The spam is getting weirder and weirder | Hacker News Reader

The spam is getting weirder and weirder

15 pointsjacquesm10 comments

Hello fellow HN'ers,

I've seen quite a bit of spam to date, but this one really is in a class of its own, which is why I'm sharing it with you.

Enjoy.

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FROM MRS. FARIDA WAZIRI(ASSISTANCE) ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION NIGERIA INVESTIGATION BUREAU 14A AWOLOWO LANE, IKOYI LAGOS NIGERIA. Motto: No Body is Above the LAW

ATTENTION: RECIPIENT,

FBI REPORT

I’m writing to you in furtherance to the report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation {FBI} concerning the alleged money laundering charges leveled against you. I have been directed by the FBI to issue the clearance certificate to you, which will exonerate you from all illicit activities relating to money laundering and terrorist activities.

As you have been already informed, the US security agencies are preparing to press charges against you due to your involvement in an illicit transaction. It is however imperative that you send the required $300 immediately so as to enable us send the necessary mandatory clearance to you in order to clear your name from this problem.

Kindly get back to me as soon as you receive this email so that I can advise you on how to send the money through western union money transfer. Your prompt reply will be of your best interest.

I look forward to your reply.

Best Regards

Chief Mrs.Farida Mzamber Waziri (Assistance) Economic And Financial Crime Commission.

Somebody should keep track of all the new and unusual spam emails over the years. I think it would be very entertaining. They're obviously adapting somewhat as the internet audience becomes more sophisticated.

I find it interesting the different psychological and sociological attack vectors they use. Over the years I've become a bit of a connoisseur.

Of course there's the old dead-relative-in-Africa one (my relatives have a tendency to tour Africa and drop like flies, it seems). And the old must-escape-country routine. And the bank-account problem ones. But then there's the spammers who are avant-garde. I've gotten one from (supposedly) an elderly Christian woman just looking to give her money to a good cause and asking me for help. I had one the other week telling me that they had been conned and asking me for help retrieving their money. Then there was the one supposedly from Hotmail telling me my account was open to spam (which would make sense since the email itself was spam) and telling me to go to a special site to fix it up.

I won the Google email lottery yesterday. Good thing they're keeping up with Microsoft on this front.

I get really angry at these guys. But at the same time, it's a fascinating look into the greedy, sleazy side of humanity. There's a bit of cleverness in there that, while definitely not admired, at least should be recognized.

Jacques, I really thought better of you. The last thing I imagined is that you'd get mixed up in the money laundering business.

I know... what bugs me is that they found out about it so easily, I thought I had my tracks covered pretty good.

Better pay up I guess.

That's rather worrying; in that it shows a much higher level of care/research... the name & department are real for a start.

Ok so this one is obviously idiotic - but how long before someone figures out that it might only take a bit of nouse to make a realistic sounding mail....

If I were trying to scam someone in, e.g., France, I would not bother to invent a plausible-sounding department and name. I would just use Google to find a story about a French financial scandal that quoted someone I hadn't heard of, at a particular department.

A second-generation Nigerian scam!

Apparently so many people have been taken in by the original, that it's worthwhile trying to target them specifically in a second round.

If you are currently helping a Nigerian ex-general retrieve his family's fortune from overseas accounts, this might come in handy as a hedge in case he is not legit.

Looks fairly normal to me.

What surprises me more is getting lots of jokes as comment spam on a depressed blog entry of mine. The spam bots are trying to cheer me up.

They have more humanity than their creators; a common SF trope. That does make me wonder how long it'll be before they start hooking up cleverbot to disguise their links in legit-sounding replies to other comments.

If you're worried that a scammer has caught you out for money laundering, you likely have bigger problems than just losing $300 to scammers.

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