Topic: Spams & Scams
The Nigerian 419 scam
Some person with important sounding titles and a sob story wanting to share tens of millions of dollars with you? Don't believe it!
That's known as the Nigerian scam, and it has its variations and is also run out of Amsterdam as well as parts of Africa. It's also morphed recently into requests to buy lots of (various items) from you, the scam is that they'll send you a check or charge a (stolen) credit card for more than they owe you and then ask you to send them a refund of the excess...only then their check bounces or the credit card charge is revoked and you're out the refund you gave them. You should forward the email with full headers to the US Secret Service, they have a task force that is tracking down these people and arresting them in cooperation with the Nigerian and various other governments:
419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
Put a note in the subject of the email, NO LOSS if you didn't pay them anything and if you did pay them, put LOSS and then detail the loss in the body of the email.
For 419 spams to Canada, you can also use:
info@phonebusters.com
Phonebusters is a combined effort of the Ontario Provincial Police and
the RCMP initially set up to stop telemarketing fraud but, according to
the local RCMP Commercial Crime Division, they also handle 419 scams.
Other 419 links:
The Nigerian Watch
Links to Websites Fighting the Nigerian Scam
Quatloos! Nigerian 4-1-9 Scam
Help those wacky Nigerians get their money out of Nigeria and they will give you millions. But make sure you get the money first.
infoZine, Nixon Tracking Nigerian Scam Letter
BBB-Advisories: Watch out for Nigerian letter scam
Yahoo! Search Results for nigerian scam
Nigeria - The 419 Coalition Website
United States Secret Service Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud
Public Awareness Advisory 4-1-9 Fraud
(Links courtesy of Norman De Forest on the Spam-L list.)
Last updated on December 26, 2003 09:46 PM