Dambusters? oh, Scambusters 419!
Posted: 08 Sep 2010, 07:35
Today I received one of those "You Have Won!!!!!!! from "BRITISH LOTTERY OLYMPIC PUZZLE" Of course I knew this was a variation of those 419 emails (Nigerian bank scams). What caught my eye was the contact - a "MR. FRANK RUSSELL FOREIGN AUTHORIZED CLAIMS AGENT" with an email address at yahoo.co.uk. (I have omitted the first part for obvious reasons). 
Oh, Gary, I do hope this isn't one of your relatives!
Anyway I usually hit delete straight away, but since these morons used a UK email address I decided to forward the message to [email protected] a few minutes I got back an automated reply - the usual answer. Much to my surprise, early this morning I received this (extract):
Hello,
Thanks for writing to Yahoo! UK Customer Care.
Thank you for reporting this to Yahoo!. It is prohibited to send
unsolicited or "Spam" email from a Yahoo! Mail account as agreed by new
users when accepting the Yahoo! Terms of Mail Service Agreement.
In this particular case, we have identified the account used to send
this email and have taken the appropriate action to prevent it from
being used again to send spam mail.
In the future, if you receive an unwanted email message that appears to
originate from a Yahoo! Mail account, please forward the message with
full headers directly to us at:
[email protected]
For further information about this specific type of fraud, please see:
http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm
Thanks again for writing to UK Yahoo! Customer Care.
Wow, I had not expected such fast action (or any action for that matter) so I am glad I reported this to Yahoo. While I am not naive enough to think this will stop this scam (just open another account) I did give myself a little pat on the back for a small victory in the spam wars. Others have a much larger commitment to the war on spam and they are waging a far stronger fight. See below.
I actually posted this because while googling to find the place to report this scam, I ran across this website:
http://www.scambuster419.co.uk/index.html
An interesting sight to say the least! This chap must have some time on his hands because he has developed an elaborate plan to fight back. To that end he has created the village of Gypping in the Marsh, one of Linconshire's least visited villages famous as the cabbage capital of Lincolnshire. His arsenal of weapons also include fake bank transfer notices, fake Western Union payment receipts and some creative inventions such as the Federal United Consolidated Worldwide International Transfer Service (make an acronym out of that one). His method is simple: try to keep the spammers as busy as possible for as long as possible answering email questions, or with wild goose chases to banks and Western Union offices to collect funds that were never sent, arranging meetings where he obviously does not show up and other very creative schemes .
There are several stories on his site with all the emails exchanged included. I was fascinated by the series "Vicar III" since he managed to get the spammers to send him funds, albeit only £7 to clear up some alleged troubles with Western Union and prove their network in West Africa was ok. He donated this to a charity in reality, although in the email story sent to the spammers. his friend who had picked up the funds, ended up spending it on cheap gin. This series is very long and it took me ages to read it all. There are others that are shorter. That said, I haven't laughed as hard as the last time I read one of Mr Russell's - our Gary's really bad puns. So you know how funny this is!
The Vicar III series is complete with a sacrificial goat and twelve teenage virgins that have to found to celebrate the village event known as "The Feast Day of Saint Bodkin" This is apparently getting harder to do each year. Ok on the goat front, the virgin front is a little bit dodgy.
In Vicar III, the would be spam victim is the Reverend Gilbert Murray – Vicar of Saint Bodkin’s Church. He is looking to fund a refurbishment of his unusually large organ in which he takes great pride. His emails to the spammers mention this frequently. "I have a group of women from the local Womens’ Institute who are eager to see my large organ for themselves. Once I have shown off my organ to the ladies, and possibly let them have a play with it, I will contact the security company and get the ball rolling." " The poor Vicar also has problems with his verger's rather enthusiastic patronage of young Tai orphaned boys and girls, but I will leave you to read the details of that saga should you so desire.
He also appears also to be a great editor, pointing out to the spammers when they insist on ALL CAPS, or fail to spell their names or company names consistently in consecutive emails. He often prays for them in closing his email messages: "May the Good Lord teach you a little bit more about the geography of the UK than you currently know." Sometimes he chides them in the name of the Lord and sometimes he just offers a genuine benediction. "May Jesus turn the rays of the sun towards you and give you a golden shower." Anyway he keeps these scam artists busy for over three months, with several fruitless trips by them to collect funds from banks and Western Union. The writing is extremely creative, clever and funny, did I mention funny?
Ayup! As funny as nearly all ..... or nearly as funny as a Yorkshire lad's jokes I often read here.
Nigel²
Oh, Gary, I do hope this isn't one of your relatives!Anyway I usually hit delete straight away, but since these morons used a UK email address I decided to forward the message to [email protected] a few minutes I got back an automated reply - the usual answer. Much to my surprise, early this morning I received this (extract):
Hello,
Thanks for writing to Yahoo! UK Customer Care.
Thank you for reporting this to Yahoo!. It is prohibited to send
unsolicited or "Spam" email from a Yahoo! Mail account as agreed by new
users when accepting the Yahoo! Terms of Mail Service Agreement.
In this particular case, we have identified the account used to send
this email and have taken the appropriate action to prevent it from
being used again to send spam mail.
In the future, if you receive an unwanted email message that appears to
originate from a Yahoo! Mail account, please forward the message with
full headers directly to us at:
[email protected]
For further information about this specific type of fraud, please see:
http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm
Thanks again for writing to UK Yahoo! Customer Care.
Wow, I had not expected such fast action (or any action for that matter) so I am glad I reported this to Yahoo. While I am not naive enough to think this will stop this scam (just open another account) I did give myself a little pat on the back for a small victory in the spam wars. Others have a much larger commitment to the war on spam and they are waging a far stronger fight. See below.
I actually posted this because while googling to find the place to report this scam, I ran across this website:
http://www.scambuster419.co.uk/index.html
An interesting sight to say the least! This chap must have some time on his hands because he has developed an elaborate plan to fight back. To that end he has created the village of Gypping in the Marsh, one of Linconshire's least visited villages famous as the cabbage capital of Lincolnshire. His arsenal of weapons also include fake bank transfer notices, fake Western Union payment receipts and some creative inventions such as the Federal United Consolidated Worldwide International Transfer Service (make an acronym out of that one). His method is simple: try to keep the spammers as busy as possible for as long as possible answering email questions, or with wild goose chases to banks and Western Union offices to collect funds that were never sent, arranging meetings where he obviously does not show up and other very creative schemes .
There are several stories on his site with all the emails exchanged included. I was fascinated by the series "Vicar III" since he managed to get the spammers to send him funds, albeit only £7 to clear up some alleged troubles with Western Union and prove their network in West Africa was ok. He donated this to a charity in reality, although in the email story sent to the spammers. his friend who had picked up the funds, ended up spending it on cheap gin. This series is very long and it took me ages to read it all. There are others that are shorter. That said, I haven't laughed as hard as the last time I read one of Mr Russell's - our Gary's really bad puns. So you know how funny this is!
The Vicar III series is complete with a sacrificial goat and twelve teenage virgins that have to found to celebrate the village event known as "The Feast Day of Saint Bodkin" This is apparently getting harder to do each year. Ok on the goat front, the virgin front is a little bit dodgy.
In Vicar III, the would be spam victim is the Reverend Gilbert Murray – Vicar of Saint Bodkin’s Church. He is looking to fund a refurbishment of his unusually large organ in which he takes great pride. His emails to the spammers mention this frequently. "I have a group of women from the local Womens’ Institute who are eager to see my large organ for themselves. Once I have shown off my organ to the ladies, and possibly let them have a play with it, I will contact the security company and get the ball rolling." " The poor Vicar also has problems with his verger's rather enthusiastic patronage of young Tai orphaned boys and girls, but I will leave you to read the details of that saga should you so desire.
He also appears also to be a great editor, pointing out to the spammers when they insist on ALL CAPS, or fail to spell their names or company names consistently in consecutive emails. He often prays for them in closing his email messages: "May the Good Lord teach you a little bit more about the geography of the UK than you currently know." Sometimes he chides them in the name of the Lord and sometimes he just offers a genuine benediction. "May Jesus turn the rays of the sun towards you and give you a golden shower." Anyway he keeps these scam artists busy for over three months, with several fruitless trips by them to collect funds from banks and Western Union. The writing is extremely creative, clever and funny, did I mention funny?
Ayup! As funny as nearly all ..... or nearly as funny as a Yorkshire lad's jokes I often read here.
Nigel²
