WARNING - Fraud attempt here at CF in email

[Cathologetics]

I got an email here at CF which is a variation of the "Nigerian Fraud Letters" which many of you have seen. If you get this, do not respond! Here is a copy of it (I ask the moderators or whoever to report this to whoever runs this site as it may carry some liability issues):

Beloved in Christ,

I am MR MARTIN OSANOKO I am 72years old, I am now a new Christian convert, suffering from long time Lung cancer. From all indications, my condition is really deteriorating and is quite obvious that I may not live more than six months, because the cancer stage has gotten to a very severe stage. My Wife and my only son had died as a result of motor accident. I and my wife were international contractor and we made a lot of wealth and after Her death, I inherited all her business and wealth.

My personal physician told me that I may not live for more than six months and I am so scared about this.
So, I now decided to divide part of this wealth, by contributing to the development of evangelism and sowing of seed in Africa, America, Europe, Asian and Arab Countries.

This mission which will no doubt be tasking had made me to recently relocated to togo, Africa where I live presently. I selected your Oganisation after visiting the website for this purpose and prayed over it, I am willing to transfer the sum of $4.500,000.00 Million US Dollars to any christian or muslim community for the development of evangelism and also as aids for the less privileged around you.

Please note that, this fund is lying in a bank (ANCIENT TRUST BANK) in LOME Togo.

As soon as you indicate your interest, I will forward your information to the bank so that they will file an immediate application for the transfer of the money in the name of your ministry / organisation and they will tell you the steps to take next.

Please, do not reply if you have the intention of using this fund for personal use other than enhancement of utilisation. Lastly, I want your ministry to be praying for me as regards my entire life and my health because I have come to find out since my spiritual birth lately that wealth acquisition without God in one's life is vanity upon vanity.''Our lord Jesus says what shall it profit a man to gain the hole world and looses his own life''.

May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the sweet fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.

please reply me through this e mail address martinosanoko@latinmail.com

Yours in Christ,

MR MARTIN OSANOKO
LOME TOGO.

 

[AngelAmidala]

Hi.

This person has been taken care of.

For future reference, if anyone gets a message like this or anything else considered "spam" on the board or via the board, let a staff member know.

Thank you for making sure we were aware of this!!

God Bless you!

 

[Preachers12]

I posted this in OBOB and thought I should copy it here. For those interested, this is how this type of scheme works:

This email follows the same verbage as those that someone here referred to as "nigerian fraud letters" (which is the common term applied to these letters). They all ultimately have some story whereby they want to transfer funds into someone's account. They usually tell a story which insinuates (and sometimes outright claims) that the funds are not particularly legally obtained. As a result, they ask for fast action, complete secrecy and offer an obscene amount of money for assistance. This particular email used a sob story as background to explain the reason for his having all this money and his desire to use it. I would be VERY CURIOUS to know his next line should someone reply, but it will end up being the lead-in for an advance fee scam.

Most people tend to believe that what the solicitor (from here on I will refer to him as the "bad guy") is trying to do is to learn your account number and then withdraw funds from your account. That is not the bad guy's intent. The real purpose is to determine your gullibility and your greed level (I refer to it as the G2 Factor). Where those two traits meet = a sucker (their terms).

The typical scheme would go along these lines. Someone responds to the email/letter/fax, saying they are willing to help. Bad guy says he will set it up and gathers your necessary information (if they are really good, they'll get enough information to steal your identity too!).

After a few days, bad guy contacts you and says that there is a law regarding the transfer of large amounts of money which requires that a fee or tax be paid. He wants you to pay it. It is typically in the area of $1,500 to as much as $5,000. You pay the fee. Why not? After all, you are about to get millions of dollars! BTW, bad guy has some excuse why he can't pay it (naturally the real reason is because there IS NO MONEY).

After bad guy gets the first fee, he may fax you a copy of the bank transfer statement showing the funds being transferred (quickly generated on his laptop using the info you provided initially). After a day or so, you notice no funds in the account and you contact bad guy. He says he just learned that the funds were held up by the government because of a new law requiring an insurance bond (or something else) for large transfers of funds. He will probably claim that the new law is a result of the 2001 terrorist attacks or has to do with the war on drugs. This bond will be a percentage of the transfer and very often is in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands.

Most people do not have this kind of money, so he tells them to borrow it from a bank or from family. After all, again, they'll have more than enough to pay it back when these regulations are complied with and the funds are sent! Bad guy will always negotiate the amount down, claiming that he can come up with some of the funds too if you can't (in other words, he'll take as much as you can give).

Some people give up here, but depending on their G2 Factor, they may go out and beg, borrow or steal the money. They often lie about it and end up committing crimes in doing so. Their families also very often loan them the money, not knowing what it is really for, but believing a lie about some emergency, etc.... In other words, the people who lose the BIG MONEY in these schemes are rarely if ever the person who was solicited. It is usually family, friends or financial institutions who have no idea about the real reason their relative/friend/customer needs the funds.

Assuming this fee is paid, the bad guy will come up with yet another fee of some type until you finally give up. Some people have actually flown to Nigeria to try to do something and never come back. These guys WILL KILL YOU. They are utterly unscrupulous, amoral, deceptive, professional and deadly.

The REALLY good ones will call you a few months later claiming to be a legal service which is representing victims of this fraud in a lawsuit against the bad guys. They will promise to get your funds back. For a fee, of course. The term for this is "re-loading" and it is effective. Again, depends on the G2 Factor.

As I said at the beginning of this, I would like to see the next line that MARTIN OSANOKO would use. I have never seen this variation of the scheme and it is troublesome to see it branching out.

I hope that this helps explain this scheme to you. It IS A SCHEME.

If anyone has played into this scheme, please PM me. I can help.

God Bless,
P12

 

[his excellence]

Preachers 12 thank you so much I couldnt of said it better myself. I have already been taken by one of these scammers but in a much different way , it landed my hubby and I in jail and now into a court battle. Please anyone out there reading this, Noone will offer you FREE money, noone will ask you for your credit card details if they are a legit financial institution, noone will contact you by phone saying you won a lottery in some other country and have it be REAL. The sad truth is , they HAVE NO money to send you , They never intended to send you money, but they intend fully on bilking you out of your life savings. No matter how they have to do it, they do not care if innocent people wind up in jail , they do not care if you lose all you worked so hard to save, the money that they bilk from you goes for drugs and terrorism support, those are the FACTS. If anyone is interested in reading up on this I have dedicated my time since October researching this to extremes and know what makes these people tick so much that I am offering free services in my community to help innocent people spot and avoid these scams, and helping victims who come forward. PM me for details.

 

[his excellence]

Furthermore these people as Preacher 12 said are DANGEROUS they are Criminals,and will show up at homes, they will kidnap and in some cases have killed victims. Do not mess with them, delete their emails instantly they are not worth antagonizing.

 

[shout2thelord]

who in their right mind would give their bank details out through email anyway? thats crazy

 

[Andre]

who in their right mind would give their bank details out through email anyway? thats crazy

A lot of people do... sadly.

 

[Andre]

I just read the e-mail, this is crazy, that guy better come to know the Lord for real, otherwise I don't want to be nowhere near him on the day of the judgment...

 

[his excellence]

Andre I am fully with you on that one, I wouldnt even want to see the reaction he is going to get.