Re: FN-FORUM: OT: Your help is desperately needed

date posted 12th February 2008 10:27

On 12/02/2008 11:25, Dom Latter wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 10:46:07 Martin Wheatley wrote:
>
>> Whilst it's not a scam it does look like one, only last night on tv
>
> Not to me.
>
>> there was a show about how the Nigerian scammers work, they spend months
>> building up an image of someone and then suddenly there is an emergency
>
> The 419ers work by exploiting other people's greed and promising them large
> sums of money. Not just asking for it.
>

No this was a different type of scam, it was to do with online dating,
the scammers pretended to be interested in a relationship, they built
this very real seeming relationship up over several months, then
suddenly needed money for some reason, this wasn't a promise of large
amounts of money back, it was a simple case of we need money now for
some urgent matter, such as sick family member or they had just been
mugged and were in a different country.

>> and they need money. Your domain was registered by proxy, and there was
>> no homepage - this shouts scam to most people as there are no obvious
>> contact details with real names or addresses.
>
> The main thing in this case is "have we seen this email address before?" and
> "is it forged?".
>

Yes we have seen it before, it doesn't need to be forged - Steven could
have been building up a trust relationship with us pretending to be
someone, it looks real, that's the whole point, you then dig deeper and
notice discrepancies.

Of course the other thing that could have happened is his domain and
various accounts had been compromised and someone had monitored his
email, decided it was worth the chance and decided to ask for money
after changing the details with paypal so the funds go elsewhere.

Martin