Stupidest spam of the week

[Ian J]

Mr. Tunde Lemo

Deputy Governor,

Financial Sector Surveillance

Central Bank of Nigeria





Attention: BENEFICIARY



RE: CHANGE OF ACCOUNT PARTICULARS ON YOUR CONTRACT FILE HENCE WE SUSPECTED FRAUD.



Following the directives received from the office of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, as a result of petitions and counter petitions, by

Foreign Contractors, over non-payment of their contract claims, International remittance dept. has been instructed to look into all over due contract

payments yet to be release for verification and immediate payment.



Your name is among the list of beneficiaries released for verification and immediate payment. Be informed that, we discovered different accounts

submitted for your payment by your Local Representative in connection with the KTT Supervisor, Central Bank of Nigeria. We do not know

which of the accounts to make your payment into. Please, you are hereby required to verify and confirm the following immediately:



1. Did you broker your debt to one Mr. Robert Wong of Indo-China Co. Ltd. Hong Kong, Whose passport photograph is here with us, to claim and receive the

payment on your behalf?



2. Did you sign any "Deed of Assignment" in his favour thereby making him the current beneficiary with the following account details: Account Name:

Indo-China Co. Ltd, A/c #: DMS144-102-5567-8, Swift Code: SCBL 11K111, Bank Name: Standard Chattered Bank, 138-141, 1st Floor G1-G4 Harvest Building, Trade Square, 14 Shawan Road, Kowloon, Hongkong.



You are required, as a matter of urgency, to confirm the legitimacy of the above claim and kindly give us reason why you decided to effect the above change of

account. If you are not aware of this claim, please confirm to us immediately by stating your authentic account details, contract number amount for proper

crediting of your funds. You are advised to quickly obtain a "CCP Certificate" in your own payment receiving interest immediately to normalize the

issuance of "Fund Transfer Enabler Reference Code" to you.



Due to the long delay, this payment has suffered, be rest assured that immediately these payment irregularity are cleared, you would receive your

fund remittance analysis for clearance of funds into your Nominated Bank Account.Take note, that we are bound to recognize Robert Wong's claim, if you fail

to promptly respond to this fund Remittance inquiry, following the Deed of Assignment he submitted authorizing him to claim this payment.



Best regards,



Mr. Tunde Lemo

Deputy Governor,

Financial Sector Surveillance

Central Bank of Nigeria

This must be the daftest one that I have received for a long time. What's the chances of anyone who receives this having had business details with Robert Wong of Indo-China Co. Ltd

[IronGiant]

It's badly written, but isn't the point that they are suggesting that Wong is trying to scam them of money owed to you, so you're supposed never to have heard of him and should be indignantly exposing Wong as a fraudster and sending them your correct banking details. Still a daft scam though as presumably you've not heard of them either

Dave

[alexs2]

I wont have a bad word said about Mr Wong...that last $20million he sent me was very nice...all freshly printed and not too many ink smudges....

[po_man]

May i direct you to the following site which has, quite simply, made me cry with laughter;
http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Edit: scroll down on the home page

[njp]

I think the point is that all these 419 scams rely to some extent on the dishonesty (as well as the naivety) of the victim.

I guess you are supposed to think that you might be able to get your hands on some money despite having no knowledge of any of the other parties. Obviously, handing over your bank details would just be the first stage in a process which would require you to hand over ever increasing amounts of 'expenses' in order to secure payment, which would remain forever tantalisingly out of reach...

Scambaiters entertain themselves by engaging the scammers in elaborate email dialogues, requiring them to send ludicrously posed photographs of themselves (and even money, neatly reversing the scam!):

http://www.419eater.com/html/trophy_room.htm

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by po_man

May i direct you to the following site which has, quite simply, made me cry with laughter;
http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

419eater has a similar collection of "scamming the scammer" routines,some of which seem to have netted a few pounds for charity,so a good outcome all round!

[po_man]

The sad thing, i guess, is that it must surely work and that some people do get caught out by it because surely they wouldn't be so dumb as to keep trying it!

[njp]

It's like any kind of spam; it only requires a tiny fraction of recipients to respond to justify doing it. Having said that, 419 fraud does seem to be some kind of national sport in Nigeria, and I do wonder how many of the players actually make any money out of it!

[alexs2]

Originally Posted by po_man

The sad thing, i guess, is that it must surely work and that some people do get caught out by it because surely they wouldn't be so dumb as to keep trying it!

Unfortunately it does work,simply because of the volume of scams these people work,and the inherent greed or naivety of many of those that respond to what is obviously a scam.

Given that,the best thing that can be done is to make as many as possible aware of how they work....there was a very nice piece on BBC's Money Program a few yrs back where a businessman who had been taken in worked with the reporters to expose and film the scammers,who were pretty unpleasant folk.

[Soulja]

Central Bank of Nigeria