PJCNET

I’ve just received an email at the time of writing saying that I’ve won almost a million pounds. I’m receiving an average of 1 financial award notification every single day, all saying that I’ve won a fortune, inherited a fortune or that I’m about to receive a large amount of money for some other reason. I have attached the email I have received below. It’s obviously a scam. Most of these scam emails end up straight in my spam email folder to be deleted automatically, but some get through to my inbox as they keep changing the email sender. They send these spam emails to random Email addresses across the Internet in bulk. If they send out 10 Million emails and only one person in every 10 thousand falls for the scam, they get a thousand bank details. If they steal an average of say £250 from each bank account, that’s £250,000 they have stolen. This kind of scam is big business. Another email to watch for is a fake email pretending to be from your Bank, Building Society or some other financial body like Paypal that you may have an account with. It often says something like, “account suspended”, asking you for your bank or login details to rectify the problem. Be VERY careful, if you give them your details, they will obviously empty your account. Some emails actually link to a fake login page that steals your login details, these are called “phishing” sites. For instance, I have seen a duplicate Paypal login screen, that ISN’T really Paypal. Don’t login into your on-line banking via an Email link and always check the URL (internet address at the top) is correct.

If you receive a similar Email and haven’t entered a competition or you are apparently going to become suddenly rich and you don’t even know the sender, then IT’S DEFINITELY A SCAM! Don’t give these criminals any information what-so-ever, don’t even reply as this confirms your Email address as correct. What is fairly unusual about my recent received Email is that the contact has a UK mobile number as most of these scams originate from foreign countries. If this is a real mobile number, then the police should track it and then arrest them. Any mobile phone can be tracked these days within so many meters of accuracy, so if the police really wanted to, they could find these criminals and bring them to justice. I have forwarded the Email to the UK police, but I’m not holding my breath as they normally aren’t interested as this kind of scam as it is so common. It’s wrong that the police don’t investigate as they are real criminals who are attempting to commit fraud by stealing from a large number of innocent people. This is a real a crime. If a person stole £250,000 from a bank, the story would probably make national news and the police would be bending over backwards to catch the criminals involved. Because the police take so little interest in Email and similar on-line scams, it allows these criminals to continue without fear of being brought to justice.

The criminals offer 2 ways to apparently claim my prize in the Email attached below. The 1st is a wire transfer, but to do this they conveniently need my bank details. If anyone is silly enough to provide bank details, they will almost certainly steal and clear out your bank account. If I decided to take the 2nd option to apparently employ their affiliate courier to deliver the cheque, I strongly suspect they would demand payment for the service in advance. When they take credit card or bank payment details, again they will clear the given bank account out or run the given credit card to the limit. Obviously no cheque will ever arrive.

Recently, one of these scammers went a stage further than just sending an Email, they are either getting even more greedy or they’re not getting as many people falling for the Email scam as they used to, so they are looking for new ways to con people. I actually had a phone call to my BT land line, internet phone from a gentleman (putting it politely as they are not gentlemen when they are trying to blatantly steal from you) who clearly had trouble speaking English. He informed me that I’d won a million pounds as Walmart (They own the Adsa supermarket chain) had apparently selected a random customer to give this award to. It took 5 minutes of listening and repeating to understand what the person was trying to say because his English was terrible. He wasn’t very convincing, but I suspect these people will get better with practice and other phone scammers maybe a lot more convincing than hom. These criminals are always looking for new ways and new fake stories to attempt to rob and steal from you.

As soon as I understood what the gentleman was saying, I immediately knew it was a scam as obviously I haven’t entered a competition and Walmart haven’t got my details. Unlike just receiving a random email, this phone call distressed me as somehow this person had my full name and telephone number. I told him on the phone that I was reporting him to the police immediately, but he relentlessly continued trying to convince me that I really had won, saying that I didn’t need to worry Etc. I knew 100 percent it was an attempted fraud, but I went along with it just to try and find out more about how these criminals work. He then said I was being transferred to Walmart who would confirm that I’d really won in a pathetic attempt to convince me the call was genuine. After being put on hold in an unprofessional and unrealistic manner with no music, clearly listening to the phone being covered over by a hand, I was apparently then put through to another gentleman with a similar language problem who claimed to be a manager from Walmart, I strongly suspect it was the same person. I finally hung up after saying I’m reporting them to the police and he actually called me back still insisting that I really had won the money. He didn’t give up, I hung up a 2nd time and he called a 3rd time. This time my friend answered and told him that the phone call was now being recorded and forwarded to the police. He finally gave up and hung up. I then called my bank and asked them to put a watch on my account as a precaution.

The callers phone number wasn’t even withheld and I found from the code that the call was from Jamaica. I called the UK police who said they couldn’t help as the criminals weren’t based in the UK. I reported it to the Jamaican police via Email who have failed to even reply as I suspect they are overrun with more serious crimes, like overwhelming gun crime Etc. These people are often hiding in countries like Jamaica or parts of Africa where the police see this kind of crime as minor and reports from people in other countries wouldn’t be given priority and would often be ignored totally. All this makes these criminals virtually untouchable from the law and if it’s almost impossible to get the police to investigate these types of criminals who are based in the UK, what chance have UK citizens got of getting foreign police forces to investigate these criminals?

Remember, if you haven’t entered a competition, it’s very unlikely that you’ve actually won anything. If you don’t even know the sender, it’s extremely unlikely they’re contacting you by Email to send you a large amount of money. The general rule of scams is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If you really have won something or have come into money, the organisation in question won’t need to ask for your bank details or charge you anything up front to receive the money. Never ever give out your bank details over the phone to someone you don’t know. Any genuine company won’t be afraid for you to do official checks with your Bank / Building Society first.

Checkout http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/sucker.html for more details on these scams and how to avoid becoming a victim, or visit http://www.419legal.org for the “Internet Fraud and Online Scam Forum” which details just about every on-line scam that has ever existed.

THE SCAM EMAIL I RECEIVED:

From: DR.Jeffrey Davis (Operation Manager)
Date: 20 Nov 2008 18:38
Subject: N/A
To: undisclosed-recipients

MR. THOMAS HARRISON
CLAIM AGENT OFFICER
Email: claimsofficer_fundsclaim@yahoo.com.hk
Tel: (+44) 703-195-8510
(+44) 703-191-5704

Please click to share this article!