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Thursday, March 08, 2007

Money transfer scam - Part 1

Every now and then, we read in the papers about people losing thousands of ringgit to internet scams. One of the popular internet scam is the one where a banker requests for assistance is moving out money from a dead customer's account with the promise of a small percentage.

But what actually happens? Well, according to my source, he (I will use HE as a general term but not necessary my source is a male) has recently replied to one such email. In fact, according to him, the email exchanges are still going on.

He has also provided me with some information on this scam which he also suggested that I put on my blog (I guess he didn't realise I have like only 5 regular readers)!

This is how a typical scam email will look like
He had recently received the above email. The content of the email has been reproduced below:
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I MAKE THIS APPEAL WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT ANY FACTS OR OPINION EXPRESSED BY ME ARE GIVING IN CONFIDENCE AND SOLELY FOR YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.I am DR.IBRAHIM HASSAN,the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department Bank of africa burkinafaso.

In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of US$8.5M, (Eight Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his wife and only daughter in a plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight number 261 which crashed on 31 January, 2000. You shall read more about the crash on visiting this website:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/

The Owner of this account is Mr. Morris Thompson an American and great industrialist and a resident of Alaska.It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and for our bank to release the money to you.
You have to follow the instruction which I will be send to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and
subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into our bank treasury as unclaimed bill.

The banking law and guidelines here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after Three years, the money will be transfered into the banktreasury as unclaimed fund. The money has now stayed more than three years and I am preparing documentaion to prove that this money has been
transfered to our bank treasury. It will be between me and you only that will know that the money is not transfered into our treasure.

This request of foreigner as next of kin in this transaction is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabé cannot standas next of kin to a foreigner.In appreciation of your assistance, I am offering you 30% of the total sum. 5% for contingencies (cost of transfer/other charges) likely to be incurred during the course of transaction, while the remaining 65% is for me.

Upon receipt of your reply,i will send to you by fax or email the text of the application which you will complete and forward to our bank asking for this money to be paid to you as the next of kin to Mr;Morris Thomson. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any fear as all required arrangements have
been made for the transfer.You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this mail through the above email.

PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER MY
URGENT REQUEST.

Yours Faithfully,

DR.IBRAHIM HASSAN

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My source went to check the CNN link provided in the email and saw this:

The name matches and CNN just became an accomplice!
My source was curious to know where the email came from, so he checked the email header for additional details. This is what he got:

Using DNSStuff's free service, he was able to find that the IP address belongs to a country called Burkina Faso.

Eh, the scam orignated from Burkina Faso and we are the one with HIGH fraud profile?!
[Oh, this reminds me -- mental note to self: share information about 'Being anonymous on the net']

Anyway, the whole thing is still on-going and my source has promised more details. Stay tuned!

Labels: educateIT

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