Listed below are the various scams that we have discovered via friends of the Wired Lion or other sources. In the scam investigations listed below you will see that we sometimes present the scammer's name as an image. This will prevent the bad guys from being able to find our information via a search engine (such as "Google-ing") and knowing they are being investigated. Unfortunately, it also prevents good people from doing the same. We hope you will help us spread the word to the good folks and help us stop the bad guys!
Please note! You can enlarge any of the images below by clicking on them!
Email Scam 20071106 ID: Alaska Airlines 261 crash 419 scam This 419 scam has been around for a long time (since 2000!) and is VERY popular among the bad guys! The ploy changes a bit but basically the emails come from a “bank” or a “lawyer” and tell you that one of the people who died in the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 has either left unclaimed bank deposits or estate funds, etc. You are then invited to act as the “next of kin” and collect the funds.We received what appears to be the SECOND most popular email, the scammer acting as the representative of the estate of JoyceLake (the most popular name is Morris Thompson).
There is a special treat in this report! One creative good guy responds to the scammer as the LATE Lance DuLac! He keeps up this ploy as he leads the scammers one step away from the HOUSE HE HAUNTS! If you have ever read a full Wired Lion report, this will have you DYING FROM LAUGHTER!
419 Scam 20071220 ID: Ali Jubril and the Bank of Africa 419 Scam It is rare that bad guys add depth to their sob story. This one is definitely an exception and actually gives some insight into the poverty-based corruption of West Africa. The emails in this scam are a good example of presenting the unethical practices of the elite as justification for plucking unclaimed funds from banks and other institutions. This scam investigation leads to a website community surrounding the supposed Bank of Africa. The scary part is that there is some question if ANY of the banks are real or are part of a scamming conspiracy!
You can read the lengthy social statements in the emails from this scam and see the questionable web sites on the link to the right!.
Email Scam 20080926 ID: Anne Baker Money Laundering Employment Scam Imagine suddenly finding a bank check for $5000 in your mailbox with a scheme for making money from home that now seems all so easy, safe and real! The job offer scam is becoming quite common and many fall for it due to the fast pace and the seemingly real check that arrives. Things go sour just as quickly. Check out the link at the right and be honest.....would YOU have been caught?
Email Scam 20070803 ID: Barrister Andrew Allen 419 Scam
Ron is a friend whom I met while giving a Wired Lion Seminar at his Lions Club. When he received the email (linked to the right) and forwarded it to me, one disturbing aspect was that it seemed to be a scam targeting members of the Lions clubs. Little did I know that my investigation would lead me into a little personal excitement and a trail that lead farther than just England, but to France, Nigeria and the Middle East as well! I would even end up talking to the scammer on my cell phone!
This basic email form has been sent out to Lions, Leos, Rotarians, pet lovers and more! Both this individual and the “parent” law firm are linked with the so-called “419” scam. This is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other African countries. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc. Victims never receive this non-existent fortune but are tricked into sending their money to the criminals. These bad guys hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones.
If you feel you have received a suspicious email soliciting your personal information (Phishing) or other acts of fraud, please contact The Wired Lion and/or the authorities immediately!
For more information on Phishing, see the articles on our WL Members pages!
419 Email Scam 20071115 ID: Barrister Tyler and First Monument Bank
I am always delighted when I see the bad guys put a lot of work into a scam. This means they will be all the more frustrated when we SHUT THEM DOWN! I sense that Scammers tend to approach a scheme with a well-built ego, believing themselves to be beyond reach and extremely clever. I have the benefit of having the friends of the Wired Lion to help me. Two heads are better than one and we have a lot more than two! In this case the bad guy ends up getting bitten by the scam itself when the fake bank website he showcases CRASHES! Check out this well developed website and the scrambling the bad guys do when the scam comes tumbling down around them!
Sometimes I get the feeling that some scammers are either very new at this game as they are unsophisticated in their approach. In this case, what I would consider a medium level challenge causes them to turn tail and run. One relatively unique aspect of this scam is that you are told that YOU initiated this transaction earlier (in a previous life maybe?). With this ploy the scammer omits any comments about how or why you are receiving this windfall. Check out email stream to the right!
Email Scam 20080121 ID: Dominic and the Thames Gallery of Arts
I am always on my toes with these job offers as you never know when you may end up in a money laundering or identity theft scheme. In the end I am not sure which way this one was going! Here is the email and the twists and turns that went with it.
The fun of an investigation comes when you can find a vulnerability in the bad guy's scam. This is a fairly well developed scam, but it falls apart when we get the REAL bank involved! Here you can see the actual bank forms and data that the bad guys use to try and give the scam realism. Pity we had to put the whole thing down the tubes!
419 Email Scam 20071010 and 20071013 ID: ECOWAS promotion award grant scams
We have worked on many 419 scam investigations, but these two are first to be identified with the country that originated the 419 type scam, Nigeria. As usual, monetary awards are used as bait to get the victim to send money by Western Union to a foreign drop name. The scammers call themselves ECOWAS (Economic Community for West African States). Join in the fun as we pit the scammers against each other!
419 Email 20071122 ID: Fegon Brain and the Microsoft International Mega Jackpot You have to love the bad guy’s name and the stones he has to involve Microsoft in his scam. I received the email and responded with an alias. In return I receive one of the longest, and probably best thought out, set of scam instructions I have ever encountered.
WL Members can follow the whole detailed plot on the link to the right.
Email Scam 20080910 ID: George Paul and the Hired Assassin 2-stage ploy
One minute I am dealing with what looks like a standard 411 scam when suddenly it blooms into a death threat! The transition is ingenious and the path leads to a world where you wonder exactly who is involved and who is on which side of the law!
There is nothing like a death threat to get your attention! Check out all the international intrigue (and fun) on the like to the right!
419 Scam 20080129 ID: Goyer and the Microsoft Mega Jackpot This simple scam ends up employing some interesting logic and emails full of pretty pictures to try and get my “shipping fee”. They even send me a disclaimer form to fill out if I do not want my “winnings”!
Check out the email "fencing" as I try to befuddle them and they try to ROB me! Click the link to the right;
Email Scam 20071020 ID: Heritage Fund Lottery 419 Scam
Sheela Henshaw and Ed Mayer are part of the same fold as Barrister Andrew Allen (BAA) and Mr. Paul Leech in attempting to carry out a 419 scam. This is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other African countries but also extends into the Middle East, Europe, England (BAAs location and where we believe this particular scam in rooted) and the US. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money (such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.) and are then tricked into sending their money to the criminals to release this jackpot. These bad guys hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones. This scam shows a good deal of sophistication and detail with a fully functional FAKE bank site! Pity they couldn't put that talent to better use!
Phishing Scam 20071218 ID: Interface Fabrics and Morgan Stone
This is the first time I have received an email using the Shutterfly online photo service and, obviously, web email account. At first I thought this might turn out to be another money laundering scheme. Instead it turns into an attempt at identity theft!
WL Members can follow along as I lead this guy to the REAL Interface Fabrics and their head of corporate security!
IRS EFTPS Phishing Alert! The bad guys are using the Treasury Department's Electronic Ferderal Tax Payment System (EFTPS)! The contact email claims to be from the "IRS Antifraud Commission" (there is no such group) and is an attempt to lure you to provide personal information. Check out the details by clicking on the PDF file link to the right!
We had just received an alert from the IRS about this scam and were dying to see an example. Thanks to the friends of The Wired Lion, ?Ask and ye shall receive?!The click here link takes you through a redirect at chrisholmtrailassistedliving.com and you end up at a site registered in Russia, kotovka.ru! We ran head on into the antics of the group, shown top right, that is involved in website hacking and scamming the world over and are not afraid to brag about it! What you don't see immediately is the scams they are running from the compromised sites! Take a look as we enter their world!
Email scam 20071018 ID: Invitation (A Virtual Card for you) Virus hoax We had trouble keeping track of the number of articles denouncing this as a hoax! According to the techno-geeks, this email has the same wording as the “A Virtual Card for You” virus hoax that has been around since 2000! So relax on this one. At the same time, take seriously the lesson. Emails themselves are only text files (think words typed on paper), they can’t harm your hard drive or frazzle your files! BUT they can contain various forms of executable files like pictures, documents and links that can unleash a lot of bad stuff. If you are unsure of an email, send it to thewiredlion@thwiredlion.com and we will check it out for you! If all else fails, delete it!
Lois is a friend from the Lions who passed along this email, linked to the right, that was sent to a friend. The basic premise is that the scammer is an assassin who has been hired to kill the contact but is willing to negotiate with the intended victim providing a fee of $6000 is paid. Law enforcement agents we contacted say this is a typical scam (though the death threat is not common) and that it generally involves a demand that money be sent to an off-shore account. The sad part is that many take this hoax seriously and send the money! From a technical investigation side, the interesting part came with the email address re-routing through a Site Usage Statistics utility on Yahoo!
This scam is full of circular arguments. The lawyer sends me to a courier service. When I asked for proof that the courier was legitimate, he tells me that he MUST be because MY lawyer had me contact the courier. I then question sending my transfer fee via Western Union to a representative versus the Courier Company itself and am told the rep MUST be ok or he would not work for the Courier Company! Sometimes the end of an investigation comes when you just walk away, shaking your head. WL members can read more on the link at right, but you might want to take an aspirin first.
419 Scam 20071214 ID: Lamptey and International Commercial Bank
The biggest lure of this scam is the last sentence of the initial email when this bad guy says he will cover ALL THE FINANCIAL COSTS! Check out the details on the link to the right!
419 Scam 20071226 ID: Larry Moore’s brand of Christianity
I guess it is fitting this scam should arrive around Christmas time. When I question this bad boy’s identity, I get a long pedigree of Christianity. He must have gone to a different church than I attended. Here’s the email with the pretext that this is a transaction I had already initiated in a previous life.
Email scam 20071113 ID: Life is Beautiful virus hoax This hoax originated in Brazil in native Portuguese in 2002 and has since been translated into English and a host of other languages! It expounds that the victim is sent an email with a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation (.pps file) entitled Life is Beautiful and that opening that file releases a virus that destroys your computer. NOT SO SAYS SNOPES AND OTHERS!
419 Scam 20080109 ID: Mr. Mary, Mr. King and Interpol
This scam ends up being a two part scheme meant to teach me a lesson. They start out by sending me a typical scam email which I challenge by trying to get THEM to pay the shipping fees. Some time later I am contacted by a group saying they are from Interpol (and I?m the Queen of England) and wish to investigate me as the victim of a 419 scam. I send them the details of the first scam as bait and find a little conspiracy brewing!
Wired Lions Members can read this convoluted story with a surprise at the end on the link to the right!
Spoof Web Site scam 20071017 ID: Mass.gov/rmv fee-paid service One woman found herself giving her credit card number to pay to use the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles Express Lane Web site WHICH IS FREE! This spoof has actually been found in a number of states. PLEASE NOTE: RMV sites are a FREE SERVICE. You will have to pay for your registration, etc, but you will NEVER have to pay to use the site. If you have been caught by this scam, contact the RMV and your credit card company immediately! Find out the details of this spoof web site scam in the report to the right!
419 Email Scam 20071211 ID: Microsoft Lottery – PriorityCouriers.co.uk
We are often amazed at how close the UK is! In this case the web site is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida! This scam invokes the name of the famous computer maker in an attempt to fake legitimacy. In this case you supposedly entered a lottery drawing simply by having an email address.
419 Scam 20071124 ID: Morenike Adams and Citizens Trust Bank PLC
This turned out to be a rather involved version of the 419 scam as it actually had a bogus bank website related to it. Like the Alaska Airlines scam, this ploy relates to another airline crash and the bad guys again present themselves as representatives of one of the victims of the crash. This scam leads to a fake bank site (located in Texas) with an email address out of Russia, tons of official looking certificates and a lawyer sending me a bill for his services. WL Members can see all the fun on the link to the right!.
419 Email Scam 20080116 ID: Morenike Adams and EFCC Agent Pat Atah
This scam provides us with a VERY tangled web of deception. It is so tangled that the SCAMMERS get caught up in it! The initial email indicates an effort by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to compensate 419 scam victims as the scammers are apprehended. The EFCC has what seems to be a valid website and numerous alerts on the web concerning scams. HOWEVER, the agent soon constructs the contact around a typical scam theme, you have to pay a shipping fee to get your money! That is protested and the bad guy makes a BIG mistake! He answers with the email account of ANOTHER scammer that the Wired Lion just investigated (see Morenike Adams and Citizens Trust Bank)!!! Check out the amazing initial email!
WL Members can read this TANGLED tale on the lin k to the right!
You decide! Is the EFCC the real deal, an elaborate hoax to be used in a future scam, or a pretty face to try and convince the world that West Africa is dealing with the rampant internet fraud emanating from their part of the globe?
You can see their website at http://www.efccnigeria.org/ and see what looks like a REAL BUST in the YouTube video to the right!
Email Scam 20071115 ID: Oputa, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Reserves and Regent Bank Nigeria
We have a multi-task fellow here. I received the same email from 2 different email addresses and found a 3rd while doing research. The shotgun approach and hit and run tactics of this bad guy indicates he hopes to snare a victim while staying ahead of the good guys!
Email Scam 20071023 ID: Paul Leech Hang Seng Bank 419 Scam
Mr. Paul Leech of Hang Seng Bank Taiwan is part of the same fold as Barrister Andrew Allen (BAA) and Sheela Henshaw/Ed Mayer in attempting to carry out a 419 scam. This is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other African countries but also extends into the Middle East, Europe, England (BAA and Henshaw/Mayer's location) and the US. Mr Leech has a jackpot of bonds that landed in his lap and needs someone to help him cash them in so you can split it 50:50! In this case Mr Leech is supposedly from Taiwan and the intermediary "bank" in the UK. Turns out the bank web domain name is registered in Florida and Leech has a web "wrap sheet" of some significance!
The report is almost as long as the famous BAA saga, but takes different twists. It is unclear if Leech and his "bank" are one in the same but it is their lack of knowledge of simple banking and of their own scam that puts them at our mercy and has Mr Leech asking for a second chance "for the sake of our friendship"! With friends like this.......
This scam emphasizes another personal number you need to be careful with; your bank account number and routing code. With these numbers, someone can make up a fake check and draw money from your account and you won't know it until it shows up on your bank statement. YIPES!
Email Scam 20070916 ID: PayPal Login PayPal is described as an account-based system that lets anyone with an email address securely send and receive online payments using their credit card or bank account, avoiding traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. It is the most popular way to electronically pay for eBay auctions and it is becoming a cheap way for merchants to accept credit cards on their on-line storefront instead of using a traditional payment gateway. PayPal also performs payment processing for e-commerce vendors, auction sites, and other corporate users, for which they charge a fee. PayPal is a juicy target as the site contains a lot of the personal financial information of their members in order to carry out their service. We found the identical email (top right) coming from many different Phishing scams with links taking you to a page in Belgium, the UK or the USA that looks identical to the PayPal login page!
Phishing Scam 20080213 ID: Paypal and the Naughty Order
This method for identity theft is becoming very common! You receive a notice that you have purchased a particularly “naughty” or ridiculous item from PayPal and are given a link to dispute the purchase. The link (this one went to http://casl.chungbuk.ac.ar:8080/) goes to a fake PayPal site where you are lead to put in your user name, password and anything else they can get.
419 Scam 20080131 ID: Peterson Irving and the Multi-State Lottery Here is another example of a scam driven by emails filled with pretty pictures, libelous email addresses, lengthy instructions and some great “explanations”. This scam also presents the new trend where PO Boxes are not considered an acceptable address. I have some theories about that presented in the full investigation report on the link to the right.
Email Scam 20071128 ID: Powerball Lottery and Scotia Bank These bad guys end up beating a dead horse with a malfunctioning website scheme but they also have an “in it for the long haul” philosophy. I am transferred to Scotia Bank, supposedly located in the UK. I investigate the server for the bank website and it turns out to be in New York and is registered to Anitra Vas, not Scotia bank: The “bank”not only wants a transfer fee but wants to make a DIRECT transfer, demanding all of the details of MY bank account. Once they have the routing and account numbers, they can then conceivably make withdrawals from my account all on their own!
See what happens when a scam is commited BEFORE the bad guys have their ducks in a row!
419 Scam 20071115 ID: Robert Brown and NatWest Bank This bad guy is about to learn the danger of using an actual bank as a cover for his scam. Hopefully that will help get the word out and help curb some of this fraud. I make contact with NatWest, a very real and major bank, but get no response to help me so I end up using the next best thing. You should never kid a kidder but it is ALWAYS fun to scam and scammer! You can read about the whole sordid deal on the link to the right.
Email Scam 20071027 ID: Sgt. Robert Maggot 419 Scam This is a very "amateurish" scam attempt but perhaps that s meant to be the lure. Claiming to be a British Army soldier injured in Iraq, "Maggot" invites you to help him with a financial endeavor. His email address was inactive when we tried to contact him, but he has left quite a "trail".
419 then Phishing Scam 20071217 ID: Simon, Intercontinental Bank and the Compensation Office
These bad guys start off with pretty icons and pictures as a way to sell their 419 scam. They then try to present a non-existent website (supposedly under construction) as verification. Finally, in desperation, they feed me an identify theft scheme with an actual bank website with a bogus email address asking for all of my bank account information! Check out the email link to the right.
419 Scam 20080117 ID: Star Courier and the Microsoft Lottery The initial email is short but, once the bad boys have a response, there is a lot of detail to come along with the use of a web server service, Freeservers.com. These low/no budget web page servers are getting to be very popular with scammers. They add a small measure of “pedigree” to a scam, as long as the victim doesn’t look too closely
WL Members can see this new trend in scam structure!
Email Scam 20071119 ID: Steven Comb - RC Fabrics International Money Laundering Scheme What would you do if you found yourself involved in an ACTUAL money laundering scheme with a package of money on the way? I involved the police and the postal service in this one and found myself in a surprising position! Here is the report about the whole, occasionally exciting, scheme. WL Members can read what the Wired Lion did when presented with the chance to participate in the perfect crime and create a possible stream of easy money! Before you get to the end of the report, ask yourself.......
419 Scam 20071214 ID: Taylor and TNT Courier Services We are in the era of “pretty” emails. With embedded logos, pictures and links, business are now sending out “mini-websites” as email messages. It has not taken long for the bad guys to pick up on this and use the concept to send more authentic looking scams. One note to remember: It is a good idea to set your email options to NOT download pictures in emails. These can actually contain viruses and spyware. It is better to NOT download them initially, look at the email and if you trust the sender, choose to download them yourself.
See all the pretty pictures and what happens when the REAL courier service, TNT, weighs in to help me in the fight!
419 Scam 20080115 ID: Toyota Lottery and Global Express
These bad guys barely get the computer warm before turning tail and running! They are obviously looking for a quick kill! But not a cheap one as they ask for above average shipping fees.
419 Scam 20071202 ID: Williams and FedEx Express Courier
These bad guys decided to add FedEx pictures and graphics to their emails to make the scam seem more palatable. They turned tail when they had more FedEx information coming AT them than FROM them!
