I'm glad you did the sensible thing by reporting this and following it up in the manner you did. I would like to point out that the number of "Phishing" mails has gone up astronomically as well in the last 6 months. Every day now I'm getting e-mails asking me to confirm or give bank details and every day I ignore them.
The plain simple truth of the matter is that if the mail you recieve is from someone other than a person you know you may a well simply delete it without reading. Here are a few tips to ensure you stay off these lists (if I may be permitted): 1) Do NOT allow your e-mail address to be displayed on any websites (although if it's only made visible to registered members that's not too bad I guess). 2) Do NOT subscribe to any mailing lists or newsletters when making a purchase online. You will immediatley be added to the international Sucker List and bombarded with spam! 3) Watch out if you use instant messenger programs like ICQ where they have bot programs which ask you for personal information after introducing themselves as a person. These often scan chat screens for e-mail addresses mentioned in the session and then adds them to spam lists. That's all I can think of right now but the simple truth is that scams, phishing, and spam are not going to end. You have to use common sense at the end of the day. Kind Regards, Simon J Stuart Grey Cascade Designs ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Meek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <Delphi-Talk@elists.org> Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 6:18 PM Subject: To all DT members...a little about Internet, mail,and banking fraud FYI > I'm making this post because as one of the moderators of the various > Delphi Lists one of my duties is to help screen all the mail that comes into > the servers to be forwarded on to our membership, and deleting all the spam > and OT messages we get bombarded with so that you don't have to. It regards > a situation I got involved in myself as a way of helping international law > enforcement in their fight against the kind of scams I'm about to tell you > of. > About three months ago, I noticed that I had been deleting the same > message over and over from the various lists. It was advertising business > opportunities with a company supposedly in India, and included name, > address, and other basic information, but was delivered through a yahoo > account. > I wrote to this company asking that they remove us from their > mailing list as I normally do when I notice constant abuse from one firm or > another, but I heard nothing back. The mistake I made was sending my > request through my own personal e-mail address, because they obviously added > my name to their "suckers" list as the FBI calls it. > About two weeks ago I received from the same person, an e-mail sent > to my personal address asking if I wanted to participate in their expansion > as they built up representatives for their textile business here in the USA. > And the message went on to say that because their acceptance of any payments > from US companies in return for goods received under wholesale laws, cost > them a 25% tax, they wanted me to act as their go-between and accept these > payments from the companies and then after taking out my commission of 10%, > send the balance directly back to them as an individual. This way they > would only pay a 5% tax on the net amount. > Of course I knew right away that this is a fraudulent scheme, so I > did not answer them but instead contacted the FBI. And because they hadn't > heard through their IC3.gov website of this particular person or company, > they asked me to reply and let them know what happened next. > I did, and I received an e-mail from the same person about four days > ago telling me that I would be receiving a contract from them in short > order, and that I would also be receiving checks from one of their clients > here soon as well. > Yesterday, I received in the mail, a hand-addressed envelope > postmarked from the Republic of Togolaise, which is somewhere in Africa, in > which I found four US travelers checks made out to me, each in the amount of > $1500 US dollars. At the same time I received an e-mail, again from the > same party, telling me that as soon as I received these checks, I should get > them cashed, and then take the $6000 dollars minus my commission of $600 > dollars, and send it to them by Western Union. It went on to say that as > soon as they were in receipt of their money and knew they could trust me, I > would be receiving more checks, and that once I had transferred a total of > $50,000 for them, my commission would go up to 12%. > Finally, the e-mail also included the names, phone numbers, and > addresses of three Western Union offices near me, and as I'm in a rural area > that really amazed me. Also a fairly long diatribe about how this was > perfectly legal and I was taking on no risk as these were Travelers Checks > from my own country and had to be paid for in advance...things like that. > At the FBI's further instructions I took the checks to a large > banking establishment here to be looked at. They passed every form of > counterfeit detection including built-in microdot validation, and so would > have been cashed by almost any bank I had an account with! But upon further > investigation, which included verification of the numbers on the check, it > was found that these numbers were never actually issued by the company that > makes the checks themselves! > Everything is now in the hands of the FBI, Interpol, and as I was > told, the Canadian Mt. Police, but I wanted to bring this to everyone's > attention in hopes that no one would ever consider trying to cash any such > checks they might receive by these circumstances. Had I done so, not only > would I owe the cashing bank $6,000, but could also then have been arrested > for passing counterfeit checks! At the very least the legal hassles would > have been annoying, but knowing the way our law enforcement works, it could > I think get a lot worse! > > from Robert Meek dba Tangentals Design CCopyright 2006 > Proud to be a moderator of "The Delphi Lists" at elists.org > > (["An unused program is the consequence of a higher logic!", nil]) As > written in The Compendium of Accepted Robotic and Surrlogic Theorems Used in > the Self Analysis of Elemental Positronic Pathways...1st Edition Revised > > > > __________________________________________________ > Delphi-Talk mailing list -> Delphi-Talk@elists.org > http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi-talk __________________________________________________ Delphi-Talk mailing list -> Delphi-Talk@elists.org http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi-talk
