Scam of the day, light reading

[vettestr]

I must get about 5 of these a day and will pick out the best of them to show you. I started reporting these and following each with a 2 page complaint but it is like washing your car with a Q-Tip. Here is one of todays.... I did check for any bugs before listing here.

Re: BIZ OFFER.

I am Mr. Raymond Johnson the Director, Foreign Contract Payment Department
Federal Ministry of Agriculture. I wish to express my willingness to transfer an overdue contract sum of US$32,000,000.00 to your Company's Account or Personal Account, through the office of the Dept reconciliation committee resulting from debt of contract & services rendered to agricultural development project (ADP).
This money emanated from over invoicing in a contract awarded to a foreign firm, for supply and installation of Agricultural Equipments and Fertilizer to Agricultural Development Project (ADP) by the former minister of agriculture for his personal purse but unfortunately, he was unable to transfer this fund to his purse before the emergence of this present civilianadministration.
I discovered this amount from the manifest recently and secured a payment authority to authenticate the transfer. Your Co-operation is highly required for this project, note that you will be entitled to share 30% of the fund, 60% for me and 10% has been mapped out for any incidental expenses incurred in the process of the transfer.
This Deal is 100% covered from any form of enquiry, theapprovals
obtained will be dispatch to you, informing you extensively the progress on the transfer. You are requested to send thefollowing information urgently:
(1.) Name and Address of Your Bank
(2.) Account No. and Account Name
(3.) Company's Name or personal name and Address
(4.) Office Telephone/Fax No.
(5.) Mobile Phone / Residential Phone No:
I have successfully worked out a solution to effect transfer within seven
(7) working days. Finally, Note a High Degree of Trust and Confidentiality
is required from both parties.
Looking forward to your timely response.
Your urgent reply is highly anticipated.
Best Regards,Mr. Raymond Johnson
Director, Foreign Contract Payment Dept. (FMA)

[427 S/O]

Ever here of email and pop up spam blockers?.

[vettestr]

Heello Perry,
Hmmmmm, let me think about that one ? Hell yes I have heard of them and I use 2 of the better ranked versions with frequent updates and so on but still a pain.
I listed because I have decided it is easier to laugh and have fun with them than go crazier. take care jeff c

[What'saCobra?]

Dear Veettestr,

Every time you open and read one of those wacky scams you are betting that your virus defenses are better than their attack strategy.

This is not a good long-term bet. A small error on your part or a smart insight on theirs and you have lost control of your system, perhaps. Or worse.

Suggest that you delete without opening. And, that is already enough risk to take.

[vettestr]

THanks for the helpful thoughts. You make a good point. I have not been opening other than when I forwarded to you guys..... not too sharp on my end I guess. I have been working under impression that if I'm on preview only and I do Not click or open it is pretty safe. Have I given you enough info to tel me for sure if it sould be safe?
I have a kinda slave system that previews or downloads off my ISP server and is only for email then my main system = desktop or laptops get mail off 1st computer that does email only. All this way beyond my know how. It was set up by another for us.

[Ron61]

Jeff,

Your system is probably better protected than mine, but I use a firewall first, can't download OR upload any e-mail attachments without them them both going through the Norton's virus scanner. Even then if I am still suspicious I will most of the time just delete the thing. A couple I have downloaded to a 3 1/2 floppy and took to my older computer to scan and look at as I can run it on the 3 1/2 drive, because the virus program had questions about them. One had a virus and the other was just messed up in a link that the virus program wasn't sure of.

Ron

[computerworks]

Originally posted by vettestr


...I have been working under impression that if I'm on preview only and I do Not click or open it is pretty safe....

Just as an FYI...having Outlook or Outlook Express running in the preview mode could expose you to problems with sinister e-mails. It allows the execution of applets and other HTML trickery that is known to be a possible way to infect your system.

These 'exploits' have been identified by M$ and you MUST run the appropriate Windows Updates to repair and 'plug' these security holes.

Knowing the risks, I still run in Preview mode for convenience, but with current updates installed, Active-X execution under manual control and a good, updated AntiVirus program monitoring incoming e-mail.

Whatsa... the Nigerian-type money scams rarely, if ever, bear viruses...they just want your money!
..but you are correct in that... if an e-mail has an attachment, and you don't know the sender, or the message body says "...here's your file" or "...look at this" or some such short innocuous message... it is a virus and just delete it.

[cobra427mnsi]

I received this e-mail and I am afraid to click on the links to see if it is legit or not. I am always suspicious of these types of e-mails. Can anyone verify that this e-mail is real?

"Dear valued PayPal® member:

PayPal® is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of buyers and sellers. To protect the security of your account, PayPal employs some of the most advanced security systems in the world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen the PayPal system for unusual activity.
Recently, our Account Review Team identified some unusual activity in your account. In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved. This is a fraud prevention measure meant to ensure that your account is not compromised. In order to secure your account and quickly restore full access, we may require some specific information from you for the following reason: We would like to ensure that your account was not accessed by an unauthorized third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

Case ID Number: PP-040-187-541

We encourage you to log in and restore full access as soon as possible. Should access to your account remain limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations on the use of your account.

However, failure to restore your records will result in account suspension. Please update your records on or before January 8, 2005.

Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your Paypal records click on the following link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure meant to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal® Account Review Department

PayPal Email ID PP522

Accounts Management As outlined in our User Agreement, PayPal will periodically send you information about site changes and enhancements.

Visit our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have any questions.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...rivacy-outside "

[computerworks]

Here's what you got...right? MY, my...we both have the same case number!

It is bogus... the link that appears in the text actually takes you to a faux server in Korea, to collect your "info"...

...just kill it.

[vettestr]

Thanks agaian Ron and Ron,
All the info you have given and questions brought uo here are good for all viewers here on CC. This made me re-think what was at risk on my systems and I called the person/company helping protect my puters.
He reminded me there is always some sicko working to hurt others and at best you need to keep everything updated with the latest firewalls , anti virus and so on. He builds a first defense using older outdated puters loaded with only the anti software and does only email and search downloads. The old computers are fast and big enough to handle email when not having to work SYSTEM needs. The second computer has different anti software as safety net.
He is coming by this coming week to check the oil in the system... well kinda. THANKS Everybody. jeff c
PS Ron, your line " my engine has a foster home in Neb." is a hoot do you get summer visitations?

[jrussell]

I have received this one, and others just like it. IT IS NOT FROM PAY PAL!! If you are concerned, contact Pay Pal directly and you will find out they never contact you in this manner, and they will instruct you how yo copy the link and paste it into an e-mail to them so they can track it down.
If you don't want to do that just delete it and then empty your wastebasket.
Wouldn't you just love to get your hands on this scum??
You may see this same angle coming from other "so called" businesses, banks, e-bay, and even Microsoft. It is all B.S.
Best of luck, but DON'T click on any of the links provided as they only lead to extreme heartache at best and possible financial ruin.
John Russell

[Ron61]

Jeff,

Ron(CW) is far more knowledgable than I on all the scams and viruses. But several of these scams now seem to be originating from Korea as I have traced three in the last month back to a server there. No, bank or any other institution that I know of will ask for any of that type of information on a forum.
As for the e-mails I have set up 3 names. One that all the people that I trust have, which I use on the club, One for when I have to deal with an unknown person or source and one for screeing at a high level any e-mails and it dumps 90% of them into the spam basket. Those 2 addresses are on an older computer with a dial up. But nothing is fool proof as the fools that do this stuff have proven.

Ron

[cobra427mnsi]

Thanks Guys

Computerworks, that's it exactly. I knew, if it was a scam, that someone on here would know. Just deleted it.

Thanks again !

Paul

[computerworks]

Anytime, Paul ..glad to help.

As long as we are talking about viruses, etc...

...this is a sample of the classic 'attachment' technique of transmitting viruses.

If the attachment has an extension of .exe, .bat, .scr, .pif... it's usually a delivery package for a virus. The body of the message usually contains a brief phrase, like this one.

Just delete the message.

[Ron61]

Ron,

Have you ever received any of the ," Here is the family history record that you requested," e-mails? I received two about 4 months ago and scanned both of them before opening them and they had viruses. Both were supposed to be Word.Doc files but two things were odd. One, I have never requested a family history and the headers were really in a mess. I haven't seen or heard of one since. Those went to my other computer with the screen names for junk mail.

Ron

[What'saCobra?]

Ron et al
We agree.

Rule of thumb, if you are not absolutely certain, and i mean absolutely certain, don't even look at it (presuming you are in Windows anything, on a pc anything.)

Curiosity might get the better of you, but if necessary set up an old computer with absolutely no data, (completely erase HD, best by replacement or high flux field eraser) and use that to look, but with someone else's access codes. Nasty risk to them, but none to you. Otherwise, presume computer will be lost in space sooner or later. Prepare for entire rebuild of software and some hardware controls.

Of course, if you have a MAC....