A friend who runs an online store told me on WLM (Windows Live Messenger) recently that some scammers were trying to pull a fast one on her. Here’s the chronology of events:
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June 1, 2008 (Sunday) 2318hrs
Friend received an email from an Andrew Goodluck (they can’t even be bothered to be more creative than that!) from the Benin Republic using the email account and_goodluck@yahoo.com requesting the price for 50 copies of the Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers, Fourteenth Edition (ISBN 0071441468 / 9780071441468) -
June 1, 2008 (Sunday) 2331hrs
Already suspicious of the origins of the email, friend replied with a request for the shipment address before she would provide the cost information. It is reasonable since you might want to include shipping charges in the official quote as the buyer may still be genuine. -
June 2, 2008 (Monday) 2039hrs
The scammers replied, informing myfriend that they wanted the Fifteenth Edition instead, with the following address information:
ABLS Limited
Attn Kenneth Ejike
Siege Cimetiere Habitat
Face Station Akpakpa
Route De Porteo-Novo.
Cotonue,
Benin Republic.
Western AfricaIs it not already obvious by now this might be just some kind of the Nigerian Scam?
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June 3, 2008 (Tuesday) 1243hrs
Either my friend is bored and she is looking for some comedy, or she is still hoping that this is a genuine customer. She gave him a proper quotation, roughly about $8000 in total, and asks for ‘Andrew’ to TT (telegraphic transfer) the amount to her before she delivers them. -
June 4,
19892008 (Wednesday) 2011hrs
The scammers replied (I quote, without correcting the grammar and spelling mistakes!):Thanks for your load down information. But I want to let you know that we have lost so much to online sellers, who request for payment upfrontly just like you did and when payment is received they withhold the goods and money. For this reason, we have resolve to always bring in our bank while trying to purchase on the internet. I will advice you contact my bank through email address: barcleys_wire.trans@account.com we bank with barclays bank.London. I have also forward this transaction to them, hopefully they will contact you before tommorrow runs out.
muc regard
Andrew GoodluckDamn. Do they think we are really stupid? And why would Barclays not use an email from their own domain name? Not to mention the obvious mistake of spelling their own company name wrong? For goodness sake, my friend who works in OCBC Security gets an ocbcsec.com email address, and Barclays Premier League is not some obscure thing from the planet Sirius Secundus!
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June 4, 2008 (Wednesday) 2052hrs
Now my friend is really amused, and so she decided to disturb them by replying them with a fake address she created on her own on the .biz domain. And we thought the story will end here! Just how wrong we are!!
It was to her immense amusement when she received this email (see below)!
Man, they really try so hard to make it look authentic. So hard that unless you aren’t net savvy (or you are exceptionally stupid or desperate for business), you will have figured out that it’s a fake right away.
To think of it, from Andrew Goodluck, to barcleys, and finally barclary, it would seem to me that they were all along leaving hints to you: We are scammers, Don’t fall for it!
Either way, no one wanted to risk it by providing account information. For all we know the account might just end up plundered. We both just had a freaking good laugh looking at it and agreed to share this with everybody so they can have a good laugh too.
