The ScamBlog – Scams and Scammers

Category: Advance Fee Fraud

  • Is it Polish? No – it’s a Czech Scam!

    I would say that 99% of all the scams I see are in English. A smattering of French, Russian and German, even occasionally Italian and Spanish. I have no way of identifying character-based languages (Japanese, Chinese) but I try. This is a new one for me – I first assumed it was Polish, but Google […]

  • 100 Days of Scams – Mystery Consignment Box

    So, you’ve been contacted by a senior officer at JFK about an abandoned diplomatic consignment box, containing (approx) $12.5 M, which for some unknown reason has your name on it. Unlikely as that seems, they want to send the box on to you, but there’s a couple of trifling details – a ‘clearance’ fee of […]

  • Five Reasons Why Nigeria is the Scamsters’ Safe Haven

    You’d think that by now, everybody would know better than to fall for any of the infamous “Nigerian scams,” such as the 419 scams. (The “419” designation comes from the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that addresses fraud.) Yet Nigerian scams are alive and well. The 419 scams come in several variations, with a […]

  • “Nigerian Scam” is still working – Police Reports show.

    I occasionally think to myself; Surely everyone’s heard of the Nigerian Scam (aka Advance Fee Fraud or 419 Scam, after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code). But, alas, people still continue to fall for these simple scams. The deal is often identical, only the names and places have changed . These places are […]

  • Violet and Allen Large – Lottery Windfall Scam

    I’ve seen hundreds of spam emails, for a year or more, that reference the Canadian couple, Violet and Allen Large. The Story The elderly couple, who lived in Nova Scotia, won $11.2 million in a Lotto 6/49 jackpot in July 2010. They decided, due to the fact hat they were retired and had plenty of […]

  • ‘You knew it would happen’ Dept. – Ghadaffi 419 Scam Email Arrives

    It was only a matter of time – three days it took for me to see this, perhaps there were earlier versions…. Anyway, this one follows the standard set my the poor widow, Mariam Abacha, of the infamous General Sani Abacha. Well, they want to move a considerable sum , USD 16 million out of […]

  • ‘Stop Art Scams’ blog

    A California artist, Katie Moe, who describes herself as an ‘Artist and Anti-Scam Samurai’ has a blog devoted to informing fellow artists and other people about a common emailtype scam, the ‘Art Scam’. A spam email will ask to buy something from your website or for you to source and provide products (usually high value […]

  • Secret Shopper Scam Described

    “The Consumerist“, a website that highlights the persistent, shameless gaffes of modern consumerism – and the latest scams, rip-offs, hot deals and freebies, encourages their readers to tell them about their everyday experiences with absurdities of consumer culture – and suggest ways for them to fight back. They explain in detail how the ‘Secret Shopper’ […]