, the exact same words appear on a site describing itself as UNICEF New Zealand. UNICEF New Zealand is a real part of the UNICEF network, but the page that is quoted can’t be verified to be a part of UNICEF.) The United Nations Organization (UNO) and the European Union (EU) was(were) conceived with the objective(More than 1, objectives) of human growth, educational, and community development.
To celebrate the 27th anniversary program, The Unicef Organisation
(spelling) is giving out a yearly donation of One Million Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand United States Dollars. These specific Donations/Grants will be awarded to 70 lucky international recipients worldwide; (Why’s this semi-colon here?) in different categories for their personal business development and enhancement of their educational plans. At least 17% of the awarded funds should be used by you to develop a part of your environment. This is a yearly program, which is a measure of universal development strategy.

These sentences in italics are just ridiculous. Personal business development? Enhancement of educational plans? And I am expected to spend 17% on my environment? And look at the last sentence, which makes absolutely no sense at all when you take it apart. It’s a conclusion drawn from a nonexistent premise. Like saying, daisies are yellow and white so I want some ice cream.

I call it the shotgun blast. Chances are, most people you know will fit into one of those categories. Maybe they’re in business, or maybe they have personal development plans like writing a book or remodeling their home. Maybe they really do want to go back to school or need to retrain for a better career. And if not, they probably are concerned about the environment. What good western citizen isn’t worried? And for those cynics who think too much and care about little else, there’s the appeal to statistical information. Up there, my friends, is a horribly written appeal to your personal sense of “rightness”. Let’s continue…

Based on the Continental selection exercise of internet,data base websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide (Besides the spelling, this sentence is just blatantly bullicus. Prior to receiving this email, I had not gone inside a supermarket in more than 3 years. Amazing, huh, but true… and there is no “Continental selection exercise”.) , you were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of US$1,470,000.00 (One Million Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand United States Dollars) as charity donations/aid from the Unicef Orgnasation(spelling) and the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament (UNICEF is not controlled by a parliament. It is UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.) . (Note that all beneficiaries (missing the apostrophe) email addresses were selected randomly from Various(caps?) internet Job (caps?) websites or a shop’s cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased something from). (Guess they forgot to “Jobs websites” before, when they were telling us how the winners were selected. These are just catch-all statements to convince you that this might be the best day you ever had. It’s just another day, trust me.)
You are required to contact the Permanent Secetary
(spelling AGAIN) below for qualification documentation and processing of your claims. After contacting our office, you will be given your pin(should be PIN) number, which you will used(verb agreement) in claiming the funds. Please endeavor to quote your Awarded(caps) pin(PIN) numbers (U-777-1815, D-01-47) in all discussions.(Didn’t they just say we had to respond to get those numbers? What’s up with that?)
Permanent Secetary
(spelling)– Mr. Peter Geroge
Email: unicefdepartment@yahoo.com.hk
(And here we have the email address we’re supposed to respond to, and it’s a Yahoo address in Hong Kong, China.
Finally, all funds should be claimed by their respective beneficiaries, no later than14 days after notification. Failure to do so will mean cancellation of that beneficiary and its donation will then be reserved for next year’s recipients. On behalf of the Board kindly, accept our warmest congratulations.
Happy New Year.
(Huh?)

Regards.
Sir. williams Charlton
(Caps on names.. gee)
(Online Coordinator)

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I am Jon, and I have tricked-or-treated for UNICEF.

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Fake IRS Rebate EMails

Infernal Revenue Scammers

There are emails and phone scams growing in the US concerning rebates and refunds. I haven’t received this one yet, so I can’t show it to you. But be certain about this: The IRS does not ever ask for any information via emails, folks. I guess that for some reason, they don’t consider it a secure form of communication. The following is a direct quote from the IRS.gov website:

Updated April 21, 2008

*
Some people have received phone calls about the economic stimulus payments, in which the caller impersonates an IRS employee. The caller asks the taxpayer for their Social Security and bank account numbers, claiming that the IRS needs the information to complete the processing of the taxayer’s payment. In reality, the IRS uses the information contained on the taxpayer’s tax return to process stimulus payments, rather than contacting taxpayers by phone or e-mail.

*
An e-mail claiming to come from the IRS about the “2008 Economic Stimulus Refund” tells recipients to click on a link to fill out a form, apparently for direct deposit of the payment into their bank account. This appears to be an identity theft scheme to obtain recipients’ personal and financial information so the scammers can clean out their victims’ financial accounts. In reality, taxpayers do not have to fill out a separate form to get a stimulus payment or have it directly deposited; all they had to do was file a tax return and provide direct deposit information on the return.

IR-2008-11, Jan. 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today warned taxpayers to beware of several current e-mail and telephone scams that use the IRS name as a lure. The IRS expects such scams to continue through the end of tax return filing season and beyond.

The IRS cautioned taxpayers to be on the lookout for scams involving proposed advance payment checks. Although the government has not yet enacted an economic stimulus package in which the IRS would provide advance payments, known informally as rebates to many Americans, a scam which uses the proposed rebates as bait has already cropped up.

The goal of the scams is to trick people into revealing personal and financial information, such as Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers, which the scammers can use to commit identity theft.

Typically, identity thieves use a victim’s personal and financial data to empty the victim’s financial accounts, run up charges on the victim’s existing credit cards, apply for new loans, credit cards, services or benefits in the victim’s name, file fraudulent tax returns or even commit crimes. Most of these fraudulent activities can be committed electronically from a remote location, including overseas. Committing these activities in cyberspace allows scamsters to act quickly and cover their tracks before the victim becomes aware of the theft.

People whose identities have been stolen can spend months or years — and their hard-earned money — cleaning up the mess thieves have made of their reputations and credit records. In the meantime, victims may lose job opportunities, may be refused loans, education, housing or cars, or even get arrested for crimes they didn’t commit.

The most recent scams brought to IRS attention are described below.
Rebate Phone Call

At least one scheme using the word “rebate” as part of the lure has been identified. In that scam, consumers receive a phone call from someone identifying himself as an IRS employee. The caller tells the targeted victim that he is eligible for a sizable rebate for filing his taxes early. The caller then states that he needs the target’s bank account information for the direct deposit of the rebate. If the target refuses, he is told that he cannot receive the rebate.

This phone call is a scam. No legislation has yet been enacted that would allow the IRS to provide advance payments to taxpayers or that determines the details of those payments. Moreover, the IRS does not force taxpayers to use direct deposit. Those who opt for direct deposit do so by completing the appropriate section of their tax return, with bank routing and account information, when they file; the IRS does not gather the information by telephone.
Refund e-Mail

The IRS has seen several variations of a refund-related bogus e-mail which falsely claims to come from the IRS, tells the recipient that he or she is eligible for a tax refund for a specific amount, and instructs the recipient to click on a link in the e-mail to access a refund claim form. The form asks the recipient to enter personal information that the scamsters can then use to access the e-mail recipient’s bank or credit card account.

In a new wrinkle, the current version of the refund scam includes two paragraphs that appear to be directed toward tax-exempt organizations that distribute funds to other organizations or individuals. The e-mail contains the name and supposed signature of the Director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations business division.

This e-mail is a phony. The IRS does not send unsolicited e-mail about tax account matters to individual, business, tax-exempt or other taxpayers.

Filing a tax return is the only way to apply for a tax refund; there is no separate application form. Taxpayers who wish to find out if they are due a refund from their last annual tax return filing may use the “Where’s My Refund?” interactive application on this Web site, IRS.gov. The only official IRS Web site is located here at www.irs.gov.
Audit e-Mail

Another new scam brought to IRS attention contains features not seen before by the IRS. Using a technique calculated to get almost anyone’s attention, the e-mail notifies the recipient that his or her tax return will be audited. This is the first scam of which the IRS is aware that uses this to get the victim to respond.

Unusual for a scam e-mail, it may contain a salutation in the body addressed to the specific recipient by name. Most scam e-mails seen by the IRS are sent using the same technique used by spammers, in which hundreds of thousands of messages are sent to potential victims based on Internet address. Because of the volume, the typical scam e-mail is not personalized.

This e-mail instructs the recipient to click on links to complete forms with personal and account information, which the scammers will use to commit identity theft.

This e-mail is a phony. The IRS does not send unsolicited, tax-account related e-mails to taxpayers.
Changes to Tax Law e-Mail

This bogus e-mail is addressed to businesses, accountants and “Treasury” managers. It instructs them to download information on tax law changes by clicking on a series of links to publications on businesses, estate taxes, excise taxes, exempt organizations and IRAs and other retirement plans. The IRS believes that clicking on a link downloads malware onto the recipient’s computer. Malware is malicious code that can take over the victim’s computer hard drive, giving someone remote access to the computer, or it could look for passwords and other information and send them to the scamster. There are other types of malware, as well.

The urls contained in the link are not legitimate IRS Web addresses. All IRS.gov Web page addresses begin with http://www.irs.gov/.
Paper Check Phone Call

In a current telephone scam, a caller claims to be an IRS employee who is calling because the IRS sent a check to the individual being called. The caller states that because the check has not been cashed, the IRS wants to verify the individual’s bank account number. The caller may have a foreign accent.

In reality, the IRS leaves it entirely up to the individual to choose to cash or not cash a paper check. The IRS has no business need to know, and does not ask for, bank account or similar information, except when taxpayers indicate on their tax return that they are opting for the direct electronic deposit of their refund. In that case, however, it is the individual’s responsibility to provide the IRS with the correct bank routing and account numbers on the tax return; the IRS does not contact taxpayers to verify the information.
What to Do

Anyone wishing to access the IRS Web site should initiate contact by typing the IRS.gov address into their Internet address window, rather than clicking on a link in an e-mail or opening an attachment.

Those who have received a questionable e-mail claiming to come from the IRS may forward it to a mailbox the IRS has established to receive such e-mails, phishing@irs.gov, using instructions contained in an article titled “How to Protect Yourself from Suspicious E-Mails or Phishing Schemes.” Following the instructions will help the IRS track the suspicious e-mail to its origins and shut down the scam. Find the article by visiting IRS.gov and entering the words “suspicious e-mails” into the search box in the upper right corner of the front page.

Those who have received a questionable telephone call that claims to come from the IRS may also use the phishing@irs.gov mailbox to notify the IRS of the scam.

The IRS has issued previous warnings on scams that use the IRS to lure victims into believing the scam is legitimate. More information on identity theft, phishing and telephone scams using the IRS name, logo or spoofed (copied) Web site is available on this Web site. Enter the terms “phishing,” “identity theft” or “e-mail scams” into the search box in the upper right corner of the front page.

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I am Jon. I’ll post that email if I ever get it.

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Fake Ming Yang Cheng EMail

Scammer School

If a class for scammers exists, then whoever wrote this email should teach it. It stands with rare company at the pinnacle of scam emails. The author is obviously more familiar with western writing styles and, with only a few exceptions, pulls off the deception quite expertly. I had to re-read this one several times to find the errors. They just aren’t that easy to find.

But there they are. Hidden away tightly between the perfectly chosen and carefully placed words are grammatical, spelling and style errors that, once you see them, are like burning flashes on the road, guiding us safely through the muck on our internet superhighway. As we follow along, I’ve BOLDED the errors and inserted some comments…

MING YANG CHENG AND ASSOCIATES
SOLICITOR AND ADVOCATES
NO. 24, JALAN MELAKA RAYA 31,
TAMAN MELAKA RAYA
MALAYSIA
TEL: 0060 16 236 4527
Email: barr_yangchengxyz@yahoo.com.hk

I am Ming Yang Cheng, an attorney at law. A deceased client of mine, that shares (should be “who shares”) the same last name as yours (should be “you”), who here in after (should be “herinafter” or “hereafter”) shall be referred to as my client, died as the result of a heart-related condition on the (shouldn’t be a “the” here) 11 November 2001. His heart condition was due to the death of all the members of his family in the Gulf Air Flight Crashes in Persian Gulf near Bahrain Aired August 23, 2000 – 2:50 p.m. ET as reported on:http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0008/23/bn.08.html (This is a real story about real people. It’s included to give you a reference source to check, implying the validity of the entire email. Any other tragedy could have been used here, to the same effect. Also, did a doctor actually blame a heart condition on an emotional state of loss? Granted, that could make an existing condition more acute perhaps, but cause the condition itself? I doubt there’s any medical backup for that statement, and none is provided. It’s included in this email to appeal to our emotions. If there’s something that every person on this planet has in common, it’s our feelings of loss when we lose someone we love.)

I have contacted you to assist in distributing the money left behind by my client before it is confiscated or declared unserviceable (misspelled word) by the bank where this deposit valued (missing comma) at Seventeen million five hundred dollars( US$17.5 million dollars) (the rule would be to make all the first letters upper case or lower case, but not mixed together like that) 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 named client, since you have the same last name, 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 provided. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.

Let me interrupt this joy-ride for a moment. Look at that last paragraph. “Honest cooperation”? It’s a popular enticement that I find over and over in lots of these scam emails. The idea presented here is that you’re so greedy and unethical that you’ll jump on the chance to make a percentage of 17 million dollars, regardless of what it takes. And the scammer uses that same idea to justify to himself and anyone who knows what he’s doing. Just think, there’s somebody somewhere who believes that if you’re so unethical as to agree to something this illegal, then you deserve to have your cash and identity stolen.

I agree with that guy. By agreeing to help out on a scam like this, you’d be showing yourself to be a scammer as well. Anyone who would want to get involved in this deserves what happens to them. Now, back to the email…

This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. (Unless you’re part of the current US administration, this can’t be true, the law still applies to you.) If this business proposition offends your moral values, do accept my apology. I must use this opportunity to implore you to exercise the utmost indulgence to keep this matter extraordinary (should be “extraordinarily”) confidential (gotta keep this quiet, or the scam will be revealed. Don’t forget, thousands, or millions of these identical emails are sent.), whatever your decision, while I await your prompt response. Please contact me at once to indicate your interest. I will like you to acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail as soon as possible via my private EMAIL 🙁 barr_yangchengxyz@yahoo.com.hk) (click that link and the scammer makes a profit. Why? Because you just validated your email address, which will now be sold for 40 cents or so. Oh, and prepare for the onslaught of spam and scam emails that replying to this email will generate. On another subject, why was the frowny face included? That’s one we’ll never know.) and treat with absolute confidentiality and sincerity. I look forward to your quick reply.

Best regards,
Ming Cheng
Attorney at Law
Tel: 0060 16 236 4527
Email:barr_yangchengxyz@yahoo.com.hk

NB: Please do not reply to this email, contact me directly with my personal email address stated here: (barr_yangchengxyz@yahoo.com.hk)

Like I said above, don’t click the link. And before I forget, see that “NB:” up there? It’s an abbreviation for the Latin term “Nota Bene”, which just means “pay particular attention to this”. I see that abbreviation alot in these emails. I guess they think it’s a common term among English speaking peoples. I personally know of only one person who ever used that term in conversation or otherwise, outside a classroom. If you see “NB”, well… then pay particular attention to that.
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I am Jon, and I have very noted benny.

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(edited)

Fake Foundation de France EMail

Fondazione Di Vittorio

I know someone who wanted to believe this one so much that he responded to it. Several weeks later, he called me. Don’t fall for it! Remember this, and never forget it: No Official EMails From Any Legit Organization Will Have More Than One Error! Now that I’ve said that, let me make an exception for the current “Grade C-” administration in the US. They obviously need remedial training.

But back to the email: We see the “foundation’s” address in Italy. It’s called the Foundation de France. Created by the “Multi-Million groups”? And then more name dropping, ECOWAS, UNO and even the European Union. Obvious errors are BOLD. Let’s see how shallow the hole really is…

VITTORIO FONDAZIONE.
Corso Ercole I d’Este 44,
Ferrara 44100 – Italy.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Foundation’s Officer,
Fondazion Di Vittorio, ITALY
http://www.fondazionedivittorio.it

CONCERN

Foundation De France as established 1979 by the Multi-Million groupswas
conceived with the objective of Human Growth, Educational and
Community development.The France Foundation in conjunction with the
ECOWAS, UNO and the European Union,These funds are freely given to you
to use for yourbusiness educational and personal development.

You were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum
of US$100,000,000.00 (One Hundred Million United States Dollars) as
charity donations/aid from the France Foundation, ECOWAS and the UNO in
accordance with t he enabling act of Parliament.

You are required to expeditiously contact the Executive Secretary with
your Qualification numbers (P-333-7858,B-011-67) for processing of your
claims,you’ll be given your donation pin number.Contact Claudio
Giovanni (DPU) Information Officer.

Enter Personal Details:
First Name: Last Name:
Address Line 1:
Address Line 2 (optional):
City: State: Zip/Postal Code:
Country:
Valid Phone Number: Fax (optional):
E-mail:
———————————————————
DUE PROCESS UNIT:
Executive Secretary – Claudio Giovanni
Email:claudiogiovannixx@yahoo.com
——————————————————–
On behalf of the Board kindly accept our warmest congratulations
Yours faithfully,
Mr.Claudio Giovanni.

(Foundation officer

Knee Deep

I’d say we’re standing about knee-deep in the hooplah, wouldn’t you? There are simply too many grammatical errors to be believable. Run-on words and sentences, spaces missing after punctuation, and even missing punctuation (that closing parenthesis was missing in the original email). We also see the near-ubiquitous personal info request, as well as the Yahoo email address supplied for our response.

So how did my friend fall for this? He went to the website mentioned in the greeting to see if they were legit. The Foundation of Vittorio does indeed exist. It appears that they are a legitimate activity. Looking around their site, which is written in Italian, I found a disclaimer in English. It says: The “Giuseppe Di Vittorio Foundation” is victime of an informatic fraud; therefore we are not responsible for any alleged donation.

I am Jon, and if the errors in the email didn’t tell me, the Foundation’s website made it clear.

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Fake Roger Ego EMail

Roger On Yer Ego!

I have to applaud this one. Choosing an informal, conversational tone, our intrepid scammer stands out from the pack. There are no long sentences full of what tries to pass as legalese. This scammer keeps it short and simple, avoiding most chances of mutilating the language. I could only find ONE glaring error. You’ll remember that I’ve said before that one error in an email might be acceptable. Here’s the email, short and sweet. Scam triggers are in BOLD

Vous êtes invité :: Reply & Call Me For More Details, Tel: +229 97444586.
Par votre hôte: Roger Onye Ego

Message: Dear Friend,

Mr Roger. O Ego is my name, an accountant & the auditor general of the ”BANK OF AFRICA” here in cotonou Republic of Benin.

I wish to know if we can work together. I would like you to stand as the next of kin to our deceased client who made a fixed deposit of USD$7.5m to our bank. He died without any next of kin and as such his funds now have an open beneficiary mandate.

Get back to me if you are interested on my private id: roger_boa@yahoo.fr

Thanks,

Mr Roger.

Date: jeudi, 3 avril 2008
Heure: 7 h 00 – 8 h 00 (GMT+00:00)

Viendrez-vous ? Répondre à cette invitation
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Tous droits réservés. | Conditions d’utilisation | Données personnelles

Not bad, huh? This guy actually speaks our language, in more ways than one. Let’s take this one apart a bit, shall we? The one obvious error is the lack of capitalization on the name of the city, “Cotonou”. Any other possible error is more a matter of style than anything else, and so cannot be counted. So why am I so positive that this is a scam?

My first tip-off was the name of this guy, “Roger Onye Ego”. Certainly it could be real, but say it the way it’s written a few times and you get what I wrote at the top of this post, “Roger on Your Ego”. How do I know it’s not the guy’s real name? He signed the email ‘Mr Roger’. Add to that the Yahoo email address (standard), and the words “open beneficiary mandate” and I’m getting the distinct impression something isn’t right.

But let’s forget the style, the grammar, all the technicalities of writing, and just read the blasted thing. What’s it all about? Quite simply, this guy is asking us to participate in illegally collecting 7.5 million dollars! That’s the ultimate tip-off. He’s asking us to help him steal some cash. If you go for this one, you probably deserve whatever happens.

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I am Jon, always wary of my ego.
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Fake Microsoft, AOL Sweepstakes EMail

Sweepstakes Dream Team

I guess these guys figured that with these big names involved, we’d just have to believe it. Let me see if I can get it straight: We’re to believe that Microsoft and AOL teamed up for a sweepstakes to save the IE browser, and are delivering that sweepstakes by grabbing emails and attaching a tracking number to them. Hmmm…. seems unlikely to me. Not to mention, probably illegal. Once again, highlights are BOLD to make them easy to find.

MicrosoftMSN
Microsoft Award Team
50 Craven Park, Harlesden London NW10 United Kingdom
Ref: UKNL-L/200-26937
Batch: 2005MJL-01

Dear sir/ madam

The prestigious Microsoft and Aol has set out and sucessfully organised a Sweepstakes marking this year 2008 anniversary, we rolled out over USDM40,459,864 for our end of year Anniversary Draws.
Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage. The selection was made through a computer draw system attaching personalised email addresses to ticket numbers.
If you ignore this, you will regret it later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 20511465463-7644 with serial numbers S/N-00168 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-25-39-40-47(20) which subsequently won you £1,100,000.00 (One Million One Hundred Thousand Pounds) as one of the 5 jackpot winners in this draw. You have therefore won the entire winning sum of £1,100,000.00. The draws registered as Draw number one was conducted in Brockley, London. These Draws are commemorative and as such special.

To file your claim, fill the form below and contact your claims agent whose details is given below.:

Name_____________________________________

Country__________________________________

Occupation_______________________________

Sex______________________________________

Age_______________________________________

Tel___________________________________

Referrence No. __________________________________

Serial No. __________________________________

Ticket No. __________________________________

CLAIM AGENT CONTACT
Mr DOUGLAS DUKE
Email Address:
douglasdukeagentxx@gmail.com
+447031821xxx /+44 7024041xxx

Our special thanks and gratitude to Bill Gates and his associates. We wish you the best of luck as you spend your good fortune in this season.
Note: You have one weeks from the date of this publication to claim your prize or you may forefeit your winnings, in compliance with the sponsoring bodies you are to make a remittance of a part of your won fund not lower than 10-percent after receiving your allocation to any charity organization of your choice.

Thank you for being part of our commemorative end of year Anniversary Draws.
Mrs. Winfrey Ricky
Microsoft Promotion Team
Vice President

MicrosoftMSN

Rise to the challenge for Sport Relief with Yahoo! for Good

Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
More Ways to Keep in Touch.

.
Here we see all the usual telltale markings of a scam. Misspelled words, grammatical errors, capitalization problems and just plain old badly worded sentences join the old standard, that personal information form. The contact agent has a Gmail address and the whole thing was composed and sent through a Yahoo account. How did you like the line about Bill Gates spending his money? I cracked up when I saw that. As Americans, we don’t make a habit out of wishing “luck as you spend your good fortune”…

I am Jon, and it’s my good fortune to be here for you. I probably can’t spend that.

Fake High Commission EMail

Interesting Twist

With an interesting twist, this email appears to be from the “good guys”, who are working hard to provide reparations to those internet residents who have been the targets of scams in the past. On the first read, there’s enough prepositional phrases to make you think it’s all legalese, and therefore undecipherable. But if you look a bit closer, you’ll see that the writer just doesn’t understand English well enough to use it correctly. As is my custom, the really obvious parts are highlighted BOLD.

BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION
Metro Plaza, Plot 991/992
Zakari Maimalari Street
Cadastral Zone AO,
Central business district Abuja.
TEL: +234-807-3509305

Attention,
The BRITISH High Commission in Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana and Bokinafaso received a report of scam against you and other British/US citizens and Malaysia Etc.The Countries of Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana and Bokinafaso have recompensed you following the meeting held with the Four countries’ Government and various countries’ high commission for the fraudulent activities carried out by the Four countries’ Citizens.Your name was among those scammed as listed by the Nigeria Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU). A compensation has been issued out to all the affected victims and has been already in endorsement to all the victims. Yours was among those that was reported unpaid as at on Friday and we wish to advise you to see to the instructions of the Committee to make sure you receive your compensation immediately.

We advise that you do the needful to make sure the NFIU endorse your payment on Monday. Contact the office of the consular for an advise on how your recompense will be effected to you.

bhcfeedbacckxx@aol.com

Be advised that you should stop further contacts with all the fake lawyers and security companies who in collaboration scammed you. Call +234-807-3509305 immediately to check if the endorsement date suits you.

Yours in Service,

Mr. Bruce Aurthur J.
Secretary:

.
Notice the novel approaches this writer uses. There are two of them. The 1st is assuming the identity of a governmental organization that is going to help you. The NFIU does seem to exist, but the word used in their name is “Intelligence”, not “Intelligent”. And, with apologies to all innocent Nigerians, since they appear to be an “autonomous” arm of the Nigerian government, I would hesitate to believe anything they’d say even if they were legit.

The 2nd, and most important twist is something that’s not even there. And that’s why this email could work. Nowhere in the email does it ask you for any identifying information. Nearly 100% of these fake emails can be spotted just by looking for the request for your information. This one never asks. It just gives you a link to click, to contact the consular office. The consular office with an AOL email address.

Sometimes you just gotta use your brain a moment, and things become clearer….

.

I am Jon, and I am trying to use my brain, if only for a moment.
.

Fake Microsoft Internet Lotter EMail

Where Do I Begin?

This is such a horribly crafted piece of schlock that I almost didn’t include it. Even the subject line is wrong, misspelling the word “lottery”. But still, people might believe that Microsoft really does give away money. Newsflash: They don’t. And it’s “Microsoft Corporation”, not “Company”. I’ve made the really obvious parts in BOLD, but truly, if I bolded everything wrong with this email, the whole thing would be bolded.

Microsoft

You won £1,500,000! Microsoft congratulates you!

MICROSOFT INTERNET LOTTERY

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON £1,500,000!

CONGRATULATION! CONGRATULATION!! CONGRATULATION!!!

Microsoft Company gives members random cash prizes. Today, your account is randomly selected as one of 12 top winner’s accounts who will get cash prizes from us. We are happy to inform you that you have won prize money of £1,500,000 (ONE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS) for the month of April 2008 lottery win promotion which is organized by Microsoft Company each every month.

Microsoft Company, collects all the mail id of the people that are online on Hotmail & Yahoo ! Mail and all other Email Users, among the millions that subscribe to email users across the world we only select five people every month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying, we are congratulating you for been one of the people selected. All participants were selected through a computer balloting system drawn from Nine hundred thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania as part of our international promotions program which is conducted annually.

This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomerate of some multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base.

Further more your details (e-mail address) falls within our British Representative Office in United Kingdom, as indicated in your play coupon and your prize of £1,500,000 will be released to you from this regional branch office in U.K

We hope with part of your prize, you will participate in our end of year high stakes for US$1.3 Billion international draw.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE

These are your identification numbers:-

Batch number……………….Lwh09445
Lotto number………………..Lwh09446
Winning number…………….Lwh09447
Serial number……………….Lwh094478

To begin your claims, You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications:

CONTACT DETAILS OF YOUR CLAIM ADMINISTRATOR

MR. PETER OWEN.

Tel Number +447031832xxx

Fax Number +448704719xxx

Email : mr.peterowenxx@consultant.com
: mr.peterowenxx@yahoo.com
: mr.peterowenxx@googlemail.com

CONTACT DETAILS OF YOUR CLAIM ADMINISTRATOR

You are required to forward him with the above winning details. As soon as you contact your Claims Agent, he will advise you on what to do in order to get your prize money. (Congratulations once more!!)

For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participant or unofficial personnel.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr WILLIAM GERRI (PHD)
LOTTO CO-ORDINATOR.
MICROSOFT INC

NB: PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL BECAUSE YOU MIGHT NOT BE ATTENDED TO, KINDLY CONTACT YOUR FIDUCIARY AGENT DIRECTLY FOR FURTHER DIRECTIONS. Microsoft

Registra tu dominio en http://dominios.ya.com/. Con cada registro te regalamos 20 cuentas de correo de 100MB cada una
Ya.com ADSL 24h + Llamadas Nacionales y Locales 24h – desde 9,95 €/mes+IVA.

You can see how horribly this fake email is thrown together. All the usual suspects are present, including the footer that the sender’s ISP appended to the email, advertising broadband access. Makes you wonder how these guys make any money at all…

I am Jon, and this certainly isn’t from Microsoft.

.

Fake Sithole Investment EMail

Almost, But Not Quite

Many email scams are easily spotted. In today’s webworld, nearly all scammers are still getting their on-the-job training in. As they work their scams, they learn what works and what doesn’t. Eventually, email scams will mature and it will be harder to spot them. This one is almost convincing, but it’s still not quite right. Let’s see why… scam flags are in bold.

102 OXFORDWEG,
RANDBURG,
JOHANNESBURG,
SOUTH AFRICA.
From Mr. Walter Sithole
Tell: +27-78-000-12633.
Fax: +27-843-000-401

INVESTMENT INQUIRY
Dear Sir ,
I am a member of the “Contract Award Committee”, Federal Ministry of Mining and Energy Resources, Republic of South Africa. I and My colleagues are in search of an individual or Company who will assist us to transfer a reasonable amount of Ten Million Six hundred Thousand US Dollars (US$10.6M) and subsequent investment of same in lucrative ventures in your country. You will receive this fund as an applied contractor.

For your support and partnership, please reply for motto negotiates your percentage will be paid when the funds arrive in your bank account. You must however note that this transaction, with regards to our disposition to continue with you, is subject to these terms. Firstly, our conviction of your transparency, Secondly, that you treat this transaction with confidentiality. Finally and above all, that you will provide an account for which you have absolute control. Should you not have an account; our financial services coordinator will direct you to open an online account at the appropriate time.

I am looking forward to doing business with you and do solicit your confidentiality in this transaction, Please email your response to our private mail box for more confidential waltersitholesxyz@yahoo.co.uk, or send us fax with the above numbers, for us to update you with further details and our plans as to how we intend to actualize this transaction. Also provide us with your telephone and fax number so that we can reach you for further deliberations.

Sincerely Yours

Mr. Waltersithole
You are invited to Get a Free AOL Email ID. Click here.

.

We don’t find many glaring errors in this one, but the ones we find pack a knockout punch. The 1st paragraph shows a bit of confusion about when to use upper case letters. The “assist us to transfer” part is also grammatically wrong. But these are mistakes any high school graduate could make in the USA. The really big mistake appears in the 2nd paragraph. What in the world does that 1st sentence even mean? So even if you got through the 1st paragraph with no suspicions, that sentence just clued you in. Interestingly, the only other real error in that paragraph deals with upper cases after a comma which should have been a period. In the last paragraph we see that error repeated, and a badly phrased sentence about the “private email”. Assuming we missed the confusion of the 2nd paragraph, the clincher appears in the signature. Anywhere in the world, I think we are all vain enough to at least get our name right…. not to mention, the AOL link appended to the bottom. I’d bet that the sender didn’t even realize that would be there. Seems to me that a government office would have its own email domain?

The fake Sithole Investment email is an example of how these guys are getting better, incrementally, in their craft. Except for the horrible sentence in the middle of it all, it’s written well enough to generate what I’ll call a “surface appeal”. On the surface, it seems plausible. But scratching just a little at the premise releases the stench of the scam. All you need to realize is that governments engage in overseas investing every day, and they use professionals to “actualize” these transactions. Unless you’re a player in that game, why would they be wanting you to help?

Sometimes, you don’t have to know who They are.
All you have to know is who You are.

.

I am Jon…well, actually, I am J.O.N.
.
.

Fake Nkosi Email

Way Too Easy

The Nkosi email is a good one. The writer has some command over the English language and, one could even argue, since he states up front that he’s from South Africa, most of his errors lend more believability to the scam. But it’s not so much grammar that exposes this scammer. There are some other clues that shed light on his dark designs.

Sometimes you can see it before you even look at the what the email says. For instance, look at the “from” line. The only part that matters is the part just before the “dot com”, in this case, “opentransfer.” That means that the guys who sent this are really from “opentransfer.com”, and not “yahoo.com”, as they lead you to believe. I’ve seen opentransfer.com mentioned in lots of spam forums, and they’re pretty well-known. So we find out in line 1 that we’re being lied to. That’s just way too easy.

It’s important to say that opentransfer.com may have nothing to do with guys who are doing the spamming and scamming. Of course, the flip side of that is, why are they allowing this illegal activity to take place on their servers? Let’s leave that, and get back to the email…

from: g_nkosixyz@yahoo.mailxyz.opentransfer.com
reply to: g_nkosixyz@yahoo.com
to: “undisclosed-recipients: ;”


But wait, you say. The “reply to” address is from Yahoo.com! Of course it is! Spammers and scammers are getting pretty sophisticated nowadays. But their limited haxorz skillz are at best, terrible. They don’t even bother trying to hide the original “from”. That wouldn’t be so hard to do. What’s interesting about this one is that later on, you’re encouraged to use a different address to respond. Finally, we see that the email is addressed to: “undisclosed recipients”. That’s almost always a bad sign.

FROM: DR GREG NKOSI
South Africa Civil Aviation Authority
Private bag X 73,
Halfway house 1685,
TEL: +27 84 781 9295
Alternative email: gregnkosixyc@yahoo.com


Notice here yet another email address, this time listed as “alternative”. Okay, enough about addresses for a minute, let’s check out this well written scam… I’ll bold out some of the most blatant errors.

PROPOSAL FOR TRANSFER OF TWENTY EIGHT MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS
(US$28.5M) INTO YOUR NOMINATED BANK ACCOUNT

I need your reliability and trustworthiness in this transaction; I am the
financial controller of South Africa Civil Aviation Authority, and Secretary to the Contract Award Committee of my department. I have concluded arrangements with a bank director, to transfer out of this Country this US$28.5 million dollar for investment purposes. This Fund is from an over inflated invoice, arising from a contract awarded to one of our Aviation Authority contractors.

The contract has already been executed and the original contractor has been fully paid. So I have decided to transfer out of this Country 28.5m, which is the balance of the contract fund. Because of my position in the office and for the fact that I am a South Africa, it will not be possible for me to transfer such huge amount of money on my name, because, there will be a lot of question from the authority on the origin of this fund. Consequent to this reason, I require the assistance of a Foreigner, who will present himself as the contractor and beneficiary of this amount: US$28,500,000.00 (Twenty Eight Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars), which will be transferred into your nominated overseas account.

I have deposited this Money with a reliable Security Company as a family valuable what twenty eight million five hundred thousand dollar for safekeeping. Moreover, this money is already covered with South Africa Civil Aviation Authority contract and completion numbers, which of course makes it easier for us to affect this transfer on your name without any questions being asked. So, this is why I need a foreigner, who will stand and act as one of our Civil Aviation Contractor to claim this fund.

As the Financial Controller, I will assist you to procure the contract completion certificate that will back up your claim as our contractor. I will also monitor the immediate remittance of the above amount. You would however, be required to furnish me with these necessary information?s to enable me install your information?s into our computer data base system as one of our contractors.

1.Your direct phone and fax numbers for easy communication
2. Your home and office address,
3. Photocopies of your Identification, i.e. your Drivers license, your
international passport or your national ID.

The information?s will enable me procure the contract certificate for the claim of this fund. This process will last for ten working days only. For your kind assistance I have decided to offer you 30% of the total amount, for providing to me your banking details where you would like this fund to be transferred and for your kind assistance, 5% has been map out for any expenses that we might incur during the process of this transfer. While the remaining 65% will be for my investment purposes, which I would seek your guidance to introduce to me a profitable business in your Country, because I have never been into any commercial business all my live. The banker has assured me that this transaction would be 100% risk free.

Thanking you in anticipation of your most urgent and positive response.

Yours faithfully,
DR.GREG NKOSI

NB PLEASE RESPOND TO ME THROUGH MY PRIVATE EMAIL ID( gregnkosixyc@yahoo.com)

I’m going to ignore the points and go straight to the glaring red flag. This email is asking you to help someone steal a rather large sum of cash. If you reply to it, you probably deserve what happens to you. And what would that be? Well, if you send in photocopies of your identification, your identity is sure to be sold for about 250 US dollars. It’s the picture ID’s that jack the price up so high. What happens then, takes years to clear up.

But you’re an honest person, and would never have helped this guy anyway. Even if he were being honest. Right?

.

I am Jon. Who are you?

.
.

Fake Twang Kidney Cancer EMail

EMail Love

I’ve received a few emails from readers who are actually enjoying reading through this “fake email” series. Honestly, I was posting them because I had so little time to do any in-depth pieces lately. But since people seem to like them, and there are numerous search hits every day, I’ll do a few more.

Today we’re looking at a pretty well-crafted example. Usually, their are some really obvious grammatical errors that just practically scream “SCAM!” at you, but this one is low key and almost believable. To a trained eye, however, it never had a chance. For instance, look at the way it begins:

Dear Beloved,


“Beloved”? Seriously, only one person should ever call you that. Unless you’re at a wedding and the preacher is beginning the ceremony.
Let’s read on a bit…

I apologized if the content here is contrary to your ethics, but I had to reach you through this medium. I came across your personal contact via international personal research profile in my Earnest search for a trustworthy and honest person to handle my business.
I am Douglas Twang. 61 years old. I have been diagnosed with kidney Cancer a Disease that has defiled all forms of medical treatment, destroying my heart and kidney. My doctor’s report indicates that I have but only a few months to live. At this stage money is no more my priority except to assist someone in need of help. Why work when there is nothing to live for. I am a wealthy man, but right now some of my properties and investment are being diverted or confiscated by Family members and business associates. And I realized that I have to make trade-offs.


You can see what I mean about the grammar here. It’s almost believably written. There are some mistakes that need to be brought out, though.
In the 1st sentence the word “apologized” is past tense, which could have been a slip of the finger on a qwerty keyboard, meaning anyone could have made that honest error. It’s an error nonetheless, and is probably caused by the writer using the word “had” later on in the sentence. Helping verbs are notoriously hard to learn, even if English is your natural language.
The next error is the capitalization of the word “Earnest”. That whole sentence just sounds wrong when you read it aloud. People just don’t talk that way. The words convey a concept, but not in the normal English progression. The “via international personal contact” phrase is just wrong.

As a mission to fulfill my commitments to affect lives, I have in deposit with a financial Institution huge cash deposit set aside, which I intend to distribute to charity through you. You will receive 30% for your support. I have earlier contacted a South African Woman, but later discovered she lacked the capability to handle such amount for distribution, but if you have the capability I shall be willing to release the funds to you. Despite my adversity and dismay, with your support I can achieve this final purpose by the grace of God. Contact me via my private email: douglas_twang06@(obfuscated)


Once again, not-so-obvious mistakes show this email to be a scam. Leaving out little words like “a” is a dead giveaway. Also, notice the way the capitals appear in the phrase “financial Institution”. The biggest mistake this guy makes is in the next sentence, though. There is absolutely no reason to include that bit about the “South African Woman” if this letter was legit. So why is it included? It’s the setup for a very old sales tactic, which I call the “You can’t have it” clause. I learned it when I was selling Ford trucks in Albuquerque. Briefly, it goes like this: Generate interest by displaying value, then remove the opportunity for ownership based on a perception that the buyer isn’t “blank” enough to have it. Insert “rich” or “capable” for “blank”. Here, our would-be scammer offers 30% of an undisclosed sum, presents a prior case where a candidate had no capability, and then made the offer contingent on that capability. At this point, the 1st offer to “close the deal” is made, which is one reason why the email link is placed at that point in the email. Every salesman knows you need to say yes more than once to actually buy, so here is your 1st “chance” to say yes.
The other reason for that email link, and this is IMPORTANT, is that if you click that link, you have verified that there is a real person at your email address. These emails are spammed out. Many actually go nowhere, because the address doesn’t really exist. Once our guy here knows that your email is valid (by your reply), he can sell it to other spammers for a profit. It’s not the profit he’s after, mind you, but he’ll take what he can get. To find the real profit he’s looking for, let’s read on a bit further.

I have in safekeeping every document that will facilitate the released of this bequest with the finance Company. My health has deteriorated real badly, that I cannot do this myself anymore. My contacting you is divine and my faith is in God. More details will be communicated to you once you indicate your intention to assist.


Sorry to interrupt, but did you notice the verb disagreement in that 1st sentence? And the strange caps use in “finance Company”? How about the incorrect use of “real badly”? I particularly love the invocation of the “divine” and “God”. We’re basically being told that God led this man to us.

Please send me your contact information as:

Your full name
Address.
Telephone number and fax.
Nationality.
Age.

I will not contact any other person until I hear from you.
God bless you for anticipated support.

Regards,
Douglas Twang.

And now we know what this guy is really after. He wants to sell our identity! Name, address, phone number… all the usual stuff. An American identity with the features included as requested above is estimated to be worth between $25 and $80. This guy doesn’t want your identity. He wants to sell your identity. It’s much less risky to him, and anything he makes is all profit, anyway.

I am Jon. I work for you.

.
.

Fake Powerball Lotto EMail

A Good Fake

Here’s a fake email that stands out from the rest. This one is more tightly crafted, showing a better than usual command of the English language. At the first cursory glance, it’s almost believable. But it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. There are just too many mistakes in it to be believed.

Nevertheless, I’d say this guy gets more fish than the average scammer. Let’s check it out. Once again, I have made the pertinent parts BOLD.

POWERBALL LOTTO. BV
POWERBALL-WHEEL E-GAME 2008

Dear Consolation Prize Winner,

NOTICE OF CONSOLATION PRIZE WINNING

This email confirms that you have been notified of by the POWERBALL INTERLOTTO BV The Netherlands of your email lottery winning for 2008 PowerballLotto-Wheel E-game held on 2nd January 2008. We wish to congratulate you on the selection of your email coupon number which was selected among the 4 lucky consolation prize winners.

Your email ID identified with Coupon No.PBL2348974321 and was selected by Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) with entries from the 50,000 different email addresses enrolled for the Lotto-Wheel E-game.Your email ID included among the 50,000 different email addresses where submitted by our partner international email provider companies.For security reasons,you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims is processed and money remitted to you in the manner you deem fit to claim your prize.This is a part of our precautionary measure to avoid unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous elements.

Prize Ref No.: PBL/CN/6654/CP

Lottery Group: Consolation Prize Group

Prize Amount: US $500,000 Five Hundred Thousand Dollars Only

You are required to file claims for your lottery prize winning by contacting the Lottery Claims Processing Officer with your winning information provided above.

Lottery Claims Officer:

Name: Mrs Stella Coles

Email; stellacoless5@hotmail.com

Tel: +4470-4571-2347

Congratulations once again from all our staffs on your consolation prize winning, we hope you will partake in our forth coming Power ball Lotto-Wheel Email-games.

Yours truly,

Mr.Andrew Patrick,
(Lottery Coordinator)
(Online Promo Programme).

All things considered, this appears to be one of the better scam related emails I’ve ever seen. But once again, since most of these scams originate in other countries, the nuances of English grammar usually give them away. In this one, the space after the comma or period seems to elude our would-be scammer more than anything else. That, and the misuse of “staffs” instead of “staff” (which would be the normal English way of writing that), and the misuse of “forth coming” instead of “forthcoming” and “where” instead of “were”. Notice the noun/verb disagreement in the “claims is” combination. As you can see, these are nuances that many people raised in America or Great Britain might miss. But once again, knowing the grammar saves the day.

Remember that day you looked at the teacher and said, “Why do we have to learn this stuff? What will we ever need to know it for?”, and the teacher didn’t have a good answer? Well, now you know. You needed to learn it to protect yourself from online predators who would steal your identity. Isn’t that a strange twist?

I am Jon, and grammar is my friend.

.

Fake Prayers EMail

Mr. Jim Peter….s

This is an interesting variation on fake emails. The spelling and grammar are not too awfully bad, mostly just punctuation errors. But there are some things which stand out and mark it as a fake. You’ll notice that there’s no explanation why this guy wants to send you money. To make it easy, I’ve made the really stupid parts BOLD. Let’s follow along:

My Dear,

I crave your indulgence at this mail coming from somebody you have not known before but I believe I have been destined to be of blessing to you.

Anyone you don’t know, who sends unsolicited emails speaking about “destiny”, should make you suspicious. Most of the rest of this email is just full of bad grammar. See if you can find some mistakes I missed…

I am Mr.Jim Peters. former director of Benin Cement Company.I am presently in Spain where I am under going treatment.

I want you to contact my secretary in Benin Republic,her name is Mrs.Jones Koffe using her email address mrs.jones_koffe@yahoo.it or telephone +229 93 48 98 58.

Instruct her to send you the sum of ($800,000) Eight Hundred Thousand United States Dollars in Cashier Check which I kept for you.

I cannot predict what will be my fate by the time you will receive the fund seeing that I am in a very critical condition here in the hospital that is why I ask you to assist me in your prayers.

Mr.Jim Peters.

That email was followed up the very next day with this email, again from Mr Peters, even though this time his last name is missing the ending “s”. He even refers to his other attempt at scamming to make himself seem more familiar. Check him out, as he tries to wrap up this deal:

Dearest friend,
Season Greeting from.MR JIM PETER, who contacted you long ago,I am very happy to inform you about my success in getting that fundNow,I want you to contact my secretary on the information below:
NAME: Louisa Christopher.
EMAIL: (lbchrist_700@hotmail.com)
Ask him to send you the total sum of(US$1.250.000.00) ONE MILLON TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND USD CASHIER.
CHEQUE
which I kept for your compensation,CONTACT THE SECRETARY ON thisemail: lbchrist_700@hotmail.com
send him your contact information like.
Your Full Name
Your Home Address
Your Phone Number
Your Occupation
Your Country
Your Age
Sex
Regards
MR JIM PETER

CONTACT MY SECRETARY

Other than the fact that he now has a new secretary, which may be a man with a woman’s name, there are just too many grammar errors to take this guy seriously. Notice how our monetary bait has increased to over a million dollars, and that now it is “compensation”. I have to ask myself, “What did I ever do for this guy that was worth a million dollars?” The answer: Nothing! And I never will.

EMail marked as junk and deleted. I suppose Mr Peter(s) will have to use a different machine on his botnet to get to me again….

I am Jon, and that up there is Mr Peter(s)…not.

.
.

Fake Camelot Lottery EMail

I Won!

Here’s one that showed up this morning in my email. It appears that I have won the lottery! Interestingly, I have never bought a lottery ticket in my life. Nevertheless, it seems that I’ve won, over in… England?

Below is the email I received, with a little commentary.

The Camelot Group.
Operators of the National UK Lottery.
3b Olympic Way, Sefton Business Park,
Aintree, Watford , L30 1RD
REF N0: UKL/74-A0802742006
BATCH NO: 2006UKL-01

LOTTERY WINNING NOTICE


(so far it seems okay)

Congrats,

(Congrats?? That doesn’t sound so right… maybe there’s more stupid stuff down below! I’ll make some of the stupid stuff BOLD so you’ll catch it as you read.)

The United Kingdom National Lottery wishes to inform you that the results of the E-mail address of the ballot lottery international program(Bad Grammar) will be held five times every year. Your email account have been picked(Grammar, again) as a winner of a lump sum pay out of Eight hundred and Sixty Thousand Great Britain pounds(Upper Case Anyone?)860,000,00(How many zeros after that last comma?) pounds sterling) in cash credited to REF: UKL/74-A0802742006. This is from total prize money of GBP £4,459,670.00 shared among the FIVE (5) international winners in this category.
please
(Caps?) quote your reference/batch numbers in any correspondences to our selected claim agent. Congratulations once more from all members and staffs(Staffs?) of this program, before(Comma or Period?) your claim agent could get this fund transferred into your account, He have to obtain(“he have to..”) a CERTIFICATE OF CLAIM AND INSURANCE CERTIFICATE from the Ministry of Justice of United Kingdom on your behalf; this is to certify you as original beneficiary(somebody died?) of the winning fund. Therefore we will need you to send him these Details listed bellow(spelling counts!) to obtain the Certificate and insurance of Claim and for the authentication of your fund documents into your name and as to enable you alone to have access to this fund in any of the bank account of your choice in your country.(That whole paragraph just reeks of WRONG)
Here are the details

Your REF N0
Your FILE BATCH NO
Your full name.
Your full address.
Your private telephone, mobile and fax numbers.
Your country of origin.
Your date of birth.
Your Occupation.
Your Sex.
Your Marital status.

(And there’s the stuff they really want. Stuff that let’s them take your identity..)

To begin your claim, please contact your claims agent :

Name : Mr DOUGLAS DUKE
Mobile: +447031821203
Email : douglasdukeagent@gmail.com

Congratulations again from all our staff and thank you for being part of our promotions program.
Sincerely,

Mrs. caroline owen,(No CAPS in names)
Online Coordinator,
CAMELOT GROUP,
Operator of the National Lottery.

Nuova grafica e nuove funzionalità! Crea subito Gratis la tua nuova Casella di Posta Katamail
Nuova grafica e nuove funzionalità! Crea subito Gratis la tua nuova Casella di Posta Katamail

(Shouldn’t the pc that sent this email about the British lottery include a footer in English?)

It impresses me that these guys even try. What impresses me more is that some people will fall for it. Applying a simple rule will always protect you from these types of scams. The rule? Look for the right grammar. If someone has risen to a position responsible for notifying the public about Anything, you can bet that person can apply the most basic grammatical rules to their correspondence. If there’s one mistake, my eyebrows are raised. If there’s more than one mistake, I know it’s a scam, regardless of anything else.

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I am Jon, and that up there is a horribly crafted attempt to steal my identity, and maybe yours.

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Fake Hitman EMails and IM’s

Hitman

This isn’t a new scam, but it seems to be getting some play lately, so I thought I’d clue you in on it. Back in January 2007, the FBI published a story with the headline “ONLINE EXTORTION E-Mail Scam Includes Hit-Man Threat”. In it, an online extortion scheme is exposed and some advice is given on how to react if someone tries to pull this one on you. I’m going to extensively quote this part of the story, because it shows very plainly how this scam can incorporate information from social networking sites to make the victim think the scam is real.

In one case, a recipient responded that he wanted to be left alone and threatened to call authorities. The scammer, who was demanding an advance payment of $20,000, e-mailed back and reiterated the threat, this time with some personal details about the recipient—his work address, marital status, and daughter’s full name. Then an ultimatum:

“TELL ME NOW ARE YOU READY TO DO WHAT I SAID OR DO YOU WANT ME TO PROCEED WITH MY JOB? ANSWER YES/NO AND DON’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS!!!”

Bill Shore, a special agent who supervises the computer crime squad in the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said recipients should not be overly spooked when scammers incorporate their intended victims’ personal details in their schemes.

“Personal information is widely available,” he said. “Even if a person does not use the Internet or own a computer, they could still be the victim of a computer crime such as identity theft…

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… The new extortion e-mails vary in style and content and generally contain misspellings and some broken English. But the underlying message appears to be the same: pay the sender or risk the alternative. A scam e-mail in December said as much:

“I have followed you closely for one week and three days now … Do not contact the police or F.B.I. or try to send a copy of this to them, because if you do I will know, and might be pushed to do what I have being (sic) paid to do.”

IC3 recently noted a new twist in the scam. Now e-mails are surfacing that claim to be from the FBI in London and inform recipients that an arrest was made in the case. The e-mail says the recipient’s information was found on the suspect and that they should reply to help further the investigation. This, too, is a scam. ”

01/15/07

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Essential Networking

Most of us are members of at least one social networking site. I have accounts at LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and MyBlogLog, just to name a few. Each of these is a network, and every network contains certain detailed information about me. Someone with devious purposes could try to use that information against me at any time.

This is not to say that I plan to close out my accounts with all my social networking sites, or recommend that to you. At this point, it seems like I wouldn’t get by without some of them. Your situation is probably similar. Some of those sites are important to me, being if not the only means of communication, at least the easiest that I have with some people. Even close friends.

So that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just reminding you that nearly anyone can grab all kinds of personally identifying information from many social networking sites. And with that info, they can try to manipulate you or harm you in some way. There’s really no hard and fast advice to follow, except this. Be diligent. Be awake. Know that the threats are there. If someone sends you a questionable email, copy and paste a snippet of it into Google and see if anybody else has gotten it. You can learn alot by searching a little. What you do with that is your business.

I am Jon… or am I?

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Hitman
More info about this scam at GeeksAreSexy

Watch Free StarTrek Online

GeekSugar

I can’t remember how I found them. Maybe I was over at Technorati surfing blogs, I don’t know. But after finding them, I don’t know how I ever missed them before. You should check out their entire site, it looks interesting. The part that I was looking at, of course, was GeekSugar. And that’s where I found the story about the free Star Trek episodes available online.

That’s right, CBS.com is making the 1st three seasons, 76 full length episodes in all, available for online viewing. I don’t have the bandwidth to embed one here, so instead here are a couple of shorts. The 1st one runs under 90 seconds, and the second one is about 7 minutes.



The fight scene between Spock and Kirk on Vulcan.
Includes the timeless “fight music” from every great fight scene on Star Trek.

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Star Trek vs Star Wars. It can’t all be serious!

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CBS has some other shows available as well. Look for MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O and The Twilight Zone while you’re over there. There are even some current shows, like Jericho. Just hover over the VIDEO text at the top of the page and a list of over 30 shows will drop down for you to browse.

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I am Jon, and right about now I just might be watching some Trek.

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.HAPPY EASTER!

Self Service

This Is About Options

Marshall Kirkpatrick published an article today about the new MySpace apps, and the conspicuous absence of a “long tail” in the adoption of apps by users. It was an interesting read, as it usually is over at RWW, even though I didn’t think the title was justified by the content. That is not what this piece is about, however.

I’m a comment reader, and sometimes I even add a comment, myself. The first comment on Marshall’s piece was from Antonio Evans:

When Myspace gets their self service advertising up and redesigns access to these applications we’ll see a great jump in applications getting well deserved installs.

Self Service

That phrase, “self service advertising”, jumped right out at me. I even chuckled a bit. Self service advertising is exactly what we need, but not the way it’s being presented. Three generations of the current model of free content in exchange for ads has conditioned us to expect ads on our web. But the model is completely backwards for the 21st century. When will the marketing and advertising industry just evolve already, and realize that as consumers, we all want to choose our own ads?

We’ve been promised that targeted advertising will make our ads more relevant to us, more pertinent to what we might actually need, but I’m willing to bet that each one of you reading this has had an ad on your screen today that was totally off the mark. For instance, maybe you’re a married man, and you get the “meet singles” ad. That’s a really popular one. Ever wonder why that happens?

I have. It’s because of a couple of things, as far as I can tell. First, the technology just isn’t there yet to do what they’re trying to do. Evidently, from what I see and read around the web, no one has written an application yet that can truly understand who we are. In a way, I guess that’s a good thing. I don’t know how I’d like it if a computer program allowed somebody to understand me that well.

The second, and most important reason our online ads suck so much is that the concept is applied incorrectly. Targeting ads personally is a great idea. It’s win-win for everybody. But the way it’s being done doesn’t really work. I’ll assume here that marketing professionals are benevolent entities who really do want to help the consumer find what they are looking for. That’s what the truly great ones are doing, anyway. Hopefully some will read the next paragraph.

Self Serving

We, as consumers, absolutely hate for a product to be shoved at us if it’s something we know we’ll never use. I mean, come on! I get ads served about Muslim singles, only because I once wrote about a Muslim holiday here at Wordout. In a perfect ad-world, we could tell the “ad-universe” what we needed and it would respond with ads that were not only relevant, but right on time. Needless to say, it’s not a perfect world.

But if we can’t tell advertisers what we want, why can’t we tell them what we explicitly DO NOT want? Why isn’t there an “opt out” for these incessant singles ads? I keep “singling” these ads out, but you all know there are any number of intrusive and worthless ads shown to you every day. All I want to know is why we are still seeing such tripe. The answer is simple.

Advertisers are still operating under the 20th century notion that they are in control of the sales process. Advertisers, marketers, lend me your eyes! You are not in control! The consumer has the power to destroy you at a whim, and also the power to elevate you above your competitors. But only if you make us happy. You see, we’re growing up.

We’re not adults yet, no. But through the 20th century we were like small children. You could hold our hands and lead us wherever you wanted, and we went willingly. But we are growing up. We’re more like adolescents now, and we don’t like your hand-holding ways. We want some say in our choices. And if we don’t get it from you, we’ll go somewhere else. There’s always somewhere else. If there’s not, we’ll make one right before your eyes.

Why don’t one of you big guys create some way to get some consumer feedback? What if you could look at your clients and say that you could guarantee interest from your ads? You could have such a guarantee, if you let us tell you what we want. Just add something like “Don’t like your ads? Tell us what you want!” to your displays. Let us help you get it right.

That would be a step towards true “self service advertising”. What you’ve got now is mostly just self serving schlock.

I am Jon, and I want some options.

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Retroactive Immunity

A House of Good Guys?

(writer’s comment: i know it’s slightly political, but try to think of it as a post about technology being used for illegal purposes, kind of like hackers or something…)

This past week the House of Representatives declined to offer immunity to the large telecoms who illegally handed over their customers’ data to the White House. At the risk of sounding naive, I didn’t think they would have the guts to do it. Maybe they are counting on the Senate’s and Bush’s promises to kill the bill. Below are some reactions:

Republicans

“They [Democrats] know, they know the risks they are taking on behalf of the American people and they don’t care … and that’s what bothers me most,” said Republican Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico on Friday.”

A joint statement from the Department of Justice and the office of the director of national intelligence said that based on initial reports, “We are concerned that the proposal would not provide the intelligence community the critical tools needed to protect the country.”

“Exposing the private sector to continued litigation for assisting in efforts to defend the country understandably makes the private sector much more reluctant to cooperate. Without their cooperation, our efforts to protect the country cannot succeed,” it said.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, warned Wednesday that the House proposal “would, in essence, shut us down”

Democrats

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers took a different angle.

“We are not going to cave into a retroactive immunity situation,” the Michigan Democrat said. “There’s no law school example in our memory that gives retroactive immunity for something you don’t know what you are giving it for. It just doesn’t work in the real world or on the Hill either.”

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I am Jon, and to me, retroactive immunity sounds like a disease.

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