I got a new twist on the old "Nigerian scam" email today. This one claims
to be from a soldier in Iraq who's captured money and wants to get it
out of the country. He claims you'll get 20% of the $20 million
they've got. What you'll really get is scammed out of everything they
can get.
It's at this point that I usually go into the reasons why I know this is
a scam, but let's start with a different tactic this time. Let's
pretend for a moment that this message was real. First off, our
"friend" Sgt. Williams Baker (Ever heard of anyone with the first name
"Williams"? I haven't.) is supposed to turn over any money he
confiscates from the Iraqis to his superiors. If he didn't do that,
he's in violation of military and probably international laws. If he's
caught, he's going to prison for a very long time. If you're
part of his little scheme, you can be sure you're going to jail, too.
For that kind of cash, the U.S. government will go to great lengths to
hunt you down and extradite you. Trust me, it ain't worth it! I'd say
the odds are really good that this guy would be caught.
If you're not familiar with the old "Nigerian scam" it goes something
like this. Someone claims to have tons of money that they need to
get out of their country. They need someone in the U.S. to help them
get this money out of the country and somehow "legitimize" it. If you
express an interest in helping them, they'll tell you they need you to
set up an account somewhere. They'll suggest a particular bank and an
amount to deposit in it. They'll offer to help set that account up for
you if you mail/wire/PayPal/etc. the funds to them. Then they'll either
disappear or come up with some other reason they need money, like paying
the courier service, taxes, or something. If you stop sending money,
they vanish. If you keep sending money, they keep asking for more
until you eventually wise up or go broke. You'll never see that $20
million because it never existed. The scams are called "Nigerian scams"
because that's where they used to originate. Lately they're cropping up
all over the world.
The scammers are successful because they rely on sending out tons of
these emails, knowing that at least one person out there who gets the
message will be greedy enough to respond. They send these emails out
constantly so there's always some sucker on the hook, and often several. Their
expenses are low (free email accounts, probably using computers in
Internet cafes or something similar, no postage/taxes/etc.). The
risk is low, since many people scammed in this way are embarrassed
to go to the police, and if they do it's going to be hard to prosecute
someone in another country whose real name you probably don't know.
It's pretty much "easy money" for the scammer.
Now, let's look at that letter, shall we? (The bold parts are the errors
and indicators of a scam.)
-----Original Message
From: [mailto:
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 9:21 PM
To:
Subject: PRIVATE INFORMATION!!!
From Sgt Williams Baker
Good Day, I hope my email meets you well. I am in need of your
assistance. My name is Sgt Williams Baker, Jr. I am in the Engineering
military unit here in Ba\'qubah in Iraq,we have about $20 Million US
dollars that we want to move out of the country. My partners and I need
a good partner someone we can trust. It is oil money and legal.
We have made arrangements with a Diplomatic courier service that will
move the funds to their head quarters in Amasterdam, Holland.The
most important thing is that can we trust you? Once the funds get to
you, you take your 20% out and keep our own 80%. Your own part of
this deal is to find a safe place where the funds can be sent to. Our
own part is sending it to you.If you are interested I will furnish
you with more details. But the whole process is simple and we must
keep a low profile at all times.
I look forward to your reply and co-operation, and I thank you in
advance as I anticipate your co-operation.You can reach me on via
email :
Waiting for your urgent response.
Regards,
Sgt. Williams Baker
Now, let's look at the tell-tale signs that this is a scam:
First, the return address on the email is "
" while
the address he tells us we can reach him at is
"
". If you look at "www.ny.com" in your
web browser, you'll see it's a promotional web site for New York City.
If our boy's in Iraq, how the heck is he sending us an email from a
New York City site? Answer, he's not. The address is a fake.
What about the address he wants us to contact him at? It's a site that
offers free email service to anyone. That's pretty common for Nigerian
scammers.
Next, let's look at the grammar in that message to see if there
are any hints that this might not be written by an American or British
soldier. Ever met anyone who said "I hope my email meets you well."? I
haven't. Or "The important thing is that can we trust you?" sure
sounds awkward and broken-English-like. We normally would spell it
"headquarters" not "head quarters". And "your own part" and "our own
part" are phrases not used by anyone I know. Then there's "and you can
reach me on via email" instead of "reach me on email" or "reach me via
email". Clearly the author of this message isn't a native English
speaker. (Note that I am not providing the correct English responses
here as I don't want to help the scammers do a better job. Their poor
mastery of English is to our benefit.)
Then there are certain logical inconsistencies. If this is "oil
money and legal" what possible reason would they have to need help
getting it out of the country, trusting it to someone they've never
met before? There is none. If it's legal, he could take it there
himself and keep 100%. Again, if it's "legal" money, why does he need
to "keep a low profile at all times"? Answer, he doesn't. He's
trying to make you feel like you're smarter than he is by getting you
to think you are seeing through his little scheme and know that this
can't be legal money. If you "bite" on this little scam, he knows
you're either stupid or corruptible, which probably helps him feel a
little better about ripping you off.
I almost forgot to mention this. If you think an email like this might possibly be a scam, Google is your friend. Try searching on "Sgt. Williams Baker" (leave the quotes around it and you'll match on that name exactly). You'll find web pages listing the same message with different addresses, as well as one on "Scamorama.com". That should be more than enough evidence to convince you that something's up. Even more telling is to search on one of the poor English sentences like "I hope my email meets you well." (again with the quotes around it). You'll find a HUGE number of sites listing scam emails using that phrase.
So there you have it... yet another Nigerian scam, this time claiming to
be from Iraq and laundering stolen oil money by a soldier. But we
know better, don't we?
