I am going along with advice that I *NOT* send *ANY* reply to scam
mail -- not even, say, "remove me from your list", because even
"remove me from your list" notifies the scammers of the existence of
your active email box.
Yes, one of the things the scammers might do is to send you a check
and get you to send some money back by an irreversible method, say by
wire. The check would eventually be found to be counterfeit, and the
scammers will have made money (which is the same as the money you sent
by wire).
A supposed notice of a win in a foreign lottery will turn out to be
just another advance-fee fraud. Just before I left for a trip to
Indiana in June 2004, I received an inquiry about 2 telephone number
strings, one starting with 0031 and the other starting with 001413215,
and besides answering the question about the telephone numbers (and
doing a futile web search for the firm name mentioned), I warned the
sender to make sure this was legitimate (I myself have received some
email which claimed to be from Netherlands and to be about a lottery).
----- Forwarded message # 1:
From: Rick Merrill <RickMerrill@comTHROW.net>
Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Purely Spam! MY PRESENTATION TO YOU
Organization: Comcast Online
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:56:21 GMT
HENRY CASTLE wrote:
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Of the 126 times in the past two days
> I have been selected by some bogus Solicitor in Nigeria somewhere to
> serve as the executor of some poor deceased devils estate (always
> numbering in the millions-billions of dollars) I have never once
> answered them. I am wondering what would happen if I did. I've had
> many folks say these charlatans would try to pick me clean, getting
> my bank deposit account numbers, my social security number, etc. And
> some have suggested they (the charlatans) would send you a bogus
> draft for several thousand million billion dollars to be deposited
> in my bank account, which, surprise!, would turn out to be
> counterfiet after I had endorsed/negotiated it and remitted proceeds
> back to the Solicitor, etc.
> Has anyone on the net ever played their game back at them?
Yes. I've seen some of the back and forth of this effort. It is
fruitless and potentially dangerous and is not advised. There are just
too many of 'them.' - RM
----- End of forwarded messages
And if you hear of the slave trade, etc., and the Nigerian scammers'
view of it, you might be interested in the following:
----- Forwarded message # 1:
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:22:05 EDT
From: Carl Moore <cmoore@arl.army.mil>
To: 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
Subject: that rare talk of revenge...
Remember the OCCASIONAL remark that 419 scammers are taking revenge
for the centuries of disruption caused by slave trade etc.? I will
NOT take it on myself to offer any comment (other than to you
investigators) about that, but I do wish to communicate something
interesting I found (not dealing with the scams, but having to do with
a possible way for Christians to regard Jews w/r to the crucifixion of
Jesus): it (the crucifixion of Jesus) should not be attributed to all
Jews of that time or to the Jews of today.
----- End of forwarded messages
Carl Moore (cmoore@ARL.ARMY.MIL)