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  Geebo 8:00 am on April 15, 2022 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: 419 Scam, charity scam ( 32 ), Foreign Money Exchange, Scams ( 1,219 ), Ukraine ( 2 )   

  Old scam updated for current events 

  

  By Greg Collier

  One of the oldest internet scams, if not the oldest, is the 419 scam. It was named the 419 scam after the legal code that outlaws the scam. It’s also known as the Nigerian Prince scam. Back in the dial-up days, scammers would send emails to their victims claiming to be a deposed prince from Nigeria. The emails would say that the fictitious prince was in exile, and needed the email recipient’s help getting his fortune out of the country. In return, the prince promised the recipient a good-sized fortune. This usually required the recipient’s financial information, payments to the prince to help him get his money, or both. While this scam has largely been relegated to the dustbin of history, some scammers have resurrected it with a current twist.

  According to reports, an email is circulating, claiming to be from the widow of a photographer who was recently killed in the current conflict in Ukraine. The name of the photographer is real, and he did lose his life in the ongoing struggle. The email goes on to say that the widow is dying in a Polish hospital and needs help getting their fortune to various charities. The recipient is then asked to email back, so the widow can release the money to them. While it’s not clear if anyone has fallen victim to the scam yet, it’s almost a guarantee it works exactly as the 419 scam mentioned above. Once again, this shows how scammers will use any tragedy or crisis to their advantage.

  This is a pretty easy scam to avoid. If you get this email, do not reply to it. Just delete it instead. This scam falls under the category of ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’. If a wealthy person was in need of moving money out of country, they wouldn’t email random strangers on the internet for help. People with that kind of money already have safeguards in place if a crisis like this were to befall them. They probably also have teams of people to make sure those transactions go smoothly. So, if someone you know tells you they’re waiting on a Ukrainian widow to send them a big payday, try to break the news to them gently.

   

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  Geebo 10:06 am on June 14, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: 419 Scam, Nigerian Scams ( 3 ), Operation Wire Wire, Scams ( 1,219 )   

  FBI busts major cyber-scam ring 

  

  Most of us are aware of the Nigerian Prince email scams also known as the 419 Scam. It’s been a well-known scam since the dawn of the internet. It usually takes the form of someone claiming in an e-mail that they need your help in getting a large sum of money out of their country promising you a large share of that money. However, they need your help in the form of paying for various hurdles required to get the money released. As you can probably ascertain, no large fortune exists and the victim is out in upwards of thousands of dollars typically. While the 419 scam has become the stuff of comedy these days that doesn’t mean the scammers have gone away. Instead, they have moved on to new scams and new targets.

  Recently, the FBI announced the results of an initiative called Operation Wire Wire where a major organized crime ring that specialized in e-mail scams had been arrested. In total 74 people had been arrested including 42 in the U.S., 29 in Nigeria, and 3 in various other countries. Instead of targeting gullible victims looking for a quick payday this new generation of scammers target businesses and executives by posing as intermediaries in high-dollar business deals. This recent operation by investigators was able to reclaim $14 million in wire transfers, the scammers preferred method of payment.

  However, some of the old scams still proliferate inside our inboxes. These can include romance scams where someone from overseas poses as a romantic interest who needs money to escape a fictitious situation where they need to escape their country. Also, beware of unsolicited lottery scams where someone tells you that you’ve won some lottery or sweepstakes that you weren’t even aware you had entered. While this bust by the FBI may have stopped a major ring there are still many others out there.