ProZ.com Translation Forums

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | Got You Beat Henry!

Barbara Cochran, MFA — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:31:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Barbara Cochran, MFA
Post title: Got You Beat Henry!

[quote]Henry Hinds wrote:

I've collected over $56,000,000 so far...

I've got you beat Henry! So far I've amassed about $973,006,543.00 based on such e-mails.

I get them everyday.

[Edited at 2008-02-28 01:32]

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | My rich unknown relative died in an airline crash

Nikolaj Widenmann — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Nikolaj Widenmann
Post title: My rich unknown relative died in an airline crash

A few months ago, an attorney-at-law based in Malaysia sent me a couple of emails urging me to act now to cash in on some inheritance left by "Mike Widenmann", who perished in an airline crash in the Persian Gulf Region in 2001. It came complete with a CNN news link to the disaster (though the accident apparently did happen, CNN had no details on poor old Mike). And just to make it easier for me to read, the entire text was in bold type.

I considered cashing in, not to mention adding Mike to my very extensive family history file; somehow years of research spanning five centuries had allowed our millionaire relative to go unnoticed.

In the end, I decided that I would end up paying more taxes than I would ever want to. Good thing I didn't go for it; I would not have qualified for this year's US government check to help us stay out of a recession. Looking at it from that point of view, I may have just saved the United States, and possibly the whole world, from another Great Depression. And that has to be worth a lot more money than what old Mike ever carried to his grave in the Persian Gulf.

In the end, I blocked this person's emails from reaching me, and I have been living merrily ever since as a middle-class citizen.

Now I'm off for lunch.

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | Filter

Ivan Eikås Skjøstad — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:48:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Ivan Eikås Skjøstad
Post title: Filter

[quote]Uldis Liepkalns wrote:

several a day, including notifications I have won millions in some lottery I have never participated in. I guess I'd be a billionaire by now wouldn't I have been too lazy to answer to all these...

Uldis
[/quote]

I do not receive too much spam since most of them are "killed" on the server. Regular mail passes through the filter of course.

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | Start Collecting

Henry Hinds — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:56:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Henry Hinds
Post title: Start Collecting

I've collected over $56,000,000 so far, you should start collecting too!

(Just kidding, but isn't it worth it just for the entertainment value? I get several of those a week.)

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | The yarns they spin

yam2u — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:50:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: yam2u
Post title: The yarns they spin

... get wilder over the years. :D

They have come a long way from the initial HUGE inheritance from some African country that desperately needed to be "parked temporarily" in someone's account.

Yes Giles, the names are in themselves priceless. :)

Nothing as exotic as your example for me today. just a Rev. Father Jones Harth, the CSO of The World Bank (no less), who is at his wit's end trying to figure out a way to dispose the sum of USD10 million.

Bet anything someone is compiling these expensive tales and publishing them as a book any day now.

-may-

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | get them too

Tatiana Lammers — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:05:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Tatiana Lammers
Post title: get them too

I get those every month. Simply report them as scam and that's it.

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | Yes

Giles Watson — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:43:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Giles Watson
Post title: Yes

Hi Eleni,

I've been on the wrong end of one or two phishing trips like this.

Actually, they're not even a particularly serious threat because, like you, I wouldn't even consider making a false declaration of identity in order to deceive the executors of an estate.

I do enjoy the names that these phishing routines generate, though. My favourite is a message I received from a wonderfully exotic lady called Lakeisha Manygoats.

Φιλικά,

Giles

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | Yes, sure

Uldis Liepkalns — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Uldis Liepkalns
Post title: Yes, sure

several a day, including notifications I have won millions in some lottery I have never participated in. I guess I'd be a billionaire by now wouldn't I have been too lazy to answer to all these...

Uldis

[quote]Eleni Makantani wrote:
I just wished to share this with the rest of you. Do you receive such e-mails too? [/quote]

Scam: My client died; please take his position! | Advance fee scam

gianfranco — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:31:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: gianfranco
Post title: Advance fee scam

[quote]Eleni Makantani wrote:
Do you receive such e-mails too? [/quote]

Yes, it is an old trick, once it was done using the normal mail, but it has boomed with e-mail.

By the way, this is fishy but technically is not phishing, see [url removed]
It is a Nigerian scam, or 419 scam, or Advance fee scam see [url removed]

bye
Gianfranco

[Edited at 2008-02-26 20:37]

Scam: My client died; please take his position!

Eleni Makantani — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:19:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Scam: My client died; please take his position!
Poster: Eleni Makantani

Hello,

something has been going on lately at the Internet which has impressed me; at first I was furious, then I tried to ignore it, now I wish to share it with you.

It is two months now that I receive e-mails from "lawyers", "accountants" and I don't know who else, that say the following:

a client of mine died and left behind him millions. He doesn't have any descendants. Since his name resembles yours, please pretend that you are his relative and let's share the millions of the inheritance!!!

It is evident that this is phishing, but the excuse is beyond any imagination!

I just wished to share this with the rest of you. Do you receive such e-mails too?

[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2008-02-27 12:43]