How to get rich quick....or not! Scams and more...: April 2010

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Evelyn Dreamer

FROM: MRS. EVELYN Dirma
Johannesburg, South Africa.

(Investment Proposal)

Dear Sir/Madam
I am Mrs. Evelyn Dirma, wife of late Engineer Abraham Michael Dirma, of Bulawayo-Zimbabwe. I am now residing in South Africa as Asylum seeker (Refugee). In April 2007; my late husband’s was among the few blacks that were opposed to the arbitrary rule of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. At mist of this crisis, he lost his life with his foreign partner, Mr. H.F. Panos.

I have contacted you to assist in transferring most especially, the money left behind by my husband and his foreign partner which was deposited in a trunk box as a family treasure before it gets confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Security and finance company here in South Africa.

Particularly, the security Company where this account valued at about USD$18,000,000 (Eighteen million United States Dollars) has issued me a notice to come and claim the consignment, or have it confiscated.

I seek your consent to present you as my late husband’s foreign business partner next of kin since you are a foreigner from outside South Africa and also because of my present status (Refugee) we are restricted from applying for a job or doing business here in South Africa. The proceeds of this account valued at USD$18, 000,000 million Dollars can be paid to you, and then we can share the amount on a mutual agreed percentage. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us transfer this money into your account. Please do send to me your direct number and full personal details for easier communication and onwrd transfer of this fund to your account.

May God bless you.

I wait for your quick response.

Regards,

Mrs. Evelyn Dirma

What is advance-fee fraud?

According to Wikipedia advance-fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain. Among the variations on this type of scam, are the Nigerian Letter (also called the 419 fraud, Nigerian scam, Nigerian bank scam, or Nigerian money offer, the Spanish Prisoner, the Black money scam as well as Russian/Ukrainian scam (also extremely widespread, though far less popular than the former). Both the so-called Russian and Nigerian scams stand for wholly dissimilar organised crime traditions, they therefore tend to use altogether different breeds of approaches.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Advance-fee fraud
The 419 scam originated in the early 1980s as the oil-based Nigerian economy declined. Several unemployed university students first used this scam as a means of manipulating business visitors interested in shady deals in the Nigerian oil sector before targeting businessmen in the west, and later the wider population. Scammers in the early-to-mid 1990s targeted companies, sending scam messages via letter, fax, or Telex. The spread of email and easy access to email-harvesting software made the cost of sending scam letters through the Internet low. In the 2000s, the 419 scam has spurred imitations from other locations in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, and, more recently, from North America, Western Europe (mainly UK), and Australia.
The number "419" refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code (part of Chapter 38: "Obtaining Property by false pretences; Cheating") dealing with fraud. The American Dialect Society has traced the term "419 fraud" back to 1992.
The advance-fee fraud is similar to a much older scam known as the Spanish Prisoner scam in which the trickster would tell the scam victim that a (fictitious) rich prisoner had promised to share (non-existent) treasure with the victim if the latter would send money to bribe the prison guards.
Insa Nolte, a lecturer of University of Birmingham's African Studies Department, stated that "The availability of e-mail helped to transform a local form of fraud into one of Nigeria's most important export industries."