Every now and then, one reads about how a supposedly honest and hard working individual fell as prey to schemes, sales copy or ads that places a big question mark on their intelligence and honesty.
Some of the stories one must admit, seems real when taken on face value but with fitting due diligence, reveals the emptiness of any promise therein. But the so-called innocent continue to fall victims on a large scale due largely to greed than is possible through curiosity alone.
How can any one who claims to be an honest citizen of the world receive a proposal about the sale of a government owned petroleum refinery in say, Nigeria or Angola in which he is instructed not to inform a third party as the sale is meant to be a top secret and he buys such stories and actually starts sending cash for the processing of documents and bribing of “some government officials”?
Where is the innocence in willingly granting consent to an obviously illegal deal with a high probability of going bad? These victims are accomplices who run to the law only when there greed do them in and I do not think there is anything that stops the perpetrator from running to the law claiming blackmail. It should be a matter of who screams blue murder and appeals to the law first.
Time was when every material on the internet used to be nothing but the gospel truth; all that has changed with the exponential increase in the numbers of users both as down loaders and up loaders of contents and it has become ever more imperative that every class defines what it sought to do on the net.
The online fraudsters are more into chatting and what they call “come and marry” but sometimes delve into impersonating Yahoo, google, Msn and other search engines administrators and sending mails through the use of auto soft wares that are easily available by subscription, informing the recipients of their wining unbelievable large sums of money without entering for any lotteries. The problem is that the soft wares do not seem able to distinguish the various engines. So you find a mail informing somebody with a google e-mail account of wining an MSN lottery and then you sometimes open your mail account only for a notice to pop up informing that you are the number 999,999 visitor to this site and enjoining you to click and collect your prize but if you are with your brain and not in a hurry to pick unearned cash, you will know that you are not in any site but your mail box. And if your brain is still working, you will also discover that most of the promos don’t have physical address and even where it has, it is non-existent or some one else’s and no bank account that could be traced with easy; it is always through courier or money transfer companies with a catholic reach that they do all their transactions once a victim becomes available.
The plausible thing to do when faced with a situation like this is to do either nothing or call the security agency of the purported host country of such promos informing them of the promo or requesting for the address of the agency in the country charged with the responsibility of fighting financial fraud; in Nigeria, it is the Economic And Financial Crime Commission. The web and email address of these agencies can be searched out online by simply reading into an internet enabled computer question tag such as “security department + the name of the country” or “police +the country” and searching the different pages that will be made available for contact address.
There is also an offline method of calling or sending mails to GSM phone numbers alerting the owners of having won a prize. Usually a number is provided for the owner to call and claim his or her winnings. It is only when you call such numbers that the extortionist campaign is set in motion. Know this; every promo usually is accompanied by newspaper and television campaign to create awareness for it. It is never a secret affairs and neither is the recipient expected to part with any money in other to claim any prize however, the quality or quantity.
People will stop being victims of such meaningless scam when they decide to roll back greed and settle for their earnings. The EFFC new boss was right when she stated that victims should and will be treated as accomplice in fraudulent acts. They are as guilty as the perpetrator; that is, if not more than after all, without their encouragement by way of involvement, the fraudster would be discouraged and forced out of business.
Ilobi Austin. Ilobidominic@gmail.com an event analyst sent in this piece from warri. www.winnersdomain.blogspot.com
Find below a mail I recently found in my box and my conversation with the so-called administrator
CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU HAVE JUST WON (£1,000.000.00)
Reply-To: remitancecentre01@hotmail.co.uk To: info@micmic.comYahoo/Msn Lottery Incoperation
Baley House, Har Road Sutton,
Greater London SM1 4te
United Kingdom .
Dear winner
This is to inform you that you have won a
prize money of One Million, Great Britain
Pound Sterlings(£1,000.000.00) for the month
of September 2008 Lottery promotion which
is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY
INC & WINDOWS LIVE.YAHOO/MSN & MICROSOFT
WINDOWS, collects
all the email addresses of the people that
are active online, among the
millions that subscribed to Yahoo and
Hotmail, we only select five
people twice yearly as our winners through
electronic balloting System
without the winner applying,we congratulate
you for being one of the
people
selected
You are to contact the events manager
These are your identification
numbers:
Batch number.....................YM 09102XM
Reff number.......................
Winning number...................
How ever you will have to fill and submit
this form to the events
1. Full name..
2. Contact Address.
3. Age..
4. Telephone Number..
5. Sex.
6.Occupation.
7.State:.
8.Country..
9. Your Reference and Batch number at the
top of this mail:
(CONTACT EVENTS MANAGER)
Name:Mr.Robert Lake
Tel:+447045750665
E-mail: remitancecentre01@hotmail.co.
n 9/25/08, ilobi dominic
send am go give maga for AME, no be warri pikin. if i see you sha,, he
go red for your side.
On 9/24/08, ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
HABA!!!!!!!!!! WHY E BE SAY NA ONLY NIGERIA MUGU LIKE YOU DEY SHOW???? YOU
BE CONFIRM HUNGER MAN!!!
YOU DON CHUP SUGER KANE TODAY? WARRI BOY? WHO WANT CHUP YOUR MONEY U GO
FIT
PAY HAHAHAHAH POOR MAN! I EVEN SEND YOU MAIL?
EFCC BROTHER. YOUR PAPA PURE? WHAT IS WARRI? HAHAHA POOR PEOPLE........
AREA
BOY HAHAHAHA !!!!!!! COME MAKE I SHOW YOU WORK!!!!!
MUGU MAKE HUNGER NO KILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY IDIOT.
another one:
Mrs. Dianne Thompson.
SpamX
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Why is this spam/nonspam?
NATIONAL LOTTERY
show details 10:12 AM (7 hours ago) Reply
You won the sum of £1,000000.00 GBP,Pounds sterling from the ballot lottery
international
program,Promotion;you are here by advised to get back to us,for claim.Contact
our claims
agent for validation:
Barrister Kelly Moore.
Email:kellymooreclaims@live.com
Tel :+( 44)7045727786
1. Full name:
2. Home Address:
3. Age:
4. Sex:
5. Phone Number:
6. Country of Residence:
Claims Requirments
Spam
X
Mrs. Dianne Thompson.
my reply: