ulblog.org » 419 scam

Nigerian Scam: "Ted Turner and the UN Donation" variant

Murray @ ulblog — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:00:58 +0000

Barry Williams, Lord Magisterial Inquisitor Of The Holy Skeptical Empire (Incorporated), has submitted several more variants of the Nigerian Scam.

From: “Nations Foundation” Date: 28 September 2008 4:38:43 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: United Nations Foundation Reply-To:

United Nations Foundation 18coulibalyosmane Avenue, OUA, Plot 400 Ouagadougou , BF.

Attention: The United Nations Foundation (UNF),would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the Board of Trustees as one of the final recipients of ?3,000,000.00(Three Million GBP) for your personal, business, or educational use to aid the under privilege in your territory /country The UN Foundation was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turners historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities.

The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the worlds most pressing problems, and broadens support for the. U.N .through advocacy and public outreach. The .U.N. Foundation is a public charity and winners are selected without any cinerary,

You are required to contact the Claims Officer below for qualification documentation and processing of your claims. After contacting our office with the requested data, you will be given the bank details contact to obtain your donation pin number, which you will use in collecting the funds. Please endeavour to quote your Qualification numbers (UNF-039455-UNOG) and Amount won in all discussions.

To file Your claims Send listed requirements to Contact African Finance Officer Dr. Roger Bernard

Sincerely Mrs, Julie Hans

The interesting thing about this variant is that multi-gazillionaire Ted Turner did promise to donate a billion dollars to UN projects, although he did this in 1997, not 1998, and he promised it in $100 million parcels over the period of 10 years.

Either way, it’s very doubtful that any office associated with the UN is going to randomly hand out £3 million for ‘personal, business or education use’. Seriously.

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Barry’s next variant is even more interesting! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more ‘fully developed’ example of a Nigerian Scam before — look at the effort that ‘Simon Yi’ goes to to justify the secrecy and method by which he is contacting us.

Pretending to be a real person, with a real person’s paranoia about the possible consequences of his actions, ‘Simon’ assures us that he will deny any knowledge of the communication if we attempt to contact him through normal channels. ‘Simon’ even mentions that his workplace has a Total Quality Management Policy, which means that his calls might be monitored and this becomes yet another reason why he can’t legitimise his existence through normal methods.

Of course, ‘Simon’ almost certainly doesn’t exist in any real sense. If you take some time to browse the growing Nigerian Scam collection on ULBlog.org, you’ll quickly realise this is simply yet another variant of an attempt to defraud the gullible and innocent.

From: “SIMON YI” Date: 28 September 2008 6:24:14 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: I NEED YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE Reply-To:

DEAR FRIEND,

I am Mr.Simon Yi Executive Director of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd, Hong Kong.

An Iraqi named Haider Hanoon,a business man made a numbered fixed deposit of (346,736,899.68 TWD) for 18 calendar months, this is valued to Fourty Four million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars only in my branch. Upon maturity several notice was sent to him, even during the war, four years ago (2003). Again after the war another notification was sent and still no response came from him. We later found out that Haider Hanoon and his family had been killed during the war in Gunfire that hit their home at Mukaradeeb where his personal oil well was.

After further investigation it was also discovered that Haider Hanoon did not declare any next of kin in his official papers including the paper work of his bank deposit. And he also confided in me the last time we was at my office that no one except me knew of his deposit in my bank. So, Fourty Four million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars is still lying in my bank and no one will ever come forward to claim it. What bothers me is that according to the laws of my country at the expiration five years six months the funds will revert to the ownership of the Hong Kong Government if nobody applies to claim the funds.

My proposal, I am prepared to place you as the next of kin in a position to instruct HANG SENG BANK to release the deposit to you as the closest surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I am prepared to share the money with you in half. That is: I will simply nominate you as the next of kin and have them release the deposit to you. We share the procentange 70/30. I would have gone ahead to ask the funds be released to me, but that would have drawn a straight line in my involvement in claiming the deposit.I assure you that I could have the deposit released to you within a few days. I will simply inform the bank of the final closing of the file relating to Haider Hanoon I will then officially communicate with my Bank and instruct them to release the deposit to you. With these: all is done. I am aware of the consequences of this proposal.

I ask that if you find no interest in this project that you should discard this mail. I ask that you do not be vindictive and destructive. If my offer is of no appeal to you,delete this message and forget I ever contacted you. Do not destroy my career because you do not approve of my proposal. You may not know this but people like myself who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector. I am not a criminal and what I do, I do not find against good conscience, this may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move. Such opportunities only come ones way once in a lifetime. I cannot let this chance pass me by, for once I find myself in total control of my destiny. These chances wont pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life but do not destroy me. I am a family man and this is an opportunity to pro vide them with new opportunities.

If you give me positive signals, I will initiate this process towards a conclusion. I wish to inform you that should you contact me via official channels; I will deny knowing you and about this project. I repeat, I do not want you contacting me through my official phone lines nor do I want you contacting me through my official email account. Contact me only through the numbers I will provide for you and also through the email account that i will provide therein in this email. Further more be informed that the fact that you are a foreigner give you the privilege to stand in as my deceased client beneficiary as my deceased client had no relation all his family died with him during the war and I can not use my relation because its not accepted here in Hong Kong. Also I am very confident that we will be able to establish the trust that is needed to complete this deal and all that I need from the time been is your willingness and commitment so that we can end this in the next one week.

What you need to understand about this transaction is that I will make sure that it passes through all international banking laws regards to this I will take care of all the expenses and the cost of retaining the service of my Attorney to give the transaction the proper documentation that is required to perfect the finishing. Your only obligation in this transaction will be to set up an offshore account that can accommodate these funds and I will give you more light later once you agree to partner with me. Like I said before there is no risk involve as it will pass through international banking laws and all documents related to this transaction will be sent to you by post for your perusal and trust.

I do not want any direct link between you and me. My official lines are not secure lines as they are periodically monitored to assess our level of customer care in line with our Total Quality Management Policy. Please observe this instruction religiously. Please, again, note I am a family man, I have wife and children. I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learned from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord, we should plan a meeting, soon. Should you be interested I will prefer you to send me your FULL NAMES,ADDRESS,OCCUPATION AND PHONE NUMBER.on the email address below.

E-mail:simon.yi33@gmail.com

Your earliest response to this letter will be appreciated.

I await your response.

Mr.Simon Yi

Thanks, as always, goes to Barry Williams — if you have a minute or two to spare and an interest in matters skeptical, why not bounce over to his blog?

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Nigerian Scam: "Barely literate UK barrister" variant

Murray @ ulblog — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:00:47 +0000

Barry Williams, Supreme Universal Skeptic Of The 12th Magisterial Order [1], has sent in another interesting variant of the infamous Nigerian Scam.

As Barry mentions in his email:

Murray

I despair for the continuing deterioration of literacy among barristers admitted to the bar in the UK.
Barry

I can understand Barry’s emotional distress, since the email asks you to believe that it has been sent by a barrister located in the UK, while simultaneously being pockmarked with a truly impressive variety of misspellings and grammatical errors.

Aside from the UK barrister detail, this variant is pretty standard for a Nigerian Scam:

Someone has passed away who had access to buckets of money
The person who now has access to the money needs a co-conspirator to get the money out of the country
The reward for being of help is generous beyond all expectation (35% of $9.5 million is $3.3 million and some small change — not a bad return if the money ever existed)
You need to supply your contact details so further details can be sent

Of course, what really happens if you send your details is a complex confidence game in which you are constantly promised that you are about to receive a very large sum of money but not before some ‘unexpected fees’ are paid, to which you will be asked to contribute. Once these ‘fees’ are paid, more ‘fees’ will arise, and still more, until you are unwilling or, in many cases, unable to provide any more money into the scam.

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter might surprise you because,we have not met
neither in person nor by correspondence. But I believe
it is one day that you get know somebody either in
physical or through correspondence.

I am Barrister Joe Goodmann, an attorney to late
Richard Lim (foreigner) who is an Engineer with
Kvaerner Oil & Gas Limited, United Kingdom here. Late
Richard Lim has an account with Citibank International
Plc, United Kingdom.

I received a memo early this year from the Bank
remittance department for an interview about $9.5M USD
that belongs to my client Late Richard Lim ,the bank
informed me on their policy to freeze the account of
Late Richard Lim,I was asked to redirect the ($9.5m
USD) back to government treasury because they saw no
Next of Kin in his entire file within the bank and his
account has been dormant for years which is against
the policy of the Bank.

I am contacting you because of the need to involve a
foreigner as the foreign beneficiary to that fund. I
have resolved to share the money in this ratio.

(1) 50% for me.

(2) 35% for you.

(3) 10% for the remittance manager in the bank who has
agreed to guide us for the success of our objectives.

(4) 5% for any expenses both party might incur during
the processing of this transaction.

I will need your full name and address including
telephone and fax number for the internal processing
of the fund transfer and the internal processing of
the required documents to back up our claim on receipt
of all the required information from you which was
given above.

I will give you further details on the entire process
when I receive your positive response.

Thanks and I wish to have a long and profitable
relationship with you!

Regards,

Barrister.Joe Goodmann.

N/B: send your reply-to< barr.jgmann1@yahoo.ie >

Footnotes:

1.	And owner-operator of the Barry Williams Blog.
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Nigerian Scam: “The bussness magnet” variant

Murray @ ulblog — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:30:25 +0000

Okay, so maybe I’m a little odd, but for some reason I can’t help thinking it’s going to be a good day when I discover that someone has forwarded a new variant of an urban legend or superstition or scam email to me.

So, oh yes, imagine my excitement when I discovered two new variants in my inbox this morning! [1]

Both are courtesy of Barry Williams, Lord Imperial Ruler Of The Australian Skeptics [2] and writer of the excellently skeptical Barry Williams Blog.

As Barry points out in his original email about the “bussness magnet” specimen:

Yet another one, but I did like this bit:

INTRODUCTION: I am celine boba 21years old and the only daughter of my late parents Chief and Mrs. Andani boba My father was a highly reputable busnness magnet-(a Cocoa Merchant) who operated in the capital of Ivory Coast-Cote d’Ivoire during his days.

While the full email is typically riddled with translation errors, there really is something charming about the idea of a “business magnet”, as opposed to a “business magnate”, which is the idea I suspect the writer was attempting to convey.

I love the image of a business person trying to walk down the street, struggling along because bank managers and real estate developers and investment brokers are stuck all over him or her due to the horrible effects of business magnetism! Arrggh! NoooOOoo!

The rest of the email is pretty much what you’d expect from a Nigerian Scam — sudden death, buckets of money, a need for someone ‘abroad’ [3] to help with various transactions, please send your details and so on.

And now for the complete email itself:

From: celine boba celine_bob9@yahoo.ca Date: 16 April 2008 2:50:28 PM To: celine_bob9@yahoo.ca Subject: Dear Faithful,
Reply-To: celine.bobba@yahoo.fr

Dear Faithful,

Good a thing to write you. I have a proposal for you-this however is not mandatory nor will I in any manner compel you to honour against your will. I know this proposal will come to you as a surprise because we have not met before either physically or through correspondence. I believe is the wish of God.

It is sad to say that he passed away mysteriously in France during one of his business trips abroad on the 12th. Febuary 2002. Though his sudden death was linked or rather suspected to have been masterminded by an uncle of his who travelled along with him at that time.

But God knows the truth! My mother died when I was just 4years old, and since then my father took me so special. Before his death 12/2/ 2002 he called the secretary who accompanied him to the hospital and told her that he has a private letter for me in my wardrope and his about his deposit, but he never told the lady about the money, instead he said family asset and it was when i got the note i discovered it was all about his money at the sum of Sixteen Million, Seven Hundred Thousand United State Dollars.(USD$16.700,000.00) which he deposited as a family asset with a security trust company.

He further told the pastor of the church where he use to worship that he had deposited a family valuables with a security trust company and it is in my name as his only hair apparant in a written note and also to the security company as well. Though, he never disclose to anybody about the content as money; but make this clear in a private note and kept it in my possession that the content is money so that I can be careful and wise in handling the claim, so he said.

I am just 21years old and a university undergraduate and really don’t know what to do. Now I can not lay my hands on the fund because he left an instruction with the Security Company that the Consignment will only be moved abroad upon my provision of foreign partner. Who will take delivery of the Consignment (1 Trunk Box) on my behalf. This is because I have suffered a lot of set backs as a result of incessant political crisis here in Ivory coast.

The death of my father actually brought sorrow to my life. My Dear, I am in a sincere desire of your humble assistance in this regards. Your suggestions and ideas will be highly regarded. Now permit me to ask these few questions:-

Can you honestly help me?
Can I completely trust you?
What percentage of the total amount in question will be good for you after the money is in your account?

I want to use this opportunity to assure you of your security on this transaction now and in future. The transaction is 100% risk free. Provided you can give us a very strong assurance and guarantee that my share will be secured. Please remember to treat this matter as very confidential.

Please, Consider this and get back to me as soon as possible.

May the almighty God bless you,

Yours faithfully. celine boba

What a brilliant variant! Many thanks to Barry for sending it through. I’ll post his other specimen a little later in the week.

Until then, much warmth!

Murray By Moonlight

Footnotes:

1.	I didn’t actually jump up and down and clap my hands, if that’s what you’re imagining, but I definitely did smile and also possibly did rub my hands together and say, “Aha! The game’s afoot!”, or something equally silly.
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2.	I think his official title is “Executive Officer”, but I like my version better.
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3.	That’s you, in case you’re not paying attention.
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Nigerian Scam: “Thank you for your effort” variant

Murray @ ulblog — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:23:32 +0000

Friend of the ULBlog, Darren Saturday, sent in the following interesting variant of the infamous 419 / Nigerian Scam:

My Dear

This is to thank you for your effort.I understand that your hands were tied.Not to worry. I have succeeded,the money has been transfered into the account provided by a newly found friend of mine in Paraguay To compensate for your past assistance and commitments,i have dropped an International Certifie Bank Draft of $1.8million for you.

I am in Paraguay with my family presently.I do intend to establish some business concerns here,and possibly buy some properties.Now Contact my Secretary in Nigeria, Mr.Bala Adamu on his email bala_sec1@yahoo.com, phone: +234 80321 16185 Forward your mailing address to him,then ask him to send the cheque to you.

Take good care of your self

Regards, Bobby Will

(NB) Send him your full Names and Address,Tel & Fax Numbers to enable him despatch your cheque immediately

What a fascinating variant! By now, I assume most people are aware of the 419 / Nigerian Scam [1], and yet years after alerts about this scam began appearing on the Internet, it’s still being run in many different forms around the world, and new victims fall prey to it every year.

This particular variant is interesting because of the way in which it begins:

This is to thank you for your effort.I understand that your hands were tied.Not to worry. I have succeeded,the money has been transfered into the account provided by a newly found friend of mine in Paraguay To compensate for your past assistance and commitments,i have dropped an International Certifie Bank Draft of $1.8million for you.

Yes, yes, yes! Aside from all of the misery this little bastard scam might have caused, I love the way this variant starts out by implying that a relationship already exists between the sender and recipient. Even the second sentence attempts to cement this idea — you couldn’t help [2] because your hands were tied. You obviously wanted to help, you just couldn’t!

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would fall for such an obvious ploy, but I guess it’s possible that someone might think they had received the email in error and might also believe they have a chance to cash in on a healthy dose of misplaced generosity.

Of course, this email is as much a scam as the many other variants floating around on the Internet.

Don’t forget to take a peek at the main article for this scam: The Nigerian / 419 Scam.

Oh, and don’t forget that I’m always interested in seeing new variants of this scam that you might encounter — you can send them in via the Submit an Urban Legend link.

Footnotes:

1.	Also sometimes known as the “Advanced Fees Fraud Scam”.
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2.	Entirely glossing over the fact that you never attempted to help!
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The Nigerian / 419 Scam

Murray @ ulblog — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 13:00:42 +0000

I first wrote about the Nigerian Scam [1] back in July of 2001 on the ULRC site. It wasn’t by any means a new scam then, but the Internet was still rapidly expanding, and vast numbers of people were still making their way online for the first time, and were being exposed – at an alarming rate – to a scam the majority of them had never heard of before.

Almost six years later, and it appears that the Nigerian Scam is still going strong.

In a way, I’m a little surprised that so many people still fall for the Nigerian Scam. It’s received plenty of coverage both in the media and on the net, and a couple of minutes invested using a search engine for anyone wondering if the email might be legitimate would probably have saved a lot of people a lot of money.

That having been said, recent news from my very own home state of Queensland indicates that people still fall victim to this scam.

Aussies lose $7m to Nigerian scammers
Feb 02, 2006

AUSTRALIANS have lost more than $7 million in the notorious Nigerian investment scam – and police fear that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Queensland police fraud inspector Brian Hay said police had analyzed financial transactions to Nigeria for a two-month period and contacted about 60 per cent of the people involved.

Of those, 25 out of 26 were victims of the internet-based scam and only one had conducted legitimate business with Nigerian contacts.

“We were just completely blown away,” Insp Hay said.

“We’re talking about financial planners, accountants, people that perhaps should know better.”

Insp Hay said victims, who had received spam e-mails from the fraudsters, were sucked into the scheme by promises of up to $40 million for the temporary use of their bank accounts.

Source: news.com.au

If it’s surprising that people still fall for the Nigerian Scam, it’s utterly amazing that financial planners and accountants should number among them!

And yet, according to a US Secret Service advisory (see Further Reading below) in 2002, hundreds of millions of dollars are lost every year to Nigerian Scams and its variants.

Anatomy of a Scam

While the Nigerian Scam comes in many different forms and is now operated from many different countries, initial contact with potential victims usually follows a set pattern. To begin with, you receive an email that looks much like this:

Dear Sir,

ASSISTANCE REQUIRED FOR ACQUISITION OF ESTATE

I write to inform you of my desire to acquire estates or landed properties in your country on behalf of the Director of Contracts and Finance Allocations of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Nigeria.

Considering his very strategic and influential position, he would want the transaction to be as strictly confidential as possible. He further wants his identity to remain undisclosed at least for now, until the completion of the transaction. Hence our desire to have an overseas agent.

I have therefore been directed to inquire if you would agree to act as our overseas agent in order to actualize this transaction.

The deal, in brief, is that the funds with which we intend to carry out our proposed investments in your country is presently in a coded account at the Nigerian Apex Bank (i.e. the Central Bank of Nigeria) and we need your assistance to transfer the funds to your country in a convenient bank account that will be provided by you before we can put the funds into use in your country. For this, you shall be considered to have executed a contract for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Nigeria for which payment should be effected to you by the Ministry, The contract sum of which shall run into US$26.4 Million, of which your share shall be 30% if you agree to be our overseas agent.

As soon as payment is effected, and the amount mentioned above is successfully transferred into your account, we intend to use our own share in acquiring some estates abroad. For this too you shall also serve as our agent.

In the light of this, I would like you to forward to me the following information:

Your company name and address if any
Your personal fax number
Your personal telephone number for easy communication.

You are requested to communicate your acceptance of this proposal through my above stated email address after which we shall discuss in details the modalities for seeing this transaction through.

Your quick response will be highly appreciated. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation.

Yours faithfully,
BIBI LUCKY.

Source: Wikipedia.org

The actual details of the email can vary considerably from the above, but generally they have the following things in common:

The person contacting you needs access to a bank account or agent to secretly transfer a very large amount of money out of his or her country. Sometimes the money is said to have been discovered left lying idle in an account that no-one has accessed for years – perhaps due to the death of the person or persons who originally owned the account, perhaps because the money was set aside for a government or military contract that was never commissioned, etc – and at other times the money is described as requiring secret transfer because it will be used as part of a deal that a wealthy individual wishes to keep secret until completion
The person contacting you needs what seems like simple assistance to transfer the money out of the country in question, so that it can be distributed amongst interested parties
A significant amount of the total is being offered to you for providing that assistance
Often a sense of urgency is communicated, with the email claiming that an audit is under way and if the money isn’t transferred quickly then access to it will be lost forever, etc

Once a potential victim has responded to this email – which is sent to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people at a time – a cat and mouse game begins in which the promise of the very large payout is held just out of arm’s reach as ‘complications’ arise that require the victim to ‘invest’ money to solve. Usually the amounts requested at the beginning are small, perhaps a few hundred dollars at most. But as the scam develops, the requests become larger and larger and simply don’t stop until the victim realizes he or she has been scammed, or literally has no more money they can beg, borrow or – all too often – steal to satisfy the ongoing demands.

Variations on a Theme

The canonical version of the Nigerian Scam has seen many changes and mutations over the years, with some being operated amateurishly, while others are slick enterprises willing to lease all the trappings of a legitimate business if the payout seems promising.

Some other versions of the scam are:

Lottery scam

Potential victims are informed that they have won a 1st division prize in a large lottery, but must pay certain ‘fees’ to be able to claim their prize

Church or charity scam

Potential victims receive an email soliciting small donations towards an African church or charity, with the problems the church or charity is experiencing increasing in size (and in amounts of money requested) as the scam progresses

Escrow scam

People holding auctions on sites such as eBay are instructed by the ‘winning’ bidder to use a fraudulent escrow service

There are almost certainly many more versions and variations of the Nigerian Scam currently in operation, with still many more to come.

If you have received an interesting or new version of the scam, send it in via the submit an urban legend link, and I’ll share it with other readers of ulblog.

1.	Also known as an Advanced Fees Fraud and the 419 Scam, after the relevant section in the Nigerian criminal code that covers fraud operations such as these.
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