Trifecta of email scams sent to me today

Hello,

FedEx wishes you to confirm Package of $750,000.00 (Seven Hundred and Fifty Usd) from the CNN TV Online Lottery as registered with us in your name, for shipping to your residence. Do respond to dispatch with a confirmation of your address. Contact the dispatch

director:

Mr. Jim Coker

Email- fedexjimofficer@gmail.com

Tel: +27- 616-911-747

Note that the cost of delivery is $210 (one Hundred dollars)

your registration code of ( Shipment Code: awb-33xzs). please Contact with your information such as, Your Name, Your Address and Your Telephone Number:

Thank You For Your Time,

Carl Walters

Branch Manager.

Fedex Team Department

If there was such thing as a “CNN TV Online Lottery” don’t you think they would deliver the money to my door like Publishers Clearing House?  Or, maybe even require that I enter the lottery?  Or, use an email address from either CNN or FedEx?  Or, even use a FedEx tracking number rather than some “shipment code”?

Dear Friend,

I am Mr.Alim Mohammad, The head of file department of Bank of Africa (B.O.A) here in Burkina Faso / Ouagadougou. In my department we discover an abandoned sum of (US$18million US Dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his family in plane crash.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for the safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it. I agree that 40% of this money will be for you, while 60% would be for me. Then after the money is been transferred into your account, I will visit your country for an investment under your kind control.

You have to contact my Bank directly as the real next of kin of this deceased account with next of kin application form. You have to send me those your information below to enable me use it and get you next of kin  application form from bank, so that you will contact Bank for the transfer of this money into your account.

Your Full Name………………….

Your Home Address…………..

Your Age………………………..

Your Handset Number………..

Your Occupation……………….

I am waiting for your urgent respond to enable us proceed further for the transfer.

Contact me through my private email address: allim.moha1@gmail.com

Yours faithfully,

Mr.Alim Mohammad.

Friend?  I don’t know anyone named Alim.  Any opportunity from Africa by email is 100% guaranteed to be a scam.  While I am no expert on African banking law, I suspect there are some laws there that would give the money over to the government as opposed to someone from the US that has no proof of being the next of kin.  How many people in the US actually have a relative with $18M?  I certainly don’t.  I suspect you could add the net worth every relative in my family history for a couple generations and not total up $18M.  People with $18M disposable keep it in the Caymans or Cook Islands, not some bank in Africa that is subject to the winds of political change.  Once again, bank employees don’t use gmail accounts to transact business.

Greetings My Dear Friend,

Before I introduce myself, I wish to inform you that this letter is not a hoax mail and I urgent you to treat it serious. This letter must come to you as a big surprise, but I believe it is only a day that people meet and become great friends and business partners.

Please I want you to read this letter very carefully and I must apologize for barging this message into your mail box without any formal introduction due to the urgency and confidentiality of this business and I know that this message will come to you as a surprise. Please this is not a joke and I will not like you to joke with it ok, with due respect to your person and much sincerity of purpose, I make this contact with you as I believe that you can be of great assistance to me. My name is Mr.Alim Mohammed, from Burkina Faso, West Africa.

I work in African Development Bank (ADB) as telex manager, please see this as a confidential message and do not reveal it to another person and let me know whether you can be of assistance regarding my proposal below because it is top secret. I am about to retire from active Banking service to start a new life but I am skeptical to reveal this particular secret to a stranger.

You must assure me that everything will be handled confidentially because we are not going to suffer again in life. It has been 10 years now that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers. Most of the funds which they transferred out of the shores of Africa were gold and oil money that was supposed to have been used to develop the continent. Their Political advisers always inflated the amounts before transferring to foreign accounts, so I also used the opportunity to divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers were being closed after transfer.

I acted as the Bank Officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they were using me to succeed in their greedy act; I also cleaned some of their banking records from the Bank files and no one cared to ask me because the money was too much for them to control. They laundered over $5billion Dollars during the process.

Before I send this message to you, I have already diverted ($17.4million Dollars) to an escrow account belonging to no one in the bank. The bank is anxious now to know who the beneficiary to the funds is because they have made a lot of profits with the funds. It is more than Eight years now and most of the politicians are no longer using our bank to transfer funds overseas. The ($17.4million Dollars) has been laying waste in our bank and I don’t want to retire from the bank without transferring the funds to a foreign account to enable me share the proceeds with the receiver (a foreigner). The money will be shared 60% for me and 40% for you. There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I secured everything.

I only want you to assist me by providing a reliable bank account where the funds can be transferred. You are not to face any difficulties or legal implications as I am going to handle the transfer personally. If you are capable of receiving the funds, do let me know immediately to enable me give you a detailed information on what to do. For me, I have not stolen the money from anyone because the other people that took the whole money did not face any problems. This is my chance to grab my own life opportunity but you must keep the details of the funds secret to avoid any leakages as no one in the bank knows about the my plans.

Please get back to me if you are interested and capable to handle this project, I shall intimate you on what to do when I hear from your confirmation and acceptance. If you are capable of being my trusted associate, do declare your consent to me.

I am looking forward to hear from you immediately for further information.

Thanks with my best regards.

Mr. Alim Mohammed

Telex Manager

African Development Bank (ADB)

Burkina Faso.

I feel so much better with his assurance that it isn’t a hoax.  Does it seem odd that in most every one of these email scams they have millions in an account that they created, but need your account info to transfer the money somewhere?  If created an account that now has $17.6M in it and you want to transfer it, just go open another account.

These scams prey upon the greed and to a lesser degree, stupidity of the recipients.  Most people hit the delete button without given them a second glance.  What the scammers bank on is the one person that sends them some money.  In poverty stricken Africa, it doesn’t take many US dollars for someone to live very nice for a long time.