Nigerian scam???

So I keep getting e-mails from some turkies in Nigeria asking for a pottery order to be sent COD and wanting to use a credit card or wire the money to my account... Humm lets see, my work costs $30 US for a large bowl that would cost about 50¢ in Nigeria and cost about $50 to ship and insure it... what are the chances that this is the Nigerian scam aimed at potters? (100%!!!) A variation has the same thing but is a hotel in Switzerland.... If it sounds too good to be true, it is... Be careful!! Russ Andavall

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Reply to
Russell Andavall
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It's almost certainly a scam. This topic was discussed on Clayart a while back, and I think someone looked into it but couldn't get a reply back from the Nigerians. (You might want to search the archives. Use Google to search for "Clayart Archives" first, then use the archive's own search engine.)

What I wonder about is why all these scams come from Nigeria. Is it the work of a few determined hackers that just happen to live in Nigeria? Or are things so bad there that scams are a popular source of income? And if so, how do they afford computers to run the scams?

Just curious....

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

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Reply to
Bob Masta

Actually, it's because the domain is so cheap there. Italy also hosts a bunch of losers. The scammers spammers and ripoff artists are usually in the Bahamas, the US, and Europe (can you say worldwide?) and just using that as a "jumpoff"

You can always do what I do. Hit reply, then, leaving only the domain (everything following the @ symbol) In front of the @ symbol, type in the word "abuse" and send it to the domain.

(Example: if the message came from snipped-for-privacy@telstargeeks.com

you would make it snipped-for-privacy@telstargeeks.com and send it on.

Make sure you remove any signature you may automatically attach.

If the domain (telstargeeks.com) maintains an abuse policy, the spammers will lose their hosting rights and be thrown out.

Reply to
wayne

it's called "fishing". all you need is one or two idiots every so often to actually bite into the offer and send money. the phone used to be a great fishing method before the do not call lists.

with millions of people around it's not hard to find people with more money then brains to part with their cash.

the process goes back some 10,000 years...

steve

steve graber

Reply to
Slgraber

How were they scamming before that?

Reply to
Boris Mohar

Try:" I can sell you that fire for _only_ three bunches of fruit and a chicken/wife/spear whatever" LOL

A fool and his money are soon parted...no matter the age.

Wayne Seidl Key West, Florida, USA North America, Terra Latitude 81.45W, Longitude 24.33N Elevation 3.1 feet (1m)

Reply to
wayne

Wayne, the problem with this idea is that many domains are not ISPs or hosts themselves, but are owned by their customers. For example, my business domain is "daqarta.com". I can set this up to have all mail to that domain forwarded to a single address. If a spammer does that, he'll harvest your "abuse@" mail and use that to validate your Email address. He doesn't need your sig line, since your address is in the header. (Spammers have tricks to disguise theirs when they send to you.)

Alternatively, the spammer may have the domain set up to simply ignore all email addresses that don't go to valid mailboxes. That's what I do for my domain, so that when addresses like the one at the top of this message are finally harvested up by spammers (which will happen sooner or later), I can just abandon it and change to a new address until they find that one.

By the way, the ONLY reason that the above address is valid is because I post to another group that is moderated, and the messages go to the moderator as Email, with non-valid addresses getting bounced. Anyone who posts only to non-moderated lists like this one should use a dummy address and include your real address in a human-readable form that machines can't easily harvest, as below. Or "munge" your address by adding some dummy characters or phrase like "nospam", and in your sig line tell your readers how to extract the valid address if you want them to Email you.

So, as far as what to do about spammers, your advice is OK if the spammer's return address is valid (usually isn't) and if it is a big-name domain like AOL or Yahoo that you recognise as an ISP, not likely to be a spammers domain. But the best bet is to forward to one of the anti-spam services, who can sort out the misleading trail in the header and hopefully identify the real spammer address. If he has his own domain, they can look that up and see who hosts it, and contact the host about revoking his contract. And you don't expose yourself to getting on the spammer's Validated Address list. (Worth more to spammers, so you can be sure it will be resold many times.)

Hope this helps!

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

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Reply to
Bob Masta

Bob: I kind of knew that was the case. but neglected to mention it. I only abuse reply to known ISPs.

I guess we're just gonna have to find all the spammers, and make them swallow their monitors (WHOLE!)

Best regards, Wayne

Reply to
wayne

hmmm... I used the previous advice to send the citibank fraud email to snipped-for-privacy@citibank.com (assuming that citibank really was legit). I'm wondering if there is anyway to check if the domain is legit before taking this action (I was too lazy to go to the real site and find the email address there which is what I should have done)?

Reply to
D Kat

There are a number of Web services where you can look up domain names. A Google on "domain name lookup" turns up a bunch, and the first on the list is . A quick search for "citibank.com" brings up a long list of names that have that text in them (like "ccitybank.com", as well as the real thing, They also have links to their sites, and for more info on the name. I didn't pursue it any farther on this site, but I know it is possible to find out who the domain is registered to, as it is a matter of public record. That info must include a valid Email contact address. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a spammer used a valid but temporary address to register under.

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

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Bob Masta

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