Pricewatch »

• Not even trying, part 7

  April 23, 2009 @ 10:50 am | by Conor Pope

  I have a soft spot for emails from the widows or daughters of deposed sub-Saharan dictators with suitcases filled with diamonds which they want me to have in return for nothing at all. I also like correspondence from shadowy lawyers in the same region who say they have plucked my name at random from a “register of good persons” because I sound like a person who’d like to offer my bank account as a home for the vast fortune of a man who died intestate of some terrible affliction.

  What I don’t like are emails like the one I received this morning.

  Greetings!!! You have a bank draft of $780,000.00 USD, which await the outstanding payment of $275USD.Contact the TNT courier company for claims with your information. Contact person Mr. West Oduduwa,Email: tntcours***nl.rogers.com.

  No tragedy. No ridiculously convoluted story, nothing at all to suggest they’ve put any effort in to the mail.

  Sometimes I think these 419 scammers hearts’ aren’t in their jobs any more.

• Not even trying, Part II

  November 14, 2008 @ 12:56 pm | by Conor Pope

  I got this mail this morning. Apparently there’s a handy 800 grand waiting for me in a FedEx office in Ghana! But where’s the back story – where’s the bit about the diposed dictator and his suitcase of diamonds or the wealthy dowager dying of cancer? Sometimes I think these scam artists hearts aren’t really in it anymore. Yes, I’m talking to you Rev Cheese and Ms Yates Stephanie

  “Greetings!
  Your Confirmable Bank Draft of $800.000.00 United States Dollars has been deposited with FEDEX COURIER SERVICE, West Africa because you did not respond to my first email and I was traveling out of the country for a 3 Month Course and I will not come back till end of January so contact them. Contact Person: Rev Thomas Cheese Email Address: fedex147@live.com
  Phone Numbers : +2348059324364
  I have paid for the delivering Charges except their Security Keeping Fee of $305 which they said no because
  they don’t know when you will contact them in case of demurrage. so you are to pay the $305 as soon as you
  contact them. Finally, make sure that you reconfirm your Postal address() and Direct telephone number.
  Yours Faithfully, Mrs.Yates Stephine”

• Leather scam

  January 14, 2008 @ 10:45 am | by Conor Pope

  Walking through Dún Laoghaire, a Dublin reader was stopped by the driver of a car who had pulled up looking for directions to the M50. “I explained to him how he should proceed and he told me that he was a rep for an Italian leather company who was in Dublin with samples. He showed me three leather jackets on the back seat of the car and asked if I would be interested in any of them.”
  (more…)

• Not even trying…

  January 11, 2008 @ 10:38 am | by Conor Pope

  I can’t seem to stop winning money. Already this year lottery companies in Spain, Britan and Ireland have emailed me out of the blue telling me of my amazing good fortune. And if I’m not winning the lottery, my name is being plucked randomly from some “register of good persons” in Nigeria or Sierra Leone where I have been listed as a person of “sufficient trustwordiness” (sic) to come to the aid of the widow of an African dictator who’s been left with nothing to call her own but two huge trunks of blood diamonds which she needs to shepherd out of the country. Then there is the American GI under fire in Iraq who has found money in “one of Saddam’s caves” and wants me to have it.

  At least most of the scam artists are trying. They come up with a back story (however ridiculous) with which they try and bait me. I got a scam email this morning that really needs work. (more…)