sorinmustaca.com – Sorin Mustaca – personal blog. Security software, agile development, scrum, programming and more

Nigerian scams are modernizing

12.10.2010 (11:12 am) – Filed under: Spam & Phishing

I sometimes laugh of these scammers, but sometimes I am quit amazed of their capability to adapt to the spam filters.
My Google account caught this spam:

New nigerian scam

In text, this is :

Good Day,

I am Mr. Ming Yang,Director of operations of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd,Sai Wan Ho Branch,Hong Kong.I am here-by seeking your service in helping me receive a large amount of money and in giving a clear research and feasibility studies on areas I could invest on.Your services will be paid for,and you will be a partner,if your recommendation is accepted.

For security purpose,due to telecoms interception in Hong Kong,I shall not accept or acknowledge any phone call.Only emails would be treated in relation to this proposal but not without this code;[CODE NO:AM-001].My contact:ming_y047@yahoo.com.hk
Kind Regards

What’s wrong here ?

  • There is no amount of millions of dollars/Yen/EUR or something else.
    There is no story whatsoever
    No conditions
    They even require that you don’t contact them by phone

    • Cool, but not good enough to escape the spam filters.

    New article: Nigerian scams are indeed getting smarter

    20.07.2009 (4:13 pm) – Filed under: News,Spam & Phishing

    Nigerian scams are indeed getting smarter

    Nigerian scam with MS Word Document attached

    17.10.2008 (9:06 pm) – Filed under: General

    There is a new type of Nigerian scam (aka 419 scam) where the body of the email looks like the one in the screen shot below and the real content is in the attached MS Word document.

    Here is the content of the Word document:

    Why this ?
    Because it is very hard to detect it using known words used by the classic nigerian scams.

    A new type of Nigerian scam ?

    07.10.2008 (9:02 pm) – Filed under: Spam & Phishing

    Usually we are used to see long emails when we talk about Nigerian Scams.
    But, this one is one line long.
    See the image.

    Nigerian Scam on one line

    Nigerian Scam on one line

    German SMS spam or phishing or Nigerian scam ?

    04.05.2007 (12:23 pm) – Filed under: General,Spam & Phishing

    I am trying to sell my car and I posted it on Autoscout24.de.
    90% of the telephone calls I received were from handlers, all of them not germans.
    About half were turks and the rest maybe russians and chechs/slovacs.

    However, I received also 2 emails and two SMS messages.

    The emails were in English and they were as follows:

    Email 1:

  • Hello Dear Sir/Madam!
    I intresting to buy Your car Audi A4. My price is 2500EUR and I taket right now.
    Name: Mindaugas
    E-Mail: poskaminde@gmail.com
    Telefon: +37061765476

    Email 2:
    Hello, Kindly quickly get back to me with the last price, if is still for sale.. paulpeter004@yahoo.com Best regards. Paul
    Name: Paul
    E-Mail: paulpeter004@yahoo.com
    Telefon: nill

    • I replied to both emails and I received a reply from the second email:

  • Thanks for your mail,i do want you to know that am ok with the price but
    am from U.K and the payment will be by cheque ONLY,as i have a contact
    in europe who will make payment to you on my behalf by cheque drawn from
    europe bank so if you are ok with this,get back to me asap with your
    details needed for the addression of the cheque such as below:

    Name to be on the cheque:
    Address where cheque will be received by you:
    Phone Number’s such as Mobile,Land line and Office Number:

    As regards the shippment,i have a responsible shipping agent that will
    come for pick up as soon as you received your money and confirm this to
    me,i will ask my shipper to come for the pick up asap..

    Best regards.
    Paul

    • That’s a pretty clear 419 scam :)

    Now, the SMSs :)
    1. I replied to one of them and the guy replied back. Seems to be ok to me. I will call him later to check ;)
    2. The second SMS, received today, is very interesting:
    From: +20105996500
    Autoscout23
    Interessent möchte Ihnen ein Angebot geben. Mehr Daten werden benötigt.
    Tel: 018057777927(12c min)
    von 11-14 u. 16-18 Uhr.

    Well.. let’s comment a little on this :)
    The telephone number from which the SMS comes I think is irrelevant. It might any free or very cheap service on the web.

    The message:
    First of all, there is no Autoscout23, only Autoscout24.de .. but maybe it is just a typo.
    Second, the German in which the SMS is written … is not really correct. :)
    But, I am not an expert … ;)
    Anyway, it says:
    “Prospective customer would like to give you an offer. More data are needed. ”
    This text is translated with Google’s translation tools. :)

    Now, how come that I (the seller) needs to call to a special fee number and only between those hours ?
    For those who don’t know, these are the minimal business hours in Germany.
    Usually it is between 9-18 (1h lunch break). This guy is starting to work from 11h until 14, takes 2 h pause and them ends the
    work at 18h.
    Damn, I want to work like this myself :)

    I will not answer to this SMS nor I will call ;)
    Maybe I will inform those from autoscout24.de about this “offer”.