World of Warcraft Login Validation

The wonderful people of World of Warcraft have contacted me to let me know that I need to verify my account information or they will lock my account. OH NO!! Quite a few things wrong here but i'll let you check out the email first..Click on the picture to enlarge them.

First things first.. I DONT HAVE A WORLD OF WARCRAFT ACCOUNT! lol. Next, they start the letter with "Dear Customer", now if this was an actual email from a company they would refer to you as your login name. The "Thank you for contacting customer support", well, since I dont have an account with them, I never contacted them lol. (Unless i'm sleep emailing again, thats always embarrassing lol). The link they instruct me to click on looks legit at first glance, i'm assuming so because i've never been to their website but as i've mentioned in other posts, if you hover over the link, at the bottom left you will see this.

At first glance, looks ok, doesn't match the link on the email but looks legit.... Until you look very closely at the first bit of the link.. www.worldofWARCARFT.BRTTLE.net  Just to glance at the picture, it looks ok until you look closely at the spelling and realize either they hired idiots at WoW that can't spell, or its a link to a fake information verification page which, if filled out, will give them all sorts of information. Information that will give someone access to your account. For the WoW players out there, you know what kind of damage that can do to your months or years of effort put into the game.  And quite possibly, the biggest thing here... MY HOTMAIL FLAGGED IT AS SUSPICIOUS! I know sometimes things that aren't spam end up in your junk box but make sure to take a very close look at any email that your inbox flags as suspicious before you click on anything.

I dug further into my junk box and found a few more from them...

----------
Greetings
This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s)As you may or may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement.If this proves to be true, your account can and will be disabled. It will be ongoing for further investigation by Blizzard Entertainment's employees.If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account ownership.If the information is deemed accurate, the investigation will be dropped.
This action is taken because we at Blizzard Entertainment take these salesquite seriously. We need to confirm you are the original owner of the account.This is easiest done by confirming your personal information along with concealed information about your account.
we recommend you Login verify Information your account:
http://battle-account-confirm.net/account/login.html?app=wam&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldofwarcraft.com%2Faccount%2F&eor=0&app=bam
If you ignore this mail your account can and will be closed permanently. Once we verify your account,we will reply to your e-mail informing you that we have dropped the investigation.billing@blizzard.com. Account security is solely the responsibility of the accoun tholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzardrepresentatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account,Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.


Regards,
Blizzard Entertainment Inc Account Administration Team

------

Greetings!

It has come to our attention that you are trying to sell your personal World of Warcraft account(s).
As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement.
If this proves to be true, your account can and will be disabled.
It will be ongoing for further investigation by Blizzard Entertainment's employees.
If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account ownership.

You can confirm that you are the original owner of the account to this secure website with:

https://us.battle.net/account/parental-controls/manage.html?key=14565A2B27E79706CAC7A92976785E5E952A8FFAA808517C

Login to your account, In accordance following template to verify your account.

* First and Surname
* Secret Question and Answer
Show * Please enter the correct information

If you ignore this mail your account can and will be closed permanently.

Once we verify your account, we will reply to your e-mail informing you that we have dropped the investigation.

Regards,

Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/
World of Warcraft , Blizzard Entertainment 2010
--------

By now, i'm sure you guys can tell how I know these are fakes. Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments box and let's see how much you've learned. The links in these emails have been reported as web forgery and most of them have been removed from the internet already, remember, if you get a mail like this, go to the companies ACTUAL website and find a way to forward scams to them so they can take immediate action to get them removed. You would be doing a very good deed to ensure that nobody falls for these scams. Thanks for reading!

YOUR LONG AWAITED ATM CARD OF 1.5MILLION USD.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!  Comments in red are just my goofy take on this email. Enjoy!
----

Good day:

I am MR.AUTHUR SMITH FROM Dhl EXpress delivery Service

I have since been in custody of a parcel that contains an ATM CARD wort 1.5million united states dollars,that belongs to you. (How did you know what was in it, did you open my mail?? "Opening another persons mail is a Federal Offense. Even if person who delivers your mail keeps it or ceases to deliver that mail and keeps it can lose their job, receive a fine or be put in prison." You are in so much trouble when I get my package!)


The parcel was delivered to the DHL BRANCH OFFICE were i work as the manager,this parcel was on its way to your destination and it was been sent from ABUJA NIGERIA,the reason why the delivery of the parcel was not been completed to your destination was that ,the parcel has been ordered from the head office DHL NIGERIA AND ALSO LONDON to be stoped due to the reason that the tax CLEARANCE fees has not yet been settled by the SENDER AND all our effort to locate him or her has been in vain,so we reasoned that it will be better to contact you the receiver,since your sender left with us your information and also your email address to be in contact with you on delivery of the parcel to you,So the parcel was stoped because according to the dhl office in nigeria that any funds leaving there country that is above 200,000.00usd must have the tax clearance fees settled otherwise it will be taged as illegal funds. (So not only are you in trouble for holding my mail, you are in posession of illegal funds! Tisk tisk..)


But i have been instructed not to proceed with the delivery as at yet because you will need to settle the TAX CLEARANCE FEES ,that will be submited to the TAX CLEARANCE HEAD OFFICE IN ABUJA NIGERIA before the parcel can be released from my office to you. (Ever notice how so many people have "misplaced money" in Nigeria. I swear I have gotten hundreds of emails in my time letting me know I have unclaimed funds in Nigeria)


So before your parcel will proceed from canada to your destination ,you have been asked to send to them the total of 200usd ,in other for them to help acquire the form for the tax clearance and also have it submited and afterwords you will have your parcel forwarded to you again. (If the package was on its way from Nigeria to me in the USA, how did it end up in Canada?? Ok so how do I get this "form" i need for the tax clearance..hmm?)


You are required to send the total of 200usd to them in nigeria,as soon as you see this email to the information below via western union. (Wait, what happend to the form? Now I am just sending $200 dollars to Nigeria on good faith without a tax form? Can I write this off on my taxes??)



RECEIVERS NAME: Paul Adams
COUNTRY:NIGERIA
STATE:ABUJA
TEST QUESTION: RED
TEST ANSWER:BLUE
AMOUNT TO SEND:200USD



As soon as you have the Tax clearance fees SENT you are adviced to fill out the bellow western union details and email them the details to me on my personal email address (dhl-delivery32-service32@hotmail.com) or call them dirrectly on +2348039284683 to provide the bellow information to them. (DHL works with hotmail addresses now, how professional. Come to think of it, why am I emailing THEM the details of the money order to YOUR hotmail address, shouldnt I just contact them?)



MTCN..............
SENDERS NAME...............
SENDER COUNTRY...............



As soon as your payment has been comfirmed you will receive your tracking number so you can mornitor (with this 200 dollars will you go to your local college and take a spelling class for crying out loud!) your parcel until it arrives your destination but take note that it will only take 24hrs for us to deliver your ATM CARD to you,do not forget to send along your full mailing address.

If we do not receive your TAX CLEARANCE FEES IN 48HRS after this mail has been sent then the parcel will be forwarded to the FBI as unclaimed. (Well crap, I got this mail 3 days ago, now I guess the FBI can get new cars)

NOTE:IF YOU CAN NOT MAKE THE REQURIED PAYMENT DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL IN OTHERWORDS YOU ARE ADVICED TO DISREGARD THIS MAIL (What? I cant negotiate to make this in payments?)

Mr.AUTHUR SMITH

-----

*SIGH* What more can I say about this email other than the guy needs to learn to spell. I typo on occasion and forget or misplace a punctuation mark here and there but WOW. Stay in school kids.. PLEASE!

Craigslist buyer scam

This email was forwarded to me from one of my blog readers. She had a vehicle listed on craigslist and received an email inquiring about the vehicle and when she responded that it was still available she got this in return. Thank you for sharing your story Katie!

--------

Hello,
Thanks for your prompt responds, However, i will need your name and
address for payment,As am only able to make payment by Cashier check,
at this time b/c i am away on assignment. It will be nice if you can
send me more pictures.It will take some days for the payment to get to
you.As per pick-up,And the rest funds on the check will be send over
to the movers inorder for them to come over for the pick up.So i will
send the payment which will include the pick up charges, in which you
will make payable to the mover via money gramm/Western union
immediately after you have receive the payment and you will be
compensated with $50 extra for your running around to the
money gram/Western union outlet to avoid the delay..Please take the
posting off Craigslist today and consider it sold to me, Include your
phone number.
Expecting to hear from you soon.
Regards.......

------------


This is a classic Craigslist scam directed at sellers who have high priced items listed. She was very smart to notice the scam before contacting this person further. He has told her that he will send a money order for the truck and must take a portion of that money and send it via money order to the movers that will pick up the vehicle for her. If she was to continue with this transaction she would have been sent a very legitimate looking money order that she would have taken to the bank and possibly purchased another money order to give to the "movers". The movers in this case do not exist but she would have unknowingly sent a money order back to the person that sent her this mail giving him a few hundred dollars of her own money. In the meantime the bank would have contacted her to let her know the money order was a fake and she would have been out a few hundred dollars.

Spotting the fake: Even if you cant tell if the buyer is legit or not. Take a few things into consideration. 1. He never once specifies about what he is buying, this is a copy/pasted email he probably sends to numerous sellers with high price items on Craigslist. 2. Never ever deal with anyone on craigslist that wants an item shipped or wants to deal in money orders. Cash transactions face to face in a safe location are always the way to go. 3. He specified there was a rush to "avoid delay" basically hoping she would get the money order to him before the bank noticed the one he sent to her was a fake.

Here is a section from craigslist FAQ section regarding scams:

You can sidestep would-be scammers by following these common-sense rules:

* DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON - follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on craigslist.
* NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM or any other wire service - anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer.
* FAKE CASHIER CHECKS & MONEY ORDERS ARE COMMON, and BANKS WILL CASH THEM AND THEN HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE when the fake is discovered weeks later.
* CRAIGSLIST IS NOT INVOLVED IN ANY TRANSACTION, and does not handle payments, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer "buyer protection" or "seller certification"
* NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal info, etc.)
* AVOID DEALS INVOLVING SHIPPING OR ESCROW SERVICES and know that ONLY A SCAMMER WILL "GUARANTEE" YOUR TRANSACTION.


As always, thanks for reading, comments are always welcome! I will now be allowing comments to be posted by anonymous users so you will not have to have a google account to voice your opinion.

Farmville Scams 101

I did NOT make this video but I figured I'd save you all a bunch of reading on this lazy Friday. It's a silly video but it gets the point across lol. Enjoy!




This one is more on the serious side of it with a lot of useful information, check it out. Be careful what you click on. Happy Farming!

Interview with a scam victim.

"In 2009, the IC3 received more than 335,000 complaints of Internet fraud, averaging over 28,000 complaints per month.  The total amount of money lost by those who reported fraud to the IC3 in 2009 was a record-setting $559.7 million.  The mean loss reported in 2009 was more $5,500, while the median loss was $575; the vast difference between the two numbers is explained by a small number of frauds that cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The largest number of losses in 2009 - 36.7% - fell within the $100 to $999 range, followed closely by losses in the $1,000 to $4,999 range, coming in at 28.3%."

---

The following is an actual interview i had with a real person that was the victim of a craigslist scam. Names and money amounts have been left out for privacy.
---
Me: So, briefly describe what the ad said.

Victim: It's just your basic story really, they wanted someone to transfer money for them to different companies. In exchange, I was sent extra money I could keep for myself.

Me: What made you want to answer the ad?

Victim: I was between jobs and having no money or a job was stressful and put a lot of strain on my relationship. I thought my fiance was going to leave me.

Me: Did you at any point wonder why they wanted to pay someone to do it instead of saving the money and doing it themselves?

Victim: I was desperate, mostly I was hoping for something easy I could do from home to help us make money fast.

Me: So after you responded to the ad, what happened?

Victim: They sent me a money order, I put it in the ATM, then made some purchases with  the money intended for me. I then realized the money wasn't  posting to my account and told the bank that I thought it might be fraud. I wanted to wait for it to clear but I ended up needing the money. When I tried to contact the guy, I got no response.

Me: What happened when the money order was found to be a fake?

Victim: My bank account went overdrawn and I had to find a way to pay back the money I spent.

Me: How did you feel after you realized you were scammed?

Victim: I felt stupid and really naive, like I should have known better for trying.

Me: What would you say to someone that was considering answering an ad like that?

Victim: No matter how desperate you get please know that it doesn't work, doesn't pay off, and will cost you more. They make money orders look real but they are just fakes. If you do try to deposit one that might be fake take it into the bank and ask them if it is a fake. If it is they will report it for you and you will have helped to get the scam erased.

----

I want to personally thank this victim for wanting to share what they went through in that hopes of helping people understand there is no easy money. Have your own story to share? Mail it to weakscamattempts@gmail.com

Facebook "Car accidents"

I know I have already posted a scam for you guys today but this just caught my attention and I felt it necessary to get it out there asap.

Ok, I JUST came across this on a friends page. I call these "car accidents" because someone sees it and, just like a car accident, stops to look before they think. When you click on things like this it will repost to your page causing... more car accidents. Catch my drift? Remember, If it seems too good to be true... well you all know where this is going by now.

Please learn that while something like this would be very interesting to read with the titles "This girl killed herself after her dad posted this one her wall" and "this made me cry". Chances are good you really will cry once you find yourself giving permissions to an app or giving away your personal information or getting a virus that will harm you in the long run. Ever used a credit card on your computer to do some online Christmas shopping? Viruses that can be found in apps and pages like this WILL get that info from your computer and next thing you know you're making purchases at a Macy's in South Dakota.  Please pass this blog on, there is a facebook share button at the bottom of this post, help you friends learn that clicking on these things can cause serious damage. Thanks for reading! As always, comments welcome!

Edit: I want to add that if you do happen to fall victim to one of these, immediately remove the post from your wall and change your password and run your virus scan for good measure. If a friend of yours posts it and they are not online, comment that it is a scam so nobody else clicks on it. They may not listen, but the best you can do is try.

Western Union Compensation Payment Alert

Email addresses and certain numbers removed.


On behalf of the International Monetary Fund/United Nation/ ECOWAS , I once
again try to notify you as my earlier letter was returned undelivered. I
hereby attempt to reach you again by this same email address on the
Beneficiary.
if you get this one, I write to inform you that this is our last and final
mail to you regarding this payment. we have already sent you $5000.00 USD
dollars through our Western Union as we have been given the mandate to
transfer your full compensation payment of $300,000.00 USD via Western
Union by this government.
So,I decided to email you the MTCN and sender name, so you can pick up this
$5000.00 USD to enable us send another $5000.00 USD by tomorrow as you
know we will be sending you only $5000.00 USD per day. Please do let us
know if you have pick up this payment now.

Sender's First Name: LAWRENCE CHIBUZO
Sender's Second Name: ANIEGBOKO
Address: Abuja, Nigeria
Test Question: Pay
Test Answer: Cash
MTCN: 0000000000
Amount: $5000 USD

Contact our Finance Director of Western Union Money Transfer Corporate
Headquarters Mr. Fredrick Collins via emails contact below.

NAME: Mr. Fredrick Collins {Finance Director}
address removed@xnmsn.cn
TEL: +234-000-000-0000

Thank you for using Western Union.

Regards,
Mr. David Geoger.

-------

Ya know, I seem to be coming into a lot of cash via email these days. It is so generous of these people to track me down by my untrackable hotmail account to let me know about all this money I have lying around unclaimed. Makes me think for a minute how nice it would be if these were all true LOL. If I walked into a Western Union with this information I would look like a fool. But wait, I don't have to! All I have to do is email the Finance director of Western Union at the address provided and... hmm, what would happen then? Part of me would love to contact these people and just play along to see what kind of info they would try to get from me but I don't want to start a long chain of annoying emails when I don't respond back. They would probably request that I first send them the fees to cover each transaction of $5000.00 or something along those lines. Either way, I doubt 300,000.00 is lying around somewhere just for me. An unsuspecting gullible person would probably think "Well if all they want is a small amount of fees and I am going to get 300.000.00 in return then why not spend money to get money." Only to find out that they will never see that money. It happens every day.

I personally know someone who was the victim of an online money scam. She has agreed to give me an interview of sorts describing how she was scammed, what happened as a result of the scam, and how the whole ordeal made her feel. Check back tomorrow to see her story.

Facebook ending? Tupac murder solved?

As I am sure most of you have seen over the past week. Facebook is going away, but on a positive note, Tupac's murder has been solved!! If you believe that, I have some beach front property in Arizona I'd love to sell you for a cheap price!

Ok lets think about this for a minute before we all go re-posting this madness to our status.

Facebook is worth approx $11 billion (or so says various sources on the internet). Why on earth would CEO Mark Zuckerberg just destroy something that is worth so much. Even if the rumors of "the stress of managing this company has ruined my life" were true, why wouldnt he just sell it to the highest bidder! Look at Myspace, since Facebook came along Myspace is almost non existent BUT since it still makes money, it will still survive. Even if a social networking site bigger and better than Facebook came along, they'd still stick it out for the big bucks, and for the jobs it provides. Facebook will be around for a very long time. Just don't click on things like this. Remember, if it doesnt look legit... it's probably not. It's the car accident of 2011, you have to pull the car over and stare and tell everyone what you just saw. Chances are good clicking on things like this will cause you to get a.. (everyone together now) VIRUS!

As for Tupac. this goes back to that shortened link post that I posted. People that clicked on it were sent to a site requesting permission for a application to access their information including name, user identification, and list of friends. Repeat after me class.. "If it doesn't look legit, it's probably not" Learn it, live it, love it lol.

And the new little gem to be added to facebook was a link sent through Facebook chat stating that your photos had been removed! EEP! Have no fear! All you need to do to retrieve them is to click on this little link giving u access to an app called app.facebook.com/CENSORED. Clicking on it automatically downloaded a strain of malware onto your system. (If any of you did this, now would be a good time to make sure your virus software is up to date)

Basically, before you go click happy on Facebook, stop and think. If someone posts something, like the Tupac thing for example, and you just HAVE to see if its true.. Google it. Chances are good you'll come across a site exposing the scam and then you can do the good thing and link the scam report to your friends on facebook instead of passing on the scam.

All of the infomation I learned about these scams I read on a wonderful site called http://www.securitynewsdaily.com. Take a few minutes to check it out sometime.

My Bank of America account has been compromised!!

I checked my mail this morning and *gasp* no scams. I was almost disappointed until TADA! This popped up in my inbox and i'm so glad it did. I'm so lucky Bank of America is looking out for..... wait.... I DONT HAVE A BANK OF AMERICA ACCOUNT! lol Here is the email, text in red is just comments by me.

----

Dear Bank of America Customer, (I'm such a vauable customer you don't know my name??)

We are contacting you to remind you that today our Account Review Team identified
some unusual activity in your account. (OHH the account i don't have) In accordance with Bank of America User Agreement and to ensure that your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited. (Oh noes! I better get this fixed so I can access the money I didnt know I had! Must be the $12 million that dying woman sent me)

To securely confirm your Bank of America credit card features, please follow these steps:

1. Contact Us at www.bankofamerica.com/SingOn/Verify-Your-Identity_Profile-Form-do.htm
2. Verify your identity.

(Ok gonna stop the email for something serious, I clicked on the link and this was the page I was sent to, VERY clever huh? Unfortunately for the unsuspecting Bank of America customer, login information will be given, and weather it is correct or not they will most likely be transferred to a page that asks them to verify all sorts of information. Click on the picture to check it out and the FAKE login i used which oddly enough worked enough to get me to the next page lol)

(Now, this is what shows up after I put in any FAKE username and password. See how someone can be easily tricked by these idiots. Click on it to enlarge. Please don't let yourselves be fooled by scams like these. )

After you have submitted your message, check for a response within 48 hours.(Yeah chances are good you'll hear from your REAL bank letting you know large withdraws have been made)

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.

Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC.
© 2010 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. reserved. ration. All rights reserved.

-------

In conclusion.. please make sure you double check all links and if you are not sure, just call your bank (but do not use any number listed in the email!!) Scammers put a lot of time into making these sites look very legit. Now, since i have gotten this email what am I going to do? On the REAL Bank of America website you look for an area that says "Report phishing emai" and you will find that you can forward the email to abuse@bankofamerica.com When you do, they will verify that the page is a fake and they will contact who they need to, to have it shut down and stop any unsuspecting internet user from falling for it. All banking websites have an email address to report fraud, help others by using it and forwarding the mails.

Update bank account information

I had some free time so I thought I'd share one more today. This email showed up in my inbox and as you can see it is a VERY clever fake. It's almost as though they took an existing Chase email, and modified it for the information they wanted. The text shows up very small and i apologize but you get the idea. You can click on it to enlarge it.



This one was clever and I had to look it over twice. It has the Chase logo, the disclaimers, company phone numbers and addresses and even had my email address on it in two different places that i have blacked out. The first thing i did was checked the link. It looked legit, but it wasn't. I hovered over the link and at the bottom left of my screen it showed me a completely different link going to a privately own page designed to look like a Chase login page. It is easy enough to create a link on a webpage or email and make it look legit. Ever seen pages that say Click Here and when you click on it you are sent somewhere. Same concept, only where "Click Here" is, it can say www.chase.com and when you click on it, it can take you to a page that looks very similar to the Chase login page, but actually isn't. For example, look at this link but do not click on it: www.yahoo.com. Looks like you'd go to yahoo.com right? Now hover over that link with your mouse and check the bottom left of your screen. See how you can know where you're going before you go? Ok, back to the email lol. The BIG thing here is, banks do not ask you to verify your account information through email. You should not verify any account information, logins, passwords, account numbers for any company through email. On a side note, hovering over links to see where they go will save you hassle on many websites. Take facebook for example. How many times do we see on our friends walls "OMG click here you would not believe what this girl did on webcam!! http://bit.ly/g0FZaL " Now if you hovered over it like you should you'd see that it actually DOES go where I claim it does, BUTTT "bit.ly" is one of those sites that will let you shorten any link and it gives you that teeny tiny link to place instead. You will go to http://bit.ly/g0FZaL but the actual link it is connected to, who knows unless you click on it. (you can click on that link to see what I am talking about, i suggest you don't though unless you know me personally and know that I would not steer you wrong.) Be safe! Don't take chances on these if you see them on facebook or any other social networking site. Now if cnn.com posts a link on the page containing the bit.ly website, its more than likely legit. How do you know the difference? Trust your judgment. Titles like "OMG click here you would not believe what this girl did on webcam" are to try to suck you in so you just have to go see what it is, its like a car accident, everyone has to stop down and see. If you do click on one and it takes you somewhere you shouldn't be, close the page and run your virus scan. Sorry this one was a lot of reading, but examples help show what i'm talking about sometimes lol. Comments welcome!

This poor kind sick woman!

This is one of the gems I got in my email today.
--------
Beloved Your Interest Would Interest Me Most.

I am Mrs. Monica Eunice David., a British woman, suffering from cancerous ailment. I am married to Mr. Vincent David, my husband worked with Chevron Corporation for twenty years before he died at the age of 54 in 5th of January 2008 after a brief illness. Since his death I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home due to our tradition.

My husband and I prepared a blueprint for establishing a Foundation that would be directed towards helping the needy in our society. This plan was still in the incubation stage rearing for activation before the sickness that claimed my husband and now left me in this debilitating state. My late husband deposited the sum of 12 Million (TWELVE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS) with a Finance House. Presently this money is still there I am writing from my sick bed. I am looking for a credible person to whom I will pass the right of next of kin. Although we have not met before, I got your email address on the Internet, and my confidence reposed on you. I hope you read this message carefully and reply me immediately.

Recently, my Doctor told me that I have limited days to live due to the stroke and cancerous problems I am suffering from. I have decided to donate this fund to you and want you to use this gift which comes from my husband's effort to fund the upkeep of widows and charities worldwide. In other words, you shall utilize 80% of this money to fund churches, orphanages and widows around the world but in our names: MONICA - VINCENT DAVID FOUNDATION.

You will have to assure me that you will act according to my instructions as I have explained here and to keep this matter confidential till when this fund get to your custody. I cannot predict what will be my fate by the time the fund will be transferred into your account, but you should please ensure that the fund is used as I have stated above. Your interest to executing this assignment for the sake of the needy globally would interest me most as I am convinced that I have only few months to stay here on earth.

If this condition is acceptable by you, please contact me immediately with your :(1) Full Names, Residential Address,Phone number,Age and country and also your picture. I shall give you the contact of the finance house.
I do not want my husband hard earned money to be misused. I want you to always pray for me. Note that this transaction is 100% Legal and Real. Thanks and God bless
Yours sincerely In the Lord,
Mrs. Monica Eunice David.
(email address removed)@gmail.com

-----

This poor, poor woman lying on her death bed wants me to help her. How can I say no?? I mean all she is asking of me is to take 80% of her $12 million dollars and help her send it to the charities of her choice in her and her late husbands name. She is graciously going to let me have the other 20% of the money for myself for doing this for her. How can I pass this opportunity up?? She may even be dead shortly after the funds are transferred so I could keep all of it for myself!! Seems like I'd be set for life right?

Ok, lets take a look here and think about the many things wrong with this email. For starters, If this WAS legit, why couldn't she have hired herself a lawyer to make all of this possible for her when I could easily take her 12 million and run? Secondly, they claim to have gotten my hotmail address randomly from the internet. Would you trust $12 million of your money to someone you didnt know, I think not. (If it seems too good to be true, it probably is)

Now what would happen if i replied? I would send her all of the information requested, now she did not ask for banking info or my social security number so it seems harmless enough right? The instant I replied and sent this person any information about this I would more than likely get a second email stating she would like a show of good faith. She will send me a money order in the amount of $1000 dollars, $800 of which i would be instructed to send to a charity and $200 of which i could keep for myself and then trust would be formed between myself and this woman. I would get the money order, I would take it to my bank, they would accept it. I would take my $200 dollars and buy myself something nice. 2 weeks later I would be contacted by my bank letting me know that the money order was a fake. (Yes, sometimes the money will post to your account but the money order will not clear for 2 weeks and show as a fake) So what happens now? I have spent $1000 dollars of a fake money order that I am now responsible for and I WILL have to pay back. Chances are good the charity I sent the $800 to was in this woman's name and she is off clear and free with $800 dollars. The money order cant be traced to her, nor can the gmail email account... I would have just been scammed out of $1000 dollars.

What am I doing here?

Hello readers!

I want to share with you, in my first post, what i plan to do here. I sift through my email on a daily basis and come across at least 3-4 scam attempts every day. While I sit back and laugh at them and think "How stupid do they think we are?" I realized that not everyone may see right through them as i do. With that said, I want to share with you all some of the emails and scam websites I come across in the hopes to help others recognize what is legit and what is not, and have a little fun at the same time. Comments are always welcome, maybe I will miss something in an email that points it out as an obvious fake and one of you may catch on.

Until my next post, i leave you with one of the most useful bits of information I can give you. This applies to emails, websites, links, and life in general. - If it seems to good to be true, it probably is. Remember, nothing in life is free, there is always a catch. Don't let that catch be your bank account, your identity, or your passwords.