Obviously people still are still unaware otherwise the scammer would think up a newer trick, wouldn't he?

It is sad, but unfortunately this low life do survive in this enlightened age!

Yes I did, by text, and it was a horrible scam which meant that all of her contacts had received the same emails.

When it comes to Nigerian scammers, 3K's are even better.

Scam of the day sent as an email:


I am sorry I had to contact you like this, I traveled to Edinburgh, United Kingdom. I lost my bag to some petty thieves. the bag contained my passport and credit cards.I only need to settle ticket bills and hotel changes. Unluckily for me, I can't make financial transactions without my credit card; already spoke to my bank but may need some time to produce another one. just thought that I could ask you to borrow me some money that I will instantly return on my arrival. I apparently must catch the next flight. I need about 1500 Dollars to cover my expenses. I'll refund all on my arrival. If you can send the money by Western Union that will be very good because it's the best option I have, I was given a temporary passport at the Embassy, so there will not be a problem if you have the money sent through the Western Union and in 20 minutes I will receive it here. It is more convenient for me and I'm sorry any inconvenience this may cause. I can send you the details on how to go about.
I look forward to your response.

Cécile Meier

__________________
Faith isn't about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

While you are at it Oly.....please send me $1500 too.

I am stock at the hair transplant clinic and they don't exept Coop card.

Have a look at websites like http://scamwarners.com

Scamming is increasing, and it's largely a very lucrative endevour with no consequence. There are many types of scam - lottery scams are 1 type amongst many, and some are combined at times - romance scam followed by recovery scam for eg.

It's better to post from an informed position on stuff like this, when it comes to advising on the extent of the problem - many people fall for scammers, which is why awareness, and continued education as the scams diversify are so important.

The number of successful scams is growing at an exponential rate.

When I was working in the USA only 5 years ago we had a check sent to a supplier stolen from the mail. The thieves "washed" the details and made hundreds of copies and filled in the details for $500 and sent them to lottery winners all over the USA. Informing people they had won a Perth (Western Australian lottery) for $100,000. This check was a processing fee, they needed to post it to their bank account, and immediately send an equivalent check for $500 to the "Lottery office" who would then process the claim for the prize.

Now the clues should have been, did you buy a ticket in a lottery in Western Australia? The check is from a company who if I google is a privately held German organization.

Still we had a run of bounced checks on our account. Basically we had security with Bank of America where the check number, payee, amount needed to match a file we maintiained with them, when it didn`t the check should be immediately bounced.

This scam cost us nothing because the banks didn`t follow protocol, but I know many people sent legitimate checks. We estimate the scammers easily made in the hundreds of thousands and it was so lucrative they did it again 6 months later.

We were getting 10 - 15 complaint calls a day. Even had a secretary from a Congressmen`s office call as they had complaints about us!

Common sense isn`t all that common.

Problem is that many people want to believe they have been lucky & turn off their scam detector.
I know a number of people who invested thousands to become Herballife resellers but never recovered their initial investment. I suppose there are many people who are/were successful & made money but not in my circle of friends.

Scammers get more and more inventive - that's another issue. Continued preventive education is really important.

I think some personality types are drawn to being victims of scams - the mods I know on scam sites say some people contact them over and over with variations on the same scam, each time believing the next example might be real, and they'll be vindicated for giving so much time/money.

Others are unlucky. Some find it impossible to comprehend that someone on the internet might not be who they say they are, could be a bot, or could be many people using 1 ID.

We're all increasingly vulnerable, as more of our financial/professional/personal dealings are handled over the net.

Old thread, but hey it's Friday so who cares.

Besides, I've just won $3,816,900 on the Spanish Sweepstake Lottery International Program.

Of course why a Spanish lottery would be in US dollars as opposed to Euros is anyone's guess. Not to mention also spelling program the US way.

Been a while since I've seen a Spanish one of these, usually it's Portuguese.

That all? There must be billions laying around on my account by now. Not to mention all those who donated me large lumps of their lottery wins.
Actually, as I got about 10000 times of what I can possibly spend (even if I follow every whim and order immediately ) I was looking for a way to block them all, as neither my spam-sytem nor the one of hostpoint seems to be able to identify them before I read them.

But the really, really heart-warming donations come from Warren Buffett and his wife. So sweet of them to think of me on regular basis.

__________________
It's all a matter or perspective.
So move your butt and look at it from the other side

This is a good, old fashioned letter. And if I want I can participate in their next high stake USD 1.3 billion international lottery promotion. Ain't that nice of them.

I dread the day when my stepmom gets a cellphone, or a tablet, at the moment she is totally on a 1980ties level of techlology, it´s a good thing she is a bit of a racist and would not want any dealings from some Nigierian prince.

If she's on 1980's level of technology she won't be getting either. Same as me.

I'm getting around one scam phone call a day. They use the right name for me, and it often takes considerable effort to establish they don't have legitimate business with me. I think they're in the business of getting victims to switch health insurance providers. The last few times, I've tried to nail down some kind of legal identity or location. They said they were called "SBO" or "ESBO", for which I couldn't find any likely company name matches, but they hung up when I tried getting their geographic location.

Why that? I mean, why do you choose to participate?

On my phones, these ad/spam calls come in waves. About once or twice a year maximum, over a period of a two or three weeks maximum, I get dozens of calls. This is what I do then:

1. As soon as I hear that far-away "Hello," and the crackles, or a 500-words-a-second schpiel read by a bored call-centre voice, I just say: "No," and hang up immediately. I never enter into anything they're saying.
2. Depending on the phone I'm using, I either block that number permanently or save it and set it to have "silent" as the ring-tone.

With this uncompromising tactic, the wave dies out completely after a few weeks. Thereafter, I get no advertising or spam calls of any kind, at least until the next wave starts.

I reckon with the very, very small likelihood that I might, in this way, miss a call from someone who really does needs to speak to me, personally, for matters which do concern me. I'm sure, however, that those folk will find other channels of communication to reach me.

The real Swisslos has a prize of 4000CHF an month for 20 years. Sort of puts one under stress to live to the next payment. Swisslos are as bad as the scammers.

Oh tell me about it

When I told my mom "Not everything on the internet is true", her response was "Why would someone lie on the internet".

I also got a lovely e mail today

"Hallo

Dies ist eine Lebenschance und es ist zu 100% legitim. Wir sind Patrick und Frances Connolly der nationale Lottogewinner 2019 Grobbritannien (UK). Meine Frau und ich haben beschlossen, einen Teil unseres gewonnenen Preises an vier (4) gluckliche Empfanger zu verschenken, um den Lebensstandard der weniger Privilegien zu verbessern, Frauen und Kinder, die wirklich Unterstutzung brauchen.

Wenn Sie Interesse haben, kontaktieren Sie mich bitte uber meine E-Mail (patconnolly689@outlook.com) mit Ihrem vollstandigen Namen, Alter und Land.

Bitte schauen Sie sich meine Gewinnseite unten an;

://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=en&u=https://www.bbc.co.uk

Bleiben Sie Bless,
Patrick und Frances Connolly"

Ok, maybe I shouldn´t be saying this, but somehow I admire the scammers. I mean they make it sound so easy to part the gullible from their money and as the saying goes: "There is one born every minute!" I am wondering if there is a scammers university I can enroll in? Perhaps get a masters in 419´s.