Letter: Request over bequest
Wednesday 7th October 2009, 11:17AM BST.
This letter arrived in the internet editor’s inbox on Monday. After giving the matter at least two seconds of thought and consideration, he has decided not to reply, but he did wonder if any readers had also been chosen or received similar emails.
The letter is reprinted here in its original form without any editing.
Dearest, One
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I contacted you after going through your profile, I prayed over it and selected your name among other names due to its esteeming nature and the recommendations given to me as a reputable and trust worthy person that I can do business with and by the recommendation , I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business ..
I am Peace Koko the only child of late Mr. and Mrs.Richmond Koko. My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant in Abidjan , the economic capital of Ivory coast, my father was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outings on a business trip.
My mother died when I was a baby and since then my father took me so special.
Before the death of my father on october 2008 in a private hospital here in Abidjan he secretly called me on his bed side and told me that he has the sum of four Million five hundred thousand united state dollars ($4.500.000.00 usd ) left in a security company here in Abidjan, that he used my name as the only daughter for his next of kin in depositing the funds. He also explained to me that it was because of this wealth that he was poisoned by his business associates but I suspect his brothers, That I should seek for a foreign partner in a country of my choice where i will transfer this money and use it for investment purpose such as real estate management or hotel management .
Dear, I am honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways: (1) To stand as a guardian of this fund (2) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and to secure a resident permit in your country.Moreover, Dear, i am willing to offer you 15% of the total sum as compensation for your effort/ input after the successful transfer of this fund into your nominated account overseas.
Furthermore, you indicate your options towards assisting me as I believe that this transaction would be concluded within four (4) days you signify interest to assist me. Anticipating to hear from you soon.
Best regards,
Peace Koko
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I have received around 6 similar emails from various people abroad telling stories that have made me wonder if there is any truth in them but after doing a search on the internet have decided that they are all scams.
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These have been going on for years.
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/
You have to be daft to fall for this, also bogus e-mails from banks asking for your account number and pin details. Just don’t
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It’s called a 419 scam.
Check out http://www.419eater.com
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I recieve an average of about 5 of these per day. Somebody must fall for them though else they would not keep sending them out. Very worrying that this might be the case. Time these people were thoroughly sifted out. If you mmention the name “President Obama” on the internet then you will be located faster than you can blink. (Hi American secret service, It,s only me making a point)It should be entirely possible if someone has the will to trace these fraudsters and have them picked up before the do financial harm to people. Anyone who fall for this type of fraud is in need of protection.
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I don’t know why people are so cynical of these emails ;-)
if you’re greedy and want something for nothing you’ll get scammed, the 419 scams have been going for years and while people are greedy they’ll keep going
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I, too have received this email and several others like it.
I find them very amusing and cannot believe anyone could be taken in by such grammatical rubbish. I have been tempted to reply and make the ‘joke’ backfire on them, because at the end of the day, that is exactly what they are, a joke!
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I’ve received several of these at home and at work. They are all obviously scams and that can be confirmed (as if they need to be) by a simple internet search of the sender’s name or the first line of the email. What shocks me is that there are some people daft enough to respond with donations who are then surprised to find themselves out of pocket.
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I find sending them the telephone number for Malingate police station is usually a good deterent!
FYI new scam going round whereby you receive a call from Mastercard, Amex, etc who have all your card details but just ask for the last 3 digits on the back. This is the security code which they then use to defraud your card. Just because someone knows all your card details does not mean they’re from the card company – tell them you’ll call them back – a lot of people are falling for this because the scammer seems to have all your information and people think they really are calling from the card company
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one a week at least, from various obscure African princes. They are as believable as the emails with pictures of leprechauns that promise you good luck if you pass them on to ten friends :o)
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The best thing do with this type of scam is to completely ignore them.Don’t even reply using email,like Suellan Fowler has done.It may seem amusing at the time.By replying to the scam you are giving the scammer your email address which could lead to the scammer hacking into your PC via your email address.
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Following on from John (#10)
As some of you will know, I run an internet service provider business.
We see countless (1000′s ) of “junk emails” every day – and this one is no exception.
Over 85% of email traffic passing through our mail servers is “trapped” by our filtering system before the remainder “gets to you”, and of that 15% remaining, a lot of that is probably Junk also.
So – You can see the scale of the problem !!
SO – with that in mind …PLEASE NOTE:
THERE IS ONLY ONE THING TO DO WITH THESE EMAILS
- and that is
IGNORE THEM !!
DON’T REPLY to THEM !!!
As has already been pointed out, ALL this will do is CONFIRM your email address to those that you would LEAST want to communicate with, (and if you DO REPLY… then look out!)
So – to repeat – IGNORE and BIN them !
Also… Make sure all operating system, antivirus and firewall software is fully upto date.
You cannot be too careful !!
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This is just a variation on the Nigerian scam that has been running for some years.
not worth the time taken to read it.
I always delete after the first sentence, as they all sound pretty much the same.
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Reference ‘john’, reply #10.
How on earth can a spammer hack a PC based on an email?. What a ill informed, ridiculous statement to make. If you can enlighten us further, we would be very interested.
If true, a simple search gives MoD, FBI, government etc email addresses. Do you really believe it yourself?
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There was a TV article I saw recently about the electronic items we dispose of at our local recycling centres. It seems many of them are bought up and shipped out to a huge tip in Nigeria where they are picked over for spares and repairs. There are many PCs with the hard drives intact. Even when a hard drive appears to have been wiped, it can still be read, the only sure way to keep the details it contained confidential is to take it out and smash it with a hammer. The stuff going over to Nigeria has provided a goldmine of information for scammers, hence all the “out of the blue” e mails. I delete everything that comes my way unexpectedly without opening it and if you don’t respond, the sender will never know if you received it and your address is still valid.
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Why are you so cynical? I replyed to one and its real. All they needed was £1,000 and I stood to gain £500,000. Obviously there have been some legal complications and I have now sent them £14,000 but in return I now stand to get £2m!
When I’m a millionaire we will see whos laughing then!
Has no-one read the words of Jesus when he tells us of the good samantha who loves her neighbour?
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Hi Mike S.
In defence of John, I think what he actually meant is that:
what is at risk here is not hacking via your email adress “directly”, but by “junk” emails successfully sent (and opened) to a hitherto “confirmed” email address that contain viruses and other forms of illicit software, particularly a “trojan horse” **
The point here is this:
If you are careless, (or daft enough) to respond to one of these types of emails, then it is very likely “you” will go on to open an email containing viruses or trojan horses.
As such therefore, the statement:
“hacking a PC via an email” is broadly “true” !!
The organisations you refer to such as mod, fbi, .gov addresses etc I’m sure are more than fully protected against such an incident, even if you tried to send a rogue email to them
(I wouldn;t try it though – it’s not difficult to trace where it came from!)
Definition:
** trojan horse:
A Trojan horse, or trojan for short, is a term used to describe malware that appears, to the user, to perform a desirable function but, in fact, facilitates unauthorized access to the user’s computer system. The term comes from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology. Trojan horses are not self-replicating which distinguishes them from viruses and worms
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I don’t ever get these viruses, worms or trojan horses etc
I understand that its because I don’t visit the extreme porn sites that some of you guys do?
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Re detection of sender of email – question:
If you have a mobile thingy plugged in your laptop with a Pay-as-you-go service, provided your purchase is untraceable, then surely all they can do is detect your general location from mobile signals?
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Lucy – (# 18)
Oh -if only life were that simple!
Whether you are on pay as you go, using a 3G USB dongle, of broadband, it matters not!
Your computer, whilst connected to the internet, is uniquely defined.
It HAS to be… viz:
Think about it Lucy – ask yourself a simple question:
WHEN you are surfing the net, HOW does the distant webserver, or email server know where to send the data so it ONLY gets to you and no one else?
How does “each packet of data” flowing along the internet global highway destined “JUST for YOU”, along with all the other millions of packets of data, know where “you” are ?
You see Lucy – the internet works just like the road network – look over the bridge over motorway and look at all the traffic flowing below, and imagine each vehicle is a “piece” (or “packet” in internet terms)of data going somewhere – and then ask your self -how does each vehicle know where to go?
- Well the answer is obvious -the “driver” knows his “end destination” – and the internet works in precisely the same way!!
SO – you can see that it is possible to dissect a piece of data (packet) – and see where it’s going – and that can be traced right to YOU!
Scary ins’t it !!
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Guys,
They send to my work address which is controlled by Germany which believe me has a security system that makes the FBI look tame – they can get the emails through but in 10 years no-one’s ever hacked through this system yet – not even the global viruses that pop up from time to time! I’ve tried spamming the addresses but they do send them from a different address everytime
I’m not a complete idiot!
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The sob story given in the letter is very similar to one I heard given by a contestant on the X Factor show recently.(Joke) However,as unconvincing as they sound it always surprises me to read on a regular basis in the newspapers how many people,some quite educated,fall for these cons for that’s all they are.
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