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Spam through TR peer contact

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37 replies

by oz_media

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

The following SPAM message was received today via TR's Peer Message's.

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 04:50:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: julietadams101@yahoo.co.uk
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ]
To: ozmedia@excite.com
Subject: Message from a TechRepublic Member

One of your fellow TechRepublic members has sent you a private message:

From: julietadams101@...
Subject: From Juliet Adams.
Message:
From Juliet Adams.
julietadams101@yahoo.co.uk
julietadams101@mynet.com

ATT:Sir/Madam,

I know my message will come to you as a surprise,first of all, I will like to say Compliment of the season to you, I am Miss Juliet and my brother John Adams we are writing to you from ABIDJAN-IVOIRY COAST WEST AFRICA .I hope you will Permit us to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you.I beleive that you will be a trustworthy person that i can do business with and I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business.

Our father Mr Kingsley Adams was a very wealthy DIAMOND DEALER, the economic capital of SIERRE LOANE,He was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outings on a business trip. Our mother died when we were small and since then my father took me so special. Before the death of our father on october 2004 in a private hospital here in ABIDJAN-IVOIRY COAST, he secretly called me by his bed side and told me that he has the sum of Twelve million ,three hundred thousand United State Dollars.USD ($12.300,000) deposited in one of the SECURITY COMPANIES and that he used my name as his first daugther for the next of Kin in depositing of the fund .Although according to him the security company do not know the actual contents of the box for he deposited it as a family treasure. He also explained to me that it was because of this that he was poisoned by his business associates.That I
we should seek for a Foreign partner in a country of my choice who will help me retrieve the obx from the company and then transfer this money and use it for investment purposes.

Sir, we are honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways:

1)To please come and help us retreve the box from the security company and to provide a bank account into which this money would be transferred to.

2) To serve as a guardian of this fund since I am only 18years old while my brother is just 16 years old.

3)To make a feasibility study and recommend some worthwhile business investments which flourishes there in your country, My approach is in view of our ill-experience in business. This fund been the basis of our future and business ambition,your honest assistance and advise will be appreciated so much while relying on your guidance for profitable business establishment in your country.

4)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,we am willing to offer you 20% of the total sum as compensation for your effort/input after the successful transfer of this fund into your nominated account overseas.

We will forward all the documents concerning this deposit to your interest to assist me in this my situation and I believe that this transaction would will bring us together on your signify interest to assist me.

Please, Help us to get out of this terrible situation and our Almigthy God will bless you. antcipating to hear from you soon.

Thanks and God bless.

Yours sincerely.
Miss Juliet Adams .

If the TR staff would like to receive a copy including full header information, I would be happy to provide details.

OM

37 replies

by dr dij

I hope you took her up on it, looks like a good deal, and she's just a kit! Maybe you could educate her in the ways of your country.

No way this could come from an internet cafe in Nigeria. I hear that a large percent of their GNP is scamming Americans. But since you're in BC, you're probably safe.

by oz_media

I already requested we trade nude pictures of ourselves.

I've set up an open MSN Chat forum for us later, I think I can trust her with my IP and password so she can leave me messages and upload new wallpaper for me while I'm out.

by jaqui

nice thing aout the tr contact spam, they do not actually have your email address... until you reply to them. :)

I just report them to email provider and sometimes even to thier isp.
( besides forwarding a copy to tr staff )

let the spammers get shut off of using the internet.

by oz_media

But this is just an online account I use for garbage, like website login confirmation, all those registrations where an email is needed etc.

The built-in spam protection is actually pretty good, but in this case it was from a TR Peer 'apparently' so it slipped through the cracks.

My personal email account though, STILL NO SPAM AFTER NEARLY 5 YEARS!! NOT ONE!

by oz_media

I refuse to write back, I hate confirming my address that way.

I know there are other discussions, I just didn't realize it was the same email. Thought I'd bring it to TR's attention as another or a continuing issue.

by beads

Bfilmfan;

At first I found myself apalled by that statement, now I can't stop laughing.

Sick! Sick, I tell ya!

- beads

by jaqui

that email account is no longer valid.

multiple complaints receive by yahoo.co.uk about it.
( including me this am when I got the self-same spam )
they just replied that they have taken appropriate measures,as this is not the first such complaint for this addy.

by oz_media

I knew someone would have the enerhy to do something, I couldn't really care less, as it is a BS account for just such garbage. I figured it would be mroe important for TR to know, not that there's much they can do on thier end of things other than revoke a membership.

Perhaps there should be some kind of incubation period for new users before they can send peer mail directly to members, 15 days, 30 days should work.

by jaqui

is that they could outwait the period then start sending.

now, if peermail required something like 1000 posts before you could send....
( 100 garbage posts is easy, 1000 is more difficult, and by posting that much in a hurry you definately can expect for it to be noticed.

a method that would work,
new members have thier peer mails scanned by anti spam software.
if it gets a spam flag then a tr staffer checks it.
( only flagged as spam read by other than recipient protects privacy as well as keeping the workload down. )

ahh, the heck with it, scan all peer mail with the anti-spam software. then it's being equally applied and not discrimnatory.

by oz_media

I think these people are in haste they just choos equick and convenient outlets, otherwise SPAMMING is kind of a waste of time and money.

That's why sites request email confirmation, so BOTS can't do the work in seconds. Live people rarely take time to wait for delays so a simple 30 day wait would help I think.

by roger99a

Before my ISP started blocking my ports I had set up a website and mail server at my home. As a joke I posted an email address for my cat. She was sent one of these emails, too,

Her replies of "meow meow meow" went unanswered.

by house

They've figured out how to get past our Spam rule by misspelling the term 'Ivory Coast'.

You wouldn't believe this. My buddy Jay, who's not too swift, actually replied to one of these, and got a phone call from an area code in Africa. He told me that they were sending a cheque to his PO Box to prove their legitimacy before he released any personal info... I told him to brace himself while I slapped him three times.

by dr dij

some scammers send you a small check.

when you deposit it they can sometimes get your account# and do sight drafts (checks you never see) and drain your account.

by geekchic

I have a really cool island I'd like to sell him!!! With a big beautiful bridge to it directly from Disney World!!!

by house

I'll wire the money over right away. Please mail me back with your account information and asking price for this luscious resort. ;)

In his defence, he's never really used a computer till just recently. It made him a bit nervous when he started receiving purchase confirmations for strange items that he'd never asked for.

by thechas

Oz,

My first question is why did they pick you?

In order to get to peer mail, they must have looked through some postings.

You must have looked like the best person to assist them.

I do like the new twists to the old Nigerian bank scam though.

I know that you will find some way to have fun with this.

Chas

by oz_media

"In order to get to peer mail, they must have looked through some postings." :)
"You must have looked like the best person to assist them."
Careful there Chas, do you mean I appear to be a rube? That's nearing a flame. :D

I think they get it from the top 100 list or something, the same way people near the top of the list get abitrary emails from all kinds of people they've never heard of, asking for PC help.

Either that or I have made a mistake and included an email address in a post somewhere and a spider picked it up.

As for having fun with it, these people don't warrant any time or thought on my part, I can't be bothered to entertain them.

by beads

Oz your the only one I can think of that has any sort of icon that clearly separates you from being a "typical American".

Thus, I think you've been "selected" because you are obviously not an American. Since the vast majority of these scams have targeted "Americans" you icon sticks out like a big red "rube" thumb. So to say. This person is looking for "greener" pastures and folks from lands other than America.

Too many spelling mistakes to point out but then again, my spelling isn't much better at times either. No comment there.

- beads

by dr dij

unlike TR, I don't think computerworld has members. I've never signed in.

after saying that, I tried the URL and got the same, member sign in, which I don't have. I got to article thru sidebar on another article.

by geekchic

I understand happens all the time around here and they are new users!!!! But alas, you are too late, I sold the island about five minutes ago. But if you will send me all your personal banking and credit info, I will be glad to keep it on file until another one comes available!!!

by house

I'm the master of missing words in work related emails. It doesn't always go over so well, but I always argue that they should've known what I meant to say.

My coworker has the unfortunate habit of using the spell checker and replacing the term [i]cust[/i] (short for customer) with [i]crust[/i]. It's even funnier when she does a 'reply all' without excluding the client's address. ;)

by beads

You can easily check out alot of these at abuse/dot/com or DNSstuff which has a link there as well.

Good for finding what ails the Internet.

- beads

by oz_media

Thx.....I think. :D

But hey, I have always been up front with people;
I am a nice guy...for an a$$hole. :)

I don't claim to be a typist, I have people that can check my copy before it goes out, except on TR, sorry. That would be funny actually, email all of my posts to an editor and have them checked for grammar and spelling accuracy.

I think people are picked up by BOTS though, they have been known to scan the site and pick up on email addresses before. Perhaps someone else's mailbox was hit too, I don't care, it's just a garbage account for the most part anyway.

by beads

No really. Not flaming you but it does strike me as being terribly coincidental. With as much traffic and attention being paid to Americans with this scam you don't think its just a tad bit coincidental that your name was picked up by a bot? With that icon? Even with bots theres going to be some human data mining somewhere, sometime, otherwise theres going to me a lot of misplaced errors with the hook in the first place.

As far as the spelling thing. I think I was refering to both your Nigerian princess and my own flawed technique. Of the many things I do well, spelling isn't one of them.

- beads

by oz_media

Has been very common in Canada too. The only reson I mentioned it this time is because it was via TR. But you have a point, I just think it's a pretty rare chance, especially considering how this has happened here to other peers with different mail before.

by absolutely

See how Rick cleverly incorporates my nickname "Absolutely" into the subject line. The body of the message, however, could be automatically pasted into any number of messages.

X-Originating-IP: [206.16.1.192]
Message-ID: <12361812.1124704827000.JavaMail.app@c10-btg-app3.cnet.com>
From: "techrepublic@biert.je"
To: "?@?.?"
Subject: Message from a TechRepublic Member
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----=_Part_157_2083038.1124704826999"
Content-Disposition: inline

------=_Part_157_2083038.1124704826999
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

One of your fellow TechRepublic members has sent you a private message:

From: techrepublic@...
Subject: you should "Absolutely" read my mail...
Message:
Did you ever check out Polar Studio?

It is a tool to create web-based business applications without having to know much about internet technology.

The tool creates an application shell round a database (SQL Server or MS-Access) in which you can start coding the business logic using VBScript or Jscript.

The way you work is like programming C/S Apps. with OpenDataSet() or OpenRecordSet() calls.

Programming is event-based, with events like: OnOpenApplication, OnOpenWebForm, OnDelete, OnAfterDelete....

Although we are Dutch, the tool is documented and in English language. We are looking for partners outside the Netherlands to help us distributing and selling this award-winning tool.

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See our Dutch web site http://www.inspilogic.com for a few screenshots of app's built with polar studio in record-time.

Evaluate Polar Studio at http://www.polarstudio.com/downloads.html

See traing videos at http://polarstudio.com/evaluate.html

Do you see possibilities with this unique tool?

Kindly asking for you response.
Blue Polar Software
Richard Hoek
rick.hoek@bluepolar.com
------=_Part_157_2083038.1124704826999--

by absolutely

did you get a customized subject line? I almost felt special, except I mostly felt that it was creepy.

by jaqui

I got ripped off, no customised subject line.

mine only had typical peer contact subject.

:(

who do I have to rattle around here to get the special subject in spam peer contacts?!?!?!

huh??!1
come on someone's gotta know!!

by absolutely

Not even within my own company! Here's the SPAM:

From - Wed Sep 14 06:09:27 2005
X-Account-Key: account5
X-UIDL: 20050914130906r1500offuoe000na5
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 10000000
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 13:09:06 +0000 (GMT)
X-Comment: Sending client does not conform to RFC822 minimum requirements
X-Comment: Date has been added by Maillennium
Received: from alias-3.c10-ave-mta1.cnet.com ([206.16.1.132])
by rwcrmxc15.comcast.net (rwcrmxc15) with SMTP
id <20050914130906r1500di7v5e>; Wed, 14 Sep 2005 13:09:06 +0000
X-Originating-IP: [206.16.1.132]
Message-ID: <21587842.1126703346653.JavaMail.app@c10-btg-app3.cnet.com>
From: "elizabethwilmot@yahoo.com"
To: "@comcast.net"
Subject: Message from a TechRepublic Member
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----=_Part_88_18161046.1126703346652"
Content-Disposition: inline

------=_Part_88_18161046.1126703346652
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

One of your fellow TechRepublic members has sent you a private message:

From: elizabethwilmot@...
Subject: certified data destruction
Message:=20
Absolutely-
I know that you are pretty influential in the IT world and I was hoping tha=
t you could help spread a few good words about our new data destruction ser=
vice.
Thank you.
Elizabeth

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------=_Part_88_18161046.1126703346652--

by absolutely

IT is NOT Hollywood, and there IS such a thing as bad publicity. If you're marketing a product, you can suggest its use in TQA threads where it answers somebody's question, and maybe drop the name in Miscellaneous if you can make it relate. But why bother sending private messages? I know I will never buy any of the products advertised to me that way unless I forget that I was introduced to them by SPAM. You're losing sales, not making them.

This discussion is closed to new replies.