Watch out there's a scammer!
i just recieved this message of user "frank679" FROM;MR.FRANK ZIWOS. Tel:00225 08 21 78 50 COTE D IVOIRE, WEST AFRICA. Dear One, Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into long time relatioship and financial transaction for our mutual benefits. I am MR.FRANK ZIWOS and I inheritated an important sum from my late father who died in recent crisis in Cote d'Ivoire. I wish to request for your assistance in investing this sum in lucrative venture or manufacturing and real estate management in your country. I have FOUR million, five hundred thousand United State Dollars. USD($4.500,000)to invest in this transaction and I will require your assistance in receiving the fund in your account in your country. I will gladly give you some reasonable percent from the total sum for your assistance. Please it is important you contact me immediately on this email addressof: fziwos04@yahoo.com for more clearification on the next step for smooth conclusion. Awaiting your immediate response and God bless you. Thanks for your understanding Yours Sincerely, MR.FRANK ZIWOS. Obviously a big scammer and i don't want anyone to have there cash stolen so just watch out, hopefully he will be banned
Comments
13 years ago
Welcome to Africa, where every person who can use a computer does so by trying to scam rich people in America (or Europe, etc.)
Reply 12 years ago
Welcome to America, where lazy bums try to scam people because they have nothing better to do with their lives...
Point of Story: Scammers lurk on every continent.
Except, perhaps, Antarctica?
Reply 13 years ago
Haha my friend has just recently moved from africa, a country below kenya, ima ask him if he knew any scam artists.
13 years ago
I usually reply to scammers. I tell them to either burn, die, foward this message up their, umm, well, you know, or I spam them back. I'll foward all the spam in my inbox to all the spammers that come a knocking.
Reply 12 years ago
. Yep. Patrick's right. NEVER reply to a SPAM/scam/junk e-mail. If you want to mess with the scammers, check out 419 Eater for info on how to do it safely.
Reply 12 years ago
Just so you know - if you reply to a spam by email, your email address gets put on a list of "verified" email addresses. Spammers pay more for addresses where they know there's a real person on the other side...
Reply 12 years ago
Also, ad spammers often "spoof" the From: address, replacing it with the address of some innocent sap. So chances are that you are actually spamming somebody else who doesn't have anything to do with it!
12 years ago
Nono, that story is real - I know, because I've heard it from several other people too! :-D
13 years ago
I got one of those emails from a girl named rose, but she had six million dollars. Ha ha, my spammer is richer than yours.
13 years ago
I got that exact same e-mail.
13 years ago
I can't help noticing it's a yahoo address. I used to use yahoo, but switched to hotmail because of spam like this - I was getting 10-20 of these a day, plus a range of drug offers and, er, enhancements, even though, as far as I was aware, I had never openly published the address.
I now use two hotmail addresses - one is for personal/family business, only given to trustworthy organisations, one is more openly available, but the only spam it gets is occasional ebay phishers who think that my ebay user name is linked to the email address I use with ebay (they must have a robot watching the site, because the phishing emails always arrive within a couple of hours of the rare times I make a purchase on ebay)
Reply 13 years ago
no more yahoo for me =P
Reply 13 years ago
You don't need to give out your address they get them all from another person's inbox and address book and then spam you to death.
Reply 13 years ago
You should use Googlemail!
The spamfilters are *really* good... *really*.... *really* :P
Its amazing... It really is an amazing feat.
Reply 13 years ago
No. I'm happy with hotmail - my point was that the spammer in the OP used a yahoo address, and when I used to use yahoo I got a lot of spam. I got more spam in a yahoo day than I get now in six hotmail months.
I meant - it appears to me that yahoo is vulnerable to abuse by spammers.
Reply 13 years ago
Hmm, I have a yahoo addy that I rarely use, so it must contain about 7 emails received in the past year or so. My Hotmail addy, I used for about a year and in the course of a few months filled itself with over 4,000 emails. Only the occasional one is of any worth. |I think I am just going to let it fade away, since it is even too much trouble to go through and delete that many pages of stuff, one page at a time.
Reply 13 years ago
you want me to get you a gmail account? just pm me your email
13 years ago
Ok, I just checked my yahoo mail (which I used to reply to mr frank)
the reply he sent: on Fri 16/11/07
Dear Joe Bloggs,
thanks for your reply and considerations to my request for your
assistance.
Pls to know that Iam real, sincere and serious about
this transaction .
my coming into contact with you is an act of divine
directions and I know that the good lord that made it
possible for us to come into contact may have a divine
arrangements and I pray that our relationship will be
beneficial to the both of us amen.
If it will be possible for you to fly down here so
that we can meet face to face as your coming will
enable you to see and access things for yourself as
seeing is believing but where you cannot make the trip
due to your tight schedule,I will appreciate all that
you could do to assist me to a better future .
I inheritated the said sum of money from my late
father who was into legal business and
will implore you to assist me complete the fund
transfer to your nominated account without futher
delay as the present political situation and my
personal situation in this
country is not too comfortable. You can comfirm the
political situation of this country from the BBC or
VOA radio stations.
To tell you briefly ,I have suffered too many untold
hardship since the sudden death of my parents that is
too much for me to bear at this my tender age of and I will beg you to assist me to a better future.
Presently, this fund is deposited in one of the
commercial banks here and all documents of the fund
have my name as the next of kin but I do not know what
and what it will take to complete this fund transfer
to your nominated account since I have never done a
transaction of this nature before .
To enable us proceed in this transaction without
futher delay, I will want you to
contact with the banker where this fund is deposited
on his contact addresses and arrange for the
smooth transfer
of this fund to your nominated account in the manner
that you find comfortable and safe and more
especially, your contacting the banker will assure you
of my sincerity in this transaction.
As per the type of investment, I do not have any
particular investment in mind but will want you to use
your experience to handle this aspect provided it will
be beneficial to you and myself.
I shall offer you 15% of the total sum for your assistance.
The bankers directs contacts are;
Attn; A. Claude AMICHA .
manager int. remittance dept.
COMPAGNIE BANCAIRE DE L'ATLANTIQUE CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Immeuble Alpha 2000, rue Gourgas, Plateau 01 BP 522 -
Abidjan Cote d Ivoire
Tel+22505785320
Fax;+22521279727
Email: a.claude.amicha@africamail.com
I will communicate the banker after sending you this
message now to inform him about you and my intention.
Should you need additional informations concerning
this fund, about me or this transaction, pls do not
hesitate to ask as I will give you all infos.
Thanks for your sincere kindness as I hope to read
from you again today after you have communicated the
banker .
Remain blessed.
Frank.
hmm. =) what should I reply?
Reply 13 years ago
Tell him you'd prefer to use Paypal ?
13 years ago
WAAAAAAAAH i did not get one! haha ill bet hes demented. DIDYA HEAR THAT FRANK679? YOU ARE DEMENTED.
Reply 13 years ago
How can he be demented.....I doubt whether he was ever "mented" in the first place LOL
Reply 13 years ago
good one! LOL! De=no Mented=brain HAHA! NO BRAIN! Probably no friends either. How sad, Frank.
13 years ago
I've banned the user. If anyone gets this type of stuff, please send it to me, and I'll prevent those responsible from coming back. It seems that we've grown enough that scammers are now trying to enter the community. As such, we've just started building some tools to help deal with them and prevent them from ever bothering you. Look for them soon!
Reply 13 years ago
FIrst, there was TV-B-GONE, but coming soon: SCAMMER-B-GONE :-)
Reply 13 years ago
Ok, sorry, I wasn't sure th whom to send it (So I sent it to the first personage I came across).
13 years ago
Thanks for that Tim!!! Just as I was about to become a millionaire.... Selfish people... Poor Mr Frank Ziwos.... The unfortunate happenings have placed him in such a predicament! If we don't help then how is he ever to get his "FOUR million,five hundred thousand United states dollars" (Te he! I especially like the four in caps! Just incase you'd miss it.. ;) ) out of West Africa and into a lucrative venture (te he ! again.;) ) ....????? So insensitive!!!! ;P ROFL!!!!!
13 years ago
its too bad we can't all come up with a way to somehow accept his offer and then somewhere in the scamming proccess run off with the scammers money. How sweet a revenge would that be?
Reply 13 years ago
like I mean somehow get them to send you a little bit of there real money in order to make it happen for them...... like even a couple hundred bucks
Reply 13 years ago
I'm gonna make a fake account and email that address..... see what they have to say.....I'll make it like I'm some sweet old 80 year old nieve lady too
Reply 13 years ago
Here's a well known anti-scamming story. It's a long read, but worth it ;-)
Reply 13 years ago
LOL :D Gave me a good laugh... I want to try something like this out. I suppose it is similar to social engineering in a way.
Reply 13 years ago
I've seen that before... ages ago!
Reply 13 years ago
well, if they still have their account here, they can read that post LOL
Reply 13 years ago
Just what I was thinking, maybe I'll reply to him.... =)
(btw, Yes I got one too)
Reply 13 years ago
I love to mess with telemarketers. It's just so fun. Have any of you seen (or heard) the crime-scene prank?
Reply 13 years ago
It's been awhile, but yeah I did :-)
13 years ago
. If anyone is interested in actively fighting scams, check out 419 Eater. Those ppl love scamming the scammers.
13 years ago
*notices inbox has a (1), checks it* Looks like me too.
Reply 13 years ago
Reads thread, looks up, notices (1).
... is it?
... No, it's only Nacho ;-)
Reply 13 years ago
Man, did he pick the wrong site to scam.
13 years ago
guys sorry to burst your bubble but i cane across this post and i read it and i was shocked luckily i didnt get it but i searched his name up on the database of instructables and i couldent find anyone by that name anywhere in the world (lol)
Reply 13 years ago
Since so many people got it, i'm guessing his account was deleted.
13 years ago
I sent ewilhelm a PM about it. I also got it.
Reply 13 years ago
I didn't get it :"( i feel left out now.
Reply 13 years ago
Maby he is clicking on all the names on comments of a topic/instructable. What topic/instructable have we all posted on?
13 years ago
whats with all of the scammers and advertising latley?!?
13 years ago
I received that as well. I just deleted it.
13 years ago
I just saw a commercial telling me about this type of scam.
13 years ago
Because I check my messages and inbox first on signing in, I forwarded mine to Candida immediately (about 15 minutes ago). I hadn't known you all had already responded by posting here as I assumed a lot of you would have received it too.
13 years ago
I got two'