How do they get your e-mail?

[Tully Mars]

So I get this e-mail this afternoon-

My Dear Friend,


It is with heartfelt hope that I write to seek your co-operation and assistance in the context stated below. I am Barr. Chukwu Obi James, a lawyer. I am the personal attorney to my late client, An American; who was a contractor, and physician George Brumley Jr. On Saturday, July 19 2003, my client and his family were involved in a plane crash in which all occupants of the plane died.

My client deposited as family belongings in the sum of Twenty million United State Dollars only (20,000.000.00) with the hope of transferring it to his country as soon as his contract expires. Since his death I have made several enquiries to his embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives, but this attempt so far has been unsuccessful.
According to the {DEED OF WILL} made by my late client, He wrote a {DEED OF WILL} that if anything should happen to him, That i should locate any of his family member, With this {DEED OF WILL} I decided to trace his last name over the Internet to locate any member of his family. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 3 years now, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased.

I agree to pay you 40% of the fund, 40% to me and While 20% can be also paid to you as the next of kin and incase if you
spend any money for an {AFFIDAVIT OF TRUE NEXT OF KIN}.
All I require is your honest co-operation. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please accept my apologies, keep my confidence and disregard this email if you do not appreciate this proposition I have offered you.

However, if you wish to help me actualize this, do get back to me so I will let you know what is required of you.

Best

regards,
Barr. Chukwu Obi James

I have a spam blocker and my trash fills up quickly anymore. More so since I moved south.

Which leaves me wondering why things like this sometimes slip through and if any of you out there would like to take this obviously honest man up on his generous offer?

[CSflim]

Who do you have an email account with? Many webmail clients have a "Report as Spam/Junk" button. By reporting an email as spam, you are improving the spam filter, making it more likely that future spam will be caught by it.

As for how they got your email address: more than likely, at some point you used this email address to sign up for some service online (or just gave your address to some organization), and they sold your email address to spammers.

[ngdawg]

Oh wow, Crack had a great scam going with one of these that ran for weeks!

If you're wicked and creative, you could go nuts with this.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/hall-fa...-scammers.html

[Merlocke]

how do they get your email? - who cares? scambait them like ngdawg said.
Welcome to the 419 Eater

[Ayashe]

I completely busted my gut looking at that website and the tfp thread. I actually had to close the window of the 419eater site as I was laughing so hard I worried about my incisions. I probably wouldn't waste my time, but the thread was pretty humorous on how it was handled. I wish I could offer more assistance on how they gather their information though. It is irritating seeing spam come in. I am all for the report spam button.

[Vigilante]

-They go to forums like this and scan all accounts looking for email links, then save them and sell the lists. That's why my email is ALWAYS private on a given forum.
-They send out garbage with "do not subscribe" links that uniquely identify you if you click it. That proves a hot address, if the email was presumed cold beforehand. Then it gets sold.
-They intercept massive mailing lists, such as when people send out those giant joke emails to a million people. That's why I tell all friends and family members that I never want joke emails, because rather than laugh, they piss me off. Those intercepted get sold in lists.
-Sometimes they just randomly generate email addresses and send out continuous streams of email. The bounces get dropped most likely, and the ones that click the "do not subscribe" link get added to lists and sold.

Either way, once discovered and confirmed live, they are sold to others.

[Merlocke]

A little off topic, but it gives me such great pleasure to take all of the junk mail I receive and put it in those wonderful postage paid envelopes to other junk mailers, and send them their competitor's advertisements. Maybe a little sick, but meh - fun is fun.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by Merlocke

A little off topic, but it gives me such great pleasure to take all of the junk mail I receive and put it in those wonderful postage paid envelopes to other junk mailers, and send them their competitor's advertisements. Maybe a little sick, but meh - fun is fun.

I'm so glad to hear that I'm not the only one that does that. I also write refused on catalogs and drop them back in the mail.

[Tully Mars]

I used to have an on-line business. More of a side line then anything else. I started out trying to sell Sporting goods electronics- radios, GPS's, fish finders etc... That didn't work so well. So I put some Christmas wreaths on-line one fall and it quickly became a full time gig for two-three months a year. Both businesses had very similar sounding web addresses. Every year I'd get people e-mailing in special orders to have items shipped over seas, almost, almost always offering to pay more then the asking price. Often orders for wreaths would come in on the electronics site and visa versa. I never went to the lengths described here, usually just trashed them and moved on. But sometimes if I was bored I'd reply "Absolutely a certified out of country check will work for payment. We do require a deposit of 5 troy oz of gold for each $100 of your order. Once we receive the deposit of your gold, well ship the products you've requested. Your deposit will be completely safe and will be returned within one year of your certified check clearing the bank."

[Poppinjay]

I love it when 419Eater makes people put stuff on their heads. I found that website when a job related e-mail account just started filling up like crazy with that crapola.

Now I have an account that's the same as a previous employee here, so I'm getting it again. The funny thing is, now I'm getting meta-scams, e-mails from the Nigerian "justice" department that wants my account info so they can deposit thousands in my account as settlement for 419 scammers.

[dlish]

god bless your eyes...

someones gonna have some fun with mr Barr!