Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Scambait

Since I did not receive exactly what I wanted as a reply, I thought I'd send "Ali" another response:

Dear Ali,

I am ready to send you the information you requested, but my friend Mike Oxmal says that I should not trust anyone who is not in my church. He says that I should give you two choices to prove that I can trust you. First, you can join our church. Alternatively, you can send me a picture to give to Mike. In it, you should be holding a sign which says "Hey! Mike Oxmal!" Once received, I will trust you and we can proceed with our business.


Betsy May
And to respond to Mariam:

Dear Mrs. Abacha,

I apologize for the delay, but as I explained to your family attorney, I was attacked by a stray cat and require rabies treatment. This causes me to be away for a few days at a time. Also, he must not have explained what I requested. My friends, Mike Oxmal and Les Bien, say that I should not trust anyone who is not in our church. They say that I should ask you to either convert to our religion, or ask that you get a picture taken of you holding up a sign with "Les Bien" on it so I can show it to Les. Once I receive it, I will send your attorney the information he requested.

Betsy May
We anxiously await their replies. }:-)

Scambait (again)

I received this email yesterday:

Dear Mr.(Mr?!)Betsy May,
I recieved your mail yesterday.I had all what you
said,i sent an email to Mrs Abacha,so she sent some
pictures to me yesterday to send to you.Her
pictures,her family picture and her late husband
picture.
i will be waiting to hear from you as soon as
possible

Barrister Ali baba.

Before I could respond to this email, I receive another email:

Dear Betsy May

Thanks for your mail and your effort to assist me and
my family In this regards.

Moreover, My family attorney have informed me of your
request concerning my identity and I've forwarded my
pictures to him two days ago for your perusal.

More so, I want you to confirm the receipt of this
pictures in order for me to be rest assured, that you
have them already.

However, I am nocing some fear's, although I am just
working with faith and destiny, these as regards of
what I have passed through before now, the trauma is
still lingering In my memories. But I have built trust
In you again because of the assurance and hope you
have given to me assist me conclude this transaction.
I believe our coming together to do this business is
the divine connection of Almighty Allah and as such
you will not betray the trust and confidence I have
built on you, bare In mind that this is the only hope
for me and my family. I pray that the almight Allah
will surely bless us together. Please cooperate with
our family attorney, I assure you that your family and
my family will celebtrate and dine with wine and
cognac at the successful complition of this business
when we meet face to face.

Thanks once again and Allah blesses you.

Mrs. Mariam Abacha.
I will post my replies as soon as I make them.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Scambait

Here is my response to the scambait:

Barrister Ali,

This all seems too good to be true! I'm not sure about sending you all the information you requested until I know it is not too good to be true. In good faith, I have attached a picture of myself with some friends. In the picture, from left to right, are Les Bien, Sue Emal, Jim Nasiem, Mike Oxmal, and myself (Betsy May). In return, could you send my a picture of yourself and Mrs Abacha. To show that this is really true, please hold a sign with Mike Oxmal's name on it. Also, please have Mrs Abacha hold a sign with Les Bien's sign on it. Once I receive this picture, I will send all the information you require. I just need to know this is truely happening.

Betsy May
The picture I attached is available here.

Before I responded, I have received two more messages:

DEAR MS. Betsy May,

PLEASE MY DEAR FRIEND KINDLY CONTACT MRS ABACHA, LET
HER KNOW ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THINGS,AS SHE IS
LONGING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.

KIND REGARDS
BARRISTER ALI.
And from our Mrs. Mariam Abacha:


Dear Ms Betsy May,

I have receive your mail from my family attorney.
thank you very much. i am well but i tinking a lot
of my family . my attorney told me that he STILL
WAITING FOR YOU and he told her secretary to send you
some details last week, have you recieve it.what my
family attorney says is what is happening so please
kindly co-operate with the attorney, help me to see
that this fund move out immediately.May the almighty
allah bless you. Also i would like you to be updating
me on all what is hapening.

Sincerely yours
Mrs Mariam Abacha.
To which I replied,

Mrs Abacha,

Praise Jesus that you are well. I have sent an email to your family attorney this very morning, and I am awaiting his reply.

Sincerely,
Betsy May

Scambait (again)

After giving up hope, I finally received a reply to my message. Here it is:
CHANMBER OFFICE. PLOT 89F, DAKER CRESCENT GERDENING CITY, SARIKY ABUJA. Dear Ms. Betsy May, I AM BARRISTER ALI BABA AKU, I HAVE RECIEVED YOUR MAIL FROM MRS ABACHA. MRS MARIAM ABACHA MAIL ALSO,PLEASE I CONTACT YOU ABOUT THE MATTER OF CLAIMING THE CONSIGNMENT OF MRS ABACHA DEPOSITED IN THE SECURITY FIRM IN HOLLAND.THE DECISSION NOW LED TO YOU TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND TO (TRAVEL)TO HOLLAND AND CLAIM THE CONSIGNMENT. EVERY ARRANGMENT HAS TO BE MADE IMMEDIATELY, TO RELEASE THE CONSIGNMENT TO YOU AS THE BENEFICIARY.AS YOU ARE AWARE THAT MRS ABACHA COULD NOT TRAVEL TO HOLLAND FOR THE SIGNING OF THE RELEASE OF THIS CONSIGNMENT.PLEASE UNDERSTAND IT RIGHT AND CO-OPERATE.THEN I BARRISTER ALI WILL PREPARED ALL THE NECESSARY PAPER WORK AND SEND IT TO YOU BY ORDER FROM MRS ABACHA. PLEASE SEND ME YOUR PRIVATE DETAILS: 1) YOUR PHONE & FAX NUMBER. 2) HOME ADDRESS. 3)YOUR PHOTO, ONE COPY. 4)YOUR OCCUPATION. 5)YOUR COUNTRY. 6) YOUR STATE OF ORIGIN. ALL THIS IS TO ENABLE US PROCEED WITH THE NEXT STEP. LOOKING FORWARD TO HEAR FROM YOU. KIND REGARDS BARRISTER ALI BABA AKU.
Now, I must proceed with caution, but this could prove to be the best part of the scambait. As it took forever for him to send me a message, I'll sit on this for a few days while I think up the best items to send him. This is gonna be fun!

Friday, September 24, 2004

Bookmarks

I found a great little extension for FireFox here that will synchronize your bookmarks via an XML file. Saves me from having to enter short Blog entries to bookmark pages I want to visit later.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Scambait - No more

Well, apparently this scammer was wise to me, so my fun went nowhere fast :( Oh well... I'll get them next time :) Anyone else, feel free to use the cat story in your own scambait... It was sent to our billing department as an excuse for having a delinquent bill, which makes it even better :)

Friday, September 17, 2004

Scambait - No response

Well, I've given it a couple of days, and thus far have not gotten a responce out of the scammer, so I'm going to fire off an email to "Ali" to make another attempt at the bait. The email is as follows:

Dear Ali,

I am deeply concerned that I have not heard a resonse from my dear friend, Mariam Abacha, in a couple of days. She indicated that you would be helping us with her urgent business proposition. I hope that she is well, and would still like to continue with our plans. Please respond soon, as I may have to visit the hospital for a few days, and would hate to miss the oportunity to help.

Betsy May

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Scambait - Let the fun begin

I checked my Yahoo account today, and this was sitting in my INBOX. Notice the family attorney also uses Yahoo email. My response is below:

Dear FRIEND,

Thank you very much for your response to my mail,
However I can understand your readiness to assit me
and my entire family in this business transaction. I
will want you to understand the present state in
family, we have passed through serious ordeal after
the death of my husband,the present government are
doing their best to render me and my entire family
financially handicap, my eldest son was released from
detention just recently, asking to know where my late
husband kept his fortunes, where as some family close
associates and relatives diverted some funds belonging
to my family and I in pretends to assisting me. With
all that I prayed and cried to Allah that has never
failed me to give me a reliable foreigner that will
asist me in this last fortunes and I beleive Almighty
Allah gave me you, except for the fact that you want
me to beleive that you are not honest and trusthworthy
as I have taken you to be in my spirit.
All I need from you is work in confidence with my
family attorney and get this consignment containing
the total sum out, as the final beneficiary with all
necessary documents obtain by my family attorney on
your behalf and deposit the funds in your bank account
and make arrangement on how to come over in other for
you to make a safe place of aboard for my family and
I, as we can no longer stay in this country because it
is quite frustrating.

All that I want you to do is to contact my family
attorney immediately.You let him understand that you
are my family close foreign partner that will help me
claim this funds and get it to your bank account in
your country.

Have the information of my family attorney:
Name: Ali baba aku.
e-mail: barristeralibaba@yahoo.com

Dear Fried, Almighty Allah has chosen you
and I beleive in you as my spirit accepts you to
assist my family as a reliable and honest foreigner
that will stand as the final beneficiary to the
consignment in the Diplomatic Courier Service office
in Amsterdam-Holland.

My major interest in you is the investment programme I
will want to invest with you together in your
country.My family attorney will draw a mutual
agreement binding you and I for the investment proper,
and a large percentage of the total fund will go into
that programme, though my agreed percentage for you
stands.

Please Fried, since the Almighty Allah has
chosen you to render this assistance to my family,
please don't fail us as all my hope is in this
deposited funds that nobody in my country knows about
except my eldest son, family attorney .
I rely so much in my confidence in you.
Thank you and may the Almighty Allah bless and prosper
you for your kind help to my family.

Regards,
Mrs Mariam Abacha.

So, let the fun begin. I'll reply to both the sending address, and the "lawyer's" address. This is a message we received at our billing address as an excuse for not having received payment. I've made up a fake name to go along with it, but here goes:

Dear Ali,

I have been contacted by Mrs Mariam Abacha about her current situation. I would love to help her, and I am not is such a great situation myself. You see, I had a really "freak" accident at about the time I was paying bills earlier this month. This really happened to me and I am just now coming around to where I am trying to catch up on the past bills.

I was attacked by a stray cat. He had been hanging around the farm here, I had given him food and milk, he had tried on several occasions to enter our home. At first, I thought he was lonely and wanted a family environment. He was well-groomed and looked like Charlie Chaplin in the face, toothbrush moustache and all. Everyone thought he was so cute. Well -- the illegal entries in the house met with attacks on my own cats, both of whom are quite old and declawed. This fellow was big, muscular & had all the claws he needed to kick butt. I had saved my own cats several times from this meanie. One time he got in again and was literally killing my old male cat. I got my cat to run down the basement stairs while I slammed the door on the other cat. Well, the other cat got caught across his midsection and didn't like that one bit. So when I tried to get him out of the house -- which I had done umpteen times before -- the cat went berserk! He latched onto my right forearm with his front claws and tried to disembowel me with his hind legs. When I wouldn't -- couldn't! -- let go, he gave me an Antichrist look, rolled back his eyes and opened his mouth wide, like a snake, and bit me for all it was worth. I don't remember how I got him off of me and disconnected, but the next thing I knew, he was outside. Of course, blood everywhere and then a trip to the ER. For the next 2 weeks, you would have thought I had some alien disease. Any time you have a wound from an animal bite, watch out. The follow-ups seem worse than the actual attack! Now I am waiting to see if I have rabies or not, but I doubt it. Obviously, this cat was so mean that its owners drove up to the neighbor's farm and threw it out the front window of their car. The neighbor actually saw this happen. Apparently sweet, funny little Charlie Chaplin actually was a Little Hitler instead! I got the worst of it. The cat disappeared after the incident and left me waiting and wounded.

So, you see, I can really sympathize with Mrs Abacha. However, without details of what needs done, I do not know how I can help, but I thank Jesus that she has contected me.

Scinserely,
Betsy May

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Scambait

Hi all!

Just received this email at a work address. I decided to have a little fun with it. I'll post all corespondence here:

Head Office.
18,floor Aabacha Diamond House
I05,Mariam Abacha Ave,
Behind First Bank Ltd Building
Ikeja, lagos Nigeria.

Dear friend,

I am Mrs Mariam Abacha the wife of the formal head of
state
the Fedral Republic of Nigeran Late General Sani
Abacha.Following the sudden death of my husband
General Sani
Abacha the late former head of state of Nigeria in
August
1998,I have been thrown into a state of utter
confusion,
frustration and hopelessness by the present civilian
administration, I have been subjected to physical
and psychological torture by the security agents in
the
country.I have lost confidence with anybody within the
country.

you must have heard over the media reports and the
internet
on the recovery of various huge sums of money
deposited by my husband in different security firms
abroad,some companies willingly give up their secrets
and
disclosed our money confidently lodged there or many
out
right blackmail.In fact the total sum discovered by
the
Government so far is in the tune of $700. Million
dollars.
And they are not relenting to make me poor for life.

I got your contacts through my personal research,and
out of
desperation decided to reach you.I will give you more
information as to this regard as soon as you reply.I
repose
great confidence in you hence my approach to you due
to
security network placed on my day affairs I cannot
afford to
visit the embassy so that is why I decided to contact
you
and I hope you will not betray my confidence in you. I
have
deposited the {sum of 22.5 million dollars} with a
security
firm abroad whose name is with held for
now until we open communication.

I shall be grateful if you could receive this fund
into your
account for safe keeping.This arrangement is known to
you
and my son Mustapha Abacha alone who have just been
relised
by the Federal Government,so my son will deal directly
with
you as security is up my whole being.I am seriously
considering to settle down abroad in a friendly
atmosphere
like yours as soon as this fund get into your account
so
that I can start all over again if only you
wish, but if it is impossible,just help me indiverting
this
fund into your account which will accrue you {20%} of
this
fund.Please honesty is the watch word in this
transaction.

I will give you a more detailed picture of things.In
case
you dont accept please do not let me out to the
security as
I am giving you this information in total trust and
confidence I will greatly appreciate if you accept my
proposal in good faith.Please expedite action
required.

Sincerely yours
Mrs Mariam Abacha.

My reply, to start the scam bait, is as follows:

I would love to help. Please respond to my personal
email account, xxxxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com.


I'll post a response once I get it, because this could be lots of fun.

Monday, September 6, 2004

Geocaching

What a great day of Geocaching! I went with my wife, Nicofthyme, and Jon and his girlfriend, Liz. We hit a total of nine caches today! One was a virtual, and I haven't logged it yet, but hopefully the cache owner will reply to the email soon :)

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Tech Support

As part of my job, I check several support-related email accounts. I had the following message come in to our abuse account, and just have to share it:

"Can anyone there tell me why when my sister sends me an email, I get this message saying OE has deleted unsafe attachments to her emails? I never hardly get to read her stuff, just family stuff you know. What is this OE and how dare they delete my emails! Any info you have will be greatly appreciated."