The Minds of Net Scammers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: July 6, 2009 1:43:18 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Minds of Net Scammers

[Note:  This item comes from friend Dave Hughes.  DLH]

From: "Dave Hughes" <dave () oldcolo com>
Date: July 6, 2009 10:30:15 AM PDT
To: "'Dewayne Hendricks'" <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Cc: "'Dave Hughes'" <dave () oldcolo com>
Subject: The Minds of Net Scammers

Hey Dewayne. Maybe your maillisters could answer my question.

I have, over the last 7+ years at LEAST gotten one or more offers  
EVERY DAY
to get millions of dollars from email scammers in my email. Which all  
of you
undoubtedly get too. All of which I or my junk mail discards, the  
minute I
see the routine and EVER repeated opening like "You don't know me  
but..." Or
"I am the Vice President of a London Bank who controls an account has  
been
dormant) " or "I am a widow of a wealthy industrialist in Nigeria but  
I have
"Esophageal cancer" ..."

Now my question, has anyone EVER heard of ONE of these solicited offers
which routinely promise millions ever suckered anyone to bite and  
shell out
‘earnest’ money to get that scam bonanza? (Which is the only goal that  
I can
see being pursued by the scammers with these messages)

What amazes me is the absolute lack of ORIGINALITY of these messages.  
As if
someone has found a Pavlovian 'winning appeal' message that elicits a
response and somebody has been milked of some real money and word of  
that
success has really gotten around. While over the past 5 years - the name
dropping and self descriptions and never rounding the improbable amount
(‘$15 million’ but like another this morning that states "One of our
accounts with holding balance of £25,549,000.00 (Twenty Five Million  
five
Hundred and fourty nine Thousand British Pounds sterling)  have gotten  
ever
more 'authoritative' sounding – with job titles and references to
institutions - but ALWAYS the pitch is instantly recognizable by the  
very
first lines of the email as an improbable fraud. And of course they are
almost always from an exotic place - Singapore, Ghana, Nigeria.

So are there that many stupid scammers around who fruitlessly repeat ad
nauseum the same pitch?  Or are they such good students of 'mass  
marketing’
statistical probabilities that they know one in a hundred thousand email
recipients will buy into anything? Ad salesmen out of work or gone  
bad? Is
it that the old saying  ‘ A sucker is born every minute’  been adapted  
to
the Internet as ‘A sucker with a credit card and an email address is  
born
every 250,000 emails?’

Now I know my email address has been around a long time since (in the  
late
1980’s) - I got a (rare) Class C address space and tied up  
oldcolo.com, but
that can’t be the only reason.

Where is the graduate student who has done his Phd thesis on the brain
content of Internet scammers? And figured out what they think they  
know and
why? And how often people fall for it?

Dave HughesRSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com