419 scams and others

[der_kluge]

So, within the last week or so, I've received 3 emails which are clearly scams. The first was the infamous 419 Nigerian scam. I did the stupid thing and responded to the guy and told him that I had forwarded his email to Federal authorities.

Since then, I've received two other scams. The second was weird:

Dear Friend,
I want to inform you that am fully interested in your property in concern.
i need a beautiful house which l know my family will like .
AS a matter of fact am the special adviser to the minister of works and
housing here in Liberia.My tenure as the special adviser was terminated on the
11th April 2005. And i wish
to settle down in a far distance country with my family, this is necessary
due to the current political crisis in my country.
Please l will like to have this house and the money to pay will not be a
problem so l will want you to give me more information of your property like
your final price and the pictures and of the property in concern.I hope
to hear from you as soon as possible.
Thanks for your co operation.
Engineer s-- o--.

And the third was also kind of strange, which I received today:

KUWAIT

SULAIBA - BESIDE LAND CUSTOMS CLEARING AREA

ATTN:SIR/MADAM

WE ARE MEMBERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN DEBTS AND
REMITTANCE.WE ARE LOOKING FOR COMPANIES OR INDIVIDUALS THAT
WILL ASSIST US AND BECOME OUR COMMISSION AGENTS .
WE HAVE BEEN OWED MONEY BY COMPANIES OVERSEA THAT USED OUR WAREHOUSE FOR THE SAFE KEEP OF RAW MATERIALS ,SO WE WANT YOU TO BE OUR COMMISSION AGENTS THAT WILL HELP US IN CONTACTING SOME OF THIS COMPANIES AND RECEIVE PAYMENTS ON OUR BEHALF,.WE WILL

COMPENSATE YOU BY GIVING YOU 10% OF ANY PAYMENTS RECEIVED BY YOU,PLEASE WE WANT YOU TO NOTE THAT YOU ARE NOT GOING TO SPEND ANY MONEY FOR THE CAUSE OF THIS TRANSACTION.

WE WANT YOU TO SEND US YOUR COMPANY NAME/YOUR FULL
NAME,KIND OF FIRM OR OCCUPATION,RESIDENTIAL AND OFFICE
ADDRESS,TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS,AND A COPY OF ANY OF YOUR
IDENTITY CARD.WE ARE ASKING FOR THIS TO ENABLE US REGISTER YOUR
COMPANY OR NAME AS AN AGENT OF OUR COMPANY.

WE HOPE TO GET A QUICK RESPONSE FROM YOU,AND PLEASE REPLY TO THE EMAIL ADDRESS BELOWublic_warehousing[MENTION=89935]hotmail[/MENTION].com,public_warehousing@web2mail.com,pwhc@myway.com

BEST REGARDS
CHAIRMAN
THE PUBLIC WAREHOUSING COMPANY

I've been forwarding these to 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
but I haven't received any kind of confirmation, and the site that listed that was several years old, so I don't even know if anyone is reading it anymore, and they might not care about it anymore.

How else can I shut these people down?

Preferably something easy. I don't want to waste my life dealing with scammers. I know some people do that.

 

[the_redstar_swl]

http://www.geocities.com/steerp1ke/David_Ehi.html

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

How else can I shut these people down?

How can you shut them down? You can't really. No more than you can shut down the guys who send all the spam. You can report them, you can bait them, but as soon as one guy is caught there are 5 more waiting to take his place. It's worth reporting what you can to nail a few of them, but it's not going to stop. Scum is always going to be there waiting to take advantage of some poor sucker. Just make sure you are not the sucker.

 

[IronWolf]

How else can I shut these people down?

Yeah, there's not much you can do to shut them down. More pop up to take their place as soon as the first ones stop. A good set of spam filters does the most good in my opinion.

 

[Turanil]

Scammers and spammers... The two scourges of the Internet. Maybe we could stat them for a d20 modern game? Lets have the PCs find them and kill many with shotguns and grenades (and for these NPCs use the name they give in their scam emails).

Anyway, you can't do anything againt a spammer but use a filter software; as for scammer, you could send them a standard insult letter; it won't do anything useful, but maybe the guy who will receive it will be upset... (at least a little). However, you must be really creative with your insults; "fuc**** bas****" and the like won't upset the guy.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Yeah, there's not much you can do to shut them down. More pop up to take their place as soon as the first ones stop. A good set of spam filters does the most good in my opinion.

Don't forget the delete button for those that make it past the spam filter.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Anyway, you can't do anything againt a spammer but use a filter software; as for scammer, you could send them a standard insult letter; it won't do anything useful, but maybe the guy who will receive it will be upset... (at least a little). However, you must be really creative with your insults; "fuc**** bas****" and the like won't upset the guy.

Or be like one friend of mine who got a nigerian scam letter. He wrote back and threatened to blow their country off the map.... (this was a year or two ago) He didn't hear anything for awhile after that and probably never again from that one person....

 

[der_kluge]

I'm still trying to figure out where they would have gotten my email address from. It's the only form of SPAM I get. Mysterious.

 

[Rel]

I'm still trying to figure out where they would have gotten my email address from. It's the only form of SPAM I get. Mysterious.

It's prolly from the www.sendderklugesomespam.com website that I set up. Now that I can't make fun of your username anymore I had to find some other way to amuse myself at your expense.

 

[der_kluge]

It's prolly from the www.sendderklugesomespam.com website that I set up. Now that I can't make fun of your username anymore I had to find some other way to amuse myself at your expense.

I couldn't get to it. Apparently the Nigerians and Libyans have pegged the bandwidth on the server you're using.