July 2, 2008

Spam fraud names

I can't avoid looking at the names that third world spamsters come up with trying to sound honest to rich stupid Americans:

My Dear Trusted Friend,

I am Mr Carl Marx, Head of Files/Records Department in the African Development Bank, Cotonou, Benin Republic in West Africa. Going through the files and records in my department I observed an abandoned sum of 12.500.000.00 (Twelve million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) belonging to a German business magnate and property consultant, Late Andreas Schranner.

Carl Marx? Where have I heard that name before? Sure, you can have my credit card number. With a name like that, what could possibly go wrong economically?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

By Steve Sailer on 7/02/2008 Labels: ,

25 comments:

Unknown said...

I get these blasted emails from African wannabe con artists all the time. Wish I had a dollar for all the ones I've deleted. I don't know who they think they're fooling. It really says something about the intelligence and desperation of the people of that continent that they actually attempt such things.

7/2/08, 9:25 PM
PRCalDude said...

If they have the wherewithal to use an internet browser and concoct these stories, surely they have the IQ to get themselves out of dollar a day poverty.

7/2/08, 9:50 PM
Anonymous said...

these things work. americans can be quite stupid/gullible, probably more trusting than most other societies. I am sure Steve has and can explain.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/nigerian_email_scams/index.html

7/2/08, 9:53 PM
Anonymous said...

I get a lot of pretty pathetic spam. P*nis enlargement, "Russian women want to meet you", "winning notifications" for overseas lotteries, "your rich relative died in Nigeria", and emails with ridiculous misspellings, pidgin English, and nonsense subject lines.
I mean, who the hell falls for that stuff? How can it be profitable?
I think maybe it is profitable; it's pretty cheap to rent a botnet and send a couple million emails; one or two responses (credit card/bank account numbers) mean a profit.

7/2/08, 10:02 PM
Anonymous said...

H:
It really says something about the intelligence and desperation of the people of that continent that they actually attempt such things.

Sorry to tell you, but it really says something about people in general, because people fall for this garbage. PLENTY of people fall for it, even now. A sucker born every minute? More like every second.

7/2/08, 10:14 PM
Anonymous said...

h,
Hey, they can write EMails. Maybe they consider that in itself an achievement. Its all part of that "African Rennaissance" which the South Africa prez. Mbeki keeps talking about, inbetween propping up his brother-in-law (its actually true!), Mugabe, who has just been taken to court by one of his countrymen for the murder of 100000+ and forced displacement of 1.6 mio. citizens. Thats not counting the mayhem his forces caused in the Congo where about 4 mio. people died in the last decade. Of course you wont hear this on CNN because it may embarrass Barry O.

Mind you, apparently even some old folks and a few women here in Germany still cannot write EMails. Even art students and dancers are writing EMails nowadays. How's that for progress!

7/3/08, 12:19 AM
Anonymous said...

I don't see why this particular scam is a problem. The pitch is the scammer will pay you a large fee to use your bank account to illegally move money out of their country. It may be bribes they have got from contractors, or embezzled revenues, or the secret funds of some overthrown kleptocrat. If you agree to take part, you are a crook. I was amazed at the first case I heard of; a rich British woman lent her bank account to such a money-smuggling transaction, and when it was cleaned out she went to the police. Instead of investigating what other illegal transactions she'd been involved in, they tried to help her.

7/3/08, 12:58 AM
Anonymous said...

I got one from Mr Carl Marx recently as well. It gave me quite a laugh, which is more than I can say for most spam.

7/3/08, 6:00 AM
Unknown said...

Now tell us Steve - why has Hollywood not caught on to the rich comic possibilities of this?

I wonder.

Seriously, Hollywood liberalizm has deprived a generation of terrific black actors what every actor drools for: the opportunity to be a villain, or a clown.

7/3/08, 6:43 AM
Anonymous said...

Isn't Raila Odinga's son named Fidel Castro?

I guess that would make Obama a tribal relative of Castro.

There are some great names in Africa.

7/3/08, 7:25 AM
m said...

Actually this worked out well for me. The recently deposed dictator of Swazililand in North-central Africa needed to escape the country quickly but couldn't get access to his Swiss bank accounts. Well, I gave him a few grand to help with his exodus and he has now promised to pay me back the money x 10. So for the measly $3,000 I gave him- he is paying me back $30,000...now you tell me who's the fool. Don't know what I'm going to do with all that money coming in....which should be any day now.

7/3/08, 8:24 AM
albertosaurus said...

I applaud such efforts.

There is a comercial that plays endlessly on TV where a young man dressed up as a pirate explains in song that his identity was stolen and now he has been reduced to restaurant work.

Good.

I am offended when a smart person has a menial job. Better that this singing boob serves the chowder.

If you are dumb enough to send your money to Carl Marx, that's fine with me. You have earned your poverty.

Evolution in action.

7/3/08, 9:34 AM
Anonymous said...

Just think how much more creative they could get if Barry's elected president: "I am Mbutu Obama, the half-brother of your President. I am trying to return to him his share of our late father's diamond fortune and need an American intermediary. If you would be so kind as to front payment for the safe shipment of the diamonds to the US, I will promise you 5% of the fortune, which will amount to over 200 million US dollars." There's undoubtedly a whole slice of Africans praying for a President Barry in order to somehow catch a ride on his gravy train.

7/3/08, 9:49 AM
Anonymous said...

Maybe its the Bono effect. People are inspired by Bono,so they want to help the poor African. They also want to live like Bono,but since they cant sing,they figure they can get easy money by stealing it!

7/3/08, 9:50 AM
Anonymous said...

a friend of mine just got this one:

Dear Winner,
Hereby, you will find a copy of American Dv2008 green card lottery winning notification letter attached to this official email.

Cheers,
Mr. John Birch
US Dv. Visa Lottery Coordinator

7/3/08, 11:51 AM
Anonymous said...

Steve, it sounds like a sure thing. I'm in!

7/3/08, 11:59 AM
Anonymous said...

John of London is terribly naive.


John of London wrote:

" don't see why this particular scam is a problem. The pitch is the scammer will pay you a large fee to use your bank account to illegally move money out of their country. It may be bribes they have got from contractors, or embezzled revenues, or the secret funds of some overthrown kleptocrat. If you agree to take part, you are a crook. I was amazed at the first case I heard of; a rich British woman lent her bank account to such a money-smuggling transaction, and when it was cleaned out she went to the police. Instead of investigating what other illegal transactions she'd been involved in, they tried to help her."



No John, they want you bank account (and probably social security number also) because they intend to empty it for you. Dont ever give your bank account number to anyone. Good grief!!!!!!!!!!

7/3/08, 1:28 PM
Anonymous said...

These African fraud emails have been going out since 2001 or 2002 at least. You would think they would have stopped working after about 6 months or so, but it seems that people still fall for them.
The latest trend in spam is messages saying "What a stupid face you have" or "You look so stupid in this photo."

7/3/08, 2:10 PM
Anonymous said...

"These African fraud emails have been going out since 2001 or 2002 at least. You would think they would have stopped working after about 6 months or so, but it seems that people still fall for them."

It would be interesting to see some statistics on this. Who knows, maybe it HAS stopped working and the only scam now going on is Nigerian con artists selling spamming software to gullible Nigerian would-be con artists.

7/3/08, 3:48 PM
Anonymous said...

I've received two emails offers in the last week from a Mr.Wong Shiu ki, an "account officer with Bank Sinopac, Taipei , Taiwan", "requesting for your partnership in re-profiling fund". Mr. Wong assures me the deal is 100% risk free, all I have to do is send my email to him.

Since he's Taiwanese, maybe the deal is legit?

7/3/08, 7:58 PM
Anonymous said...

maybe it HAS stopped working

Sure, God knows the old Ponzi scheme hasn't got any life left in it. And multi-level marketing is a thing of the past; it's been around so long, everyone's wise to it!

On a totally unrelated note, would anyone here like to hear about an exciting opportunity to make thousands of dollars per week from home?

7/4/08, 4:56 AM
Anonymous said...

Has anyone been here? This is really funny
http://www.419eater.com/

Go through them they are worth it
http://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm

7/4/08, 8:13 PM
Anonymous said...

"Sure, God knows the old Ponzi scheme hasn't got any life left in it. And multi-level marketing is a thing of the past; it's been around so long, everyone's wise to it!"

*sigh*

Note to self: Never make facetious comments on this blog.

7/5/08, 2:28 PM
Anonymous said...

If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality, does that mean a white nationalist is a multiculturalist who's been mugged by a scheming African?

7/6/08, 9:14 PM
Anonymous said...

Since he's Taiwanese, maybe the deal is legit?

Slightly off-topic, but of the perhaps 100 deals I've done on eBay, the only two that have gone bad were with Asians. (Maybe only one of the other deals was with an Asian). I generally don't have much bad to say about Asians, but I won't do business on eBay with them.

Anyone else here have this problem?

7/6/08, 9:19 PM

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