There’s one of those ‘Ebook’ thingys out there, being sold aggressively by a website called www.scamblackbook.com. I’m all in favor of information disseminiation but something about this site has me feeling uneasy.

ScamBlackBook.com Affiliate program image

Some questions – Has anyone seen this book and can they tell me whether it’s worth the rather steep $59 price tag?

Has anyone signed up as an affiliate? this seems to be the major selling method, and they pay out an (imho) impossibly high 75% commission.

So, I say again, I don’t want to dump on someone that’s doing a good public service (albeit an expensive one), but it would be very sad if the book about scams turned out to be a scam itself, wouldn’t it?

Please, soneone, tell me it’s all right!

As reported in the Washington Post’s “The Trail‘ section, here’s an email that’s making the rounds in Washington, and now, the rest of the world. No one is claiming authorship, but the ‘trail’ seems to start at the SEC. Enjoy!

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Return-path: <HarryJantaman@un.org>
Delivery-date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:55:08 -0700
(envelope-from <HarryJantaman@un.org>)
id 1KiEua-0001DI-Em
Received: from smtp-out.orange.net (smtp59.orange.fr [80.12.242.30])
X-ME-UUID: 20080923205501279.4453E6C00180@mwinf5902.orange.net
Reply-To: <”harryj@e-mile.co.uk, jan_harry”@un-aaid.org>
From: “H. Jantamanta” <HarryJantaman@un.org>
Subject: [Bulk?]From Harry & Partners
Message-Id: <20080923205501.4453E6C00180@mwinf5902.orange.net>

From: Harry Jantamanta
3 Whitehall Court, London,
SW1A 2EL London
Private Mobile: 44 704 576 2068

My name is Harry Jantamanta, UN humanitarian abuse reporter here in UN Independent Station United Kingdom.  I got your contact through cross border business information centre situated here in London as an online investor.

On behalf of my partners, I seek your assistance to accommodate and invest for us the sum of USD22.6M. The money in question is sourced to us by a particular head of states as a gesture for appreciation of a good work rendered to their country, but In line with the moral principal of our services, we are not required to accept gift of any kind nor own more than 10,000 USD in our respective bank account, hence our plea to be represented by a trust worthy person to accommodate and invest the sum for us. 

Please note that this request is not a hoax.

We count on your ability to accommodate and invest the funds for us until we are able to process our resignation successfully. 

If you are interested please provide me with the following in return email:

YOUR NAME IN FULL
YOUR OFFICE OR RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
TEL AND FAX NUMBER 

As soon as I hear from you, further details regarding the transaction will be unveiled to you.

I look forward for your urgent response.

PhishTank.com – Anti Phishing Website!

Here’s the thing – from now on, ANY TIME you get an email that sends you to a PayPal/Bank of America/Google Adsense/eBay/your-bank-name site that you know is a scam site [that just wants your login/password/credit card/bank details] – immediately report it to PhishTank.com.

They are the database that many browsers and security firewalls automatically use – within seconds, millions of people are protected!.  To see if YOUR browser/network is using this service, try this url picked at random from Phishtank’s database this morning – http://bloccatoinlinea.net/

I use Firefox mainly and for me, I get a nice message like this:

Firefox Warns about visiting a Phishing Site

If you get ’straight through’ without any warnings then you need to seriously consider upgrading your browser to FireFox 3 or even the spiffy new Google Chrome.

Is it worth the effort of reporting it?

Trust  me , this isn’t the same as sending an email to abuse@hotwebsites-r-us.cn and hoping that something will happen – this is the real deal – Your submission goes into the Phishing database, people are invited to check your submission and vote on it (for or against) and (assuming it’s approved) one more scam website is defeated!

Once you’ve done it once, you might like to signup and join the band of selfless individuals who monitor, verify and discuss these things (look out for ’scamdex’!).

Good for your sense of moral outrage and good for the general public – help stamp out Phishing – go to Phishtank.com and sign up NOW!