Everyday Randomness

Dealing With Email Scams

We got our power back late this afternoon, but I just haven’t had the motivation to stop by my blog for a minute.

When the power came back on I did my usual. I loaded up Thunderbird to download my mail, then I walked away because I knew there would be hundreds of emails waiting to be read. Actually, there were close to 500, but that’s because I’m in a lot of Yahoo and Google groups. Those emails can wait until later.

I wasn’t looking forward to the over abundance of spam either, but there was plenty of it mixed in with my regular mail. I’m getting so sick of this. I’ve never had a big problem with spam on my 2 main email accounts, but in the past couple of weeks I’ve received probably close to 50 or 60 spam messages a day per account.

Charter has a pretty decent spam filter, but it doesn’t catch everything. Thunderbird’s spam filter normally picks up what Charter doesn’t, but lately a ton of spam has slipped through. Why? Because these are your typical spam messages trying to sell you discount prescrips and junk like that.

This week I’ve been slammed with a ton of scam emails. I think I’ve spent more time reporting these scams than I have actually emailing people back. Here’s an example of one of the scam messages I received.

TRANSCORP FINANCE HOME INC.T
Our Ref: TFHT/wfb/lf/memo:00021200
MEMO: 2008-2th Quarter-Online Search and Certification Exercise.

Hello,
Transcorp Finance Home Inc.T,financed/in-support of Ashley Furniture Industries,Inc ,We are opening this online job opportunity to interested applicant in (United State).We issue loans to applicants on behalf of Ashley Furniture which we monitor and process the payment of each customers of Ashley Furniture from (United Kingdom), We serve as the financial agent for Ashley Furniture in other to reduce the problems which the company is facing with their cutomers in (United Kingdom) during the process of paying for the furniture items bought from the company internationally.
We will like you to know that this job is all about Receiving payment from Ashley Furniture Customers or Clients in United Kingdom for goods bought from the company (Ashley Furniture Industries,Inc) and we are paying/compensating each applicant with (15%) per each transactions done which will serve as wages/income on each Payment processed.
We are in search of account receivable representatives who would assist the company in receiving loan payment from Ashely Furnitures customers in (United Kingdom) and sending the remaining funds to the company through Western Union, Money Gram or other money transfer angency across the (United State).
You will be accredited by our “U.k. Payment Representative” as approved by our management board for you being a U.S. resident, as the paying Bank requires us to present for payment through the payment facilitator. The paying bank requires the funds recipient to choose from the following payment options below on how the money will be paid out to you by Ashley Furniture customers in (United Kingdom).
listed below are the customer payable banks mothod of payment for furnitures items/goods bought from (Ashley Furniture company USA):
Bank Of America, USA
Wells Fargo Bank, USA
Zion Bank, USA
Central Pacific Bank, USA
CAPITAL ONE BANK, USA
TCF BANK, USA
Academy Bank, USA …e.t.c…
NT: We will like you to choose from any of the above banking options and also choose from the mode of payment options below:
-Payment Options-
(1) Payment Option one: direct wire transfer payment to your existing “Line of Credit Account” either “Equity Line of Credit Account or Business Line of Credit Account”
(2) Payment Option two: direct wire transfer payment to any of the bank listed above “Savings or Checking account”
(3) Payment Option three: direct wire transfer payment to your credit card from Ashley Furniture Customers.
If you are interested in this, do get back to me with the information below for our record purposes and informations verification:-
Surname:…………
First Name:………
Last Name:……….
Address:…………
Phone:…………..
Banking Option
Bank Name:……………
Bank Account NUmber:…..
Bank routing Number:…..
Bank Address:…………
State/zip codes:………
Bank Phone Number:…….
Name of Account:………
Equity/Business Line of Credit Account Option
Name on the Card:……..
Credit Card Number:……
Card Issuer:………….
Card daily limit:……..
Card expiry date:……..
Hotline number:……….

You have to choose from the above payment options on how you want the paying customers of Ashley Furniture Company to get the funds paid out to you upon confirmation and receipt of your chosen payment option which you are advised to have it put at zero current balance,so that you will know easily if its just our funds that has been paid in from any of the customers,this is 100% legal and legitimate.
Do get back to me if you are interested with what the company has to offer.Note this would in no way affet your current job, its a contract base job…
For further inquiry contact
Mr Johnson Cole
E-mail: transcorpfinancehome@gmail.com
Phone: +(44)-7045729245
(c)2008 Transcorp Finance home Inc.T~Manchester~UK~.

Seriously, how do people fall for crap like that? Doesn’t the fact that they ask for extensive information for each account ring those big warning bells inside everyone’s heads? Even if the scammer didn’t ask for such extensive information, my warning bells would have been triggered by the horrible grammar and spelling.

What’s unfortunate is that so many people do fall for scams like this all the time, and if they didn’t work there wouldn’t be a ton of scammers out there still sending these types of messages. I shit you not I’ve received and reported at least 50 or 60 of these emails every day for the last couple of weeks.

Other than reporting these emails, I’ve decided the only thing I can really do to avoid having to delete tons of messages like this is to switch which email address I use for my regular mail. I’ve got a plethora of accounts to choose from, so I’ll be sending out an email to everyone once I decide which one I’m going to use.

Oh BTW, if you do receive emails that look similar to the one above please report it! Here are a couple of places to report scams and fraud.

togoodtobetrue.com- You’ll find a ton of information about scams as well as a list of places to report scams and fraud.

Fraud Watch International- In my opinion this is the easiest way to report scams. Just forward a copy of the message to scams@fraudwatchinternational.com. They investigate each report.