Scammer using Dmail

I just wanted to warn everyone that one of those scammers sent me a Dmail today. It was one of those foreign things where they have a gazillion dollars in a foreign country and if you will send them a 'nominal fee' to help them get the money out of the foreign country, they will split the gazillion dollar with you. The Dmail was sent form a screen name of Rishi. Please, people, do not fall for this con. It is just a way to steal your money.

Marcie

Marcie,

SOOOO glad you caught this guy in your box to??!?!?! VERY ODD!!!! Here is the email I got. So disturbing I'm getting JUNK MAIL in Dmail?!?!?!?!?!?!

FROM:MR Rishi Gosine,
ECO BANK ,Dkr Senegal.
Rue du Gouverneur Bayol
Dakar Senegal.
Swift: ECOCBKJJ [e-mail:rishi_gosine1@yahoo.com]
Telex : 539 ECOBNK
Attn:Dear Sir ,
RE:TRANSFER OF (USD 18.6 MILLION)
----------------------------------------------------------
In order to transfer out (USD 18.6 MILLION) United States Dollars) from ECOBANK .I have the courage to ask for your assistance to handle this important and confidential business believing that you will never let me down either now or in future.
I am Mr Rishi Gosine , the manager of ECO-BANK here in dakar senegal. there is an account opened in this bank in 1992 and since 2001 nobody has operated on this account again. After going through some old files in the records, I discovered that if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing.

The owner of this account is Mr.Mark Wood , a foreigner, and he was a miner at CIVOTT GOLD MINNING SARL. and he was a Geologist by profession and he died since 1992. No other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that this company does not know anything about this account and the amount involved is (USD 18.6 M) United States Dollars). I want to transfer the [USD18.6 M] United States Dollars into a safe foreignerspartner abroad , but I don't know any foreigner, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money can not be approved to any africa person here, but can only be approved to any foreign person because the money is in us dollars and the former owner of theaccount Mr.Mark Wood is a foreigner too.I know that this message will come to you as asurprise as we don't know ourselves before,but besure that it is real and a genuine business. You are the only person that I have contacted in this business, so please reply urgently so that I will inform you the next step to take urgently. Send also your private telephone and fax number . I want us to meet face to face or sign a binding agreement to bind us together so that you can receive this money in your country in cash through our diplomat that we used to air lift funds to shell and chevron oil companies in europe and america. I will fly to your country for withdrawal and sharing and other investments after you have confirmed the money in to your account,

I am contacting you because of the need to involve a foreigner with foreign foreign address as beneficiary. I need your full co-operation to make this work fine because the management is ready to approve this payment to any foreigner who has correct information of this fund, which I will give to you later immediately, if you are able and with capability to handle such amount in strict confidence and trust according to my instructions and advice for our mutual benefit because this opportunity will never come again in my life. I need truthful person in this business because I don't want to make mistake I need your strong assurance and trust. With my position now in the office I can transfer this money to any foreigner's reliable person, intact pending my physical arrival in your country for sharing. and I want to remaind you that your share has been carculated at 35% of the total sum.I waiting for your urgent reply so that I will give you more informations about this transaction on how you can receive this money in your country.
Mr. Rishi Gosine
Manager ECO BANK Dakar Senegal

Thanks - I've suspended his account, and we'll take care of removing all the dmails later today. We have filters in place that usually catch these, but we've had two recent messages that slipped through; I'm not sure what key words we *don't* have that we should, but I'm sure Dave will be reviewing our system edits to see if there are other words he can add to filter them out.

I got it too!

It disturbs me.

Terry, I got the same D-mail

Could not believe my eyes when I opened that dmail.

I'm just glad that our admin folks are on their toes and stop it so quickly! Thanks Terry! We appreciate you guys!

oh i just found it was so upset and what to do. glad found this thanks all.. Dave sorry to bother you.. thanks.

Twyla

I got it too. Quite surprising. Are there still idiots out there who believe those things are real?

I got it also and didn't like it one bit. How do you delete this d-mail with out deleting others?

Dave will do it

Molly

I got it and i dislike it.

I got it too..

The messages are now all cleared from everyone's inbox. A big thanks to those who reported the problem this afternoon, so we could stop further "spamming" from taking place. (It's a painfully slow way to send "spam" since you can only send one message at a time.)

Unfortunately, messages like that are the risk we take when we give members a way to contact each other outside of the forums. (There's always someone out there, trying to ruin a good thing for everyone.)

But as annoying and obnoxious as those messages are, please keep in mind that anytime someone sends you a dmail, they NEVER see your personal email address, unless you choose to give it to them, which we don't encourage. (I've found myself on a lot of unwanted "forward" lists when I've given out my personal email address - inevitably, your address gets passed along to someone else, someone who loves to send out forwarded messages...the next thing you know you're on this stranger's list AND on all their "forwarded-message" loving friends lists, none of whom you know!)

Here your personal email information remains completely hidden from public view. Even if this type of message is disconcerting to receive, remember the sender has no way of knowing if you even read it (unless you reply), and they cannot learn anything more about you.

Terry - excellent information. These folks don't even know who they're sending messages to and don't care - they just go for volume and hope for a response which lets them start the textbook scamming steps. These folks make millions at it - it's almost like a pyramid scheme with different levels (newbies post the first note and then as it gets more involved, the more experienced ones step in to provide a Western Union payment info and convince the victim that this is real).

My guess is someone found this site, signed up and an underling was instructed to post the same message to user after user after user with no attention to who the person is, or where they live, etc. I'm surprised that they signed up when it's so easy to collect email addresses in guestbooks, etc.

Maybe they're getting smarter at this!

I'm wondering why I never got one? Not that I feel left out, *grin*, but I thought it was interesting that so many got them so I tried to figure out how they were determining who to send them to. It's not alphabetically, so they didn't use the member list.

I have wondered about that, too.

Maybe it was geographic...it looks like most of the people on this thread who recieved the scam were from the southern US or Oklahoma. Now we all know that sterotypes are a bunch of whooee....but let's be honest...people make jokes about our states being home to rednecks and that the people down here are a couple of cards short of a full deck. All you have to do is watch the Blue Collar Comedy Tour to hear us being poked fun at (and, yes, I think it is hilarious). Outsiders would not know from watching our TV shows that these are just jokes and the stereotypes are nothing more than just jokes. I mean you find idiots everywhere, not just at the flea market where Larry the Cable Guy hangs out with his sister, Holy Moley, and his grandmother with her spandex pants and walking flatualence problem. By the same token, they probably watch our TV shows and think that California, Florida and NY are populated by people who don't speak English very well. Now I am not saying these things to offend anyone...I don't believe these things myself. I mean I live in Alabama for heaven's sake, and my husband is from Illinois, so I have NO illusions about the perception folks have of the South! And I also know they aren't true...my dad was a nuclear scientist and he was born and raised in Alabama...but I'm just looking at the pattern of who got the emails, where they were located, and trying to figure out a logical reason for why a foreigner would target these areas....and the only thing I can come up with is misguided perception based on what a foreigner might assume based on our TV shows. Blame it on Hollywood....

Hmmm...and I was just thinking they went down the list alphabetically?

Aimee, most of the time they do -(so those whose usernames are near the top of the "A" list are most likely to get one of these messages before we stop the spammer. )

I didn't look closely at this person's "hit list" (they were a busy little beaver for several hours, so there were quite a few pages of messages.) But I think they may have clicked on "view only subscribers" - and then used a mostly alphabetical sequence to target. When I wiped out his/her account, it completely wiped out everything associated with their username, so there's no evidence left for us to analyze.

As a side note, that's why we don't always delete the messages immediately - if I need to leave their IP address, mailing pattern, or message text for Dave to review, then I have to freeze their account and leave it intact until that process is completed. (We suspend them, which logs them out and prevents them from logging back in and sending any other messages, but those who have already received a dmail have to endure it being in their inbox for a little bit of time.)

However, on Saturday, our helpdesk was getting hammered with some (pretty agitated) demands to remove the dmails, so I wiped it out earlier than I might have otherwise ;o)

Terry, Do people like this become subcribers? or do they just use the first post in a thread to get screen name and dmail from there. I only ask because of the address exchange. I know Dave is very careful with people getting our info and he is a very safety conscious person and I appreciate that.

With all that goes on in this would one can not be too careful. Did they pay or just join? I figure they wont spend their money, but it one person
would believe what they say it would be worth the 15.00.

Please everyone, I am not trying to cause a panic, Just asking a question I have a small concern with. That is all. Thanks for taking the time to read this Terry.

Blessings,
Sandy ^8^

None of these people have EVER subscribed. (They aren't in the business of spending money, they're in the business of scamming money out of others.) Also, most of these are not US-based email addresses, so the exchange rate is a further barrier to subscribing.

Having said that, the address exchange is something that people should think twice about posting too much personal information into. It is a handy tool for trades and co-ops; and if all you include is the same info someone would find in an online or paper phone book, your personal information is no more or less safe than if you don't participate.

And it IS an arguably safer means of storing this information than when it began as a spreadsheet that was being mailed around member to member, via regular email. Eeek. There's no telling WHERE that information might have landed when it was being passed back and forth that way.

Thanks Terry,

I figured they did not spend money, but it never hurts to ask, And yes you are right about the phone book, But till this year we had an unlisted number and you could not find out anything in the criss-cross directory. But since I have DGDs We have it listed. You never know when someone will need to find you.

I also did not realizr these all came from foreign countries. I just figured that was part of the lie (scam)

Thanks alot for answering so quickly.

Blessings,
Sandy ^8^