Posts
OK so I really hate it when people try to fool me into being nice just to take advantage of me later. That's the way I feel about every email I've ever received from Nigeria! The one I got this morning through me for a loop though... it started Dear Elder North.... What the crap is this!!! Comments to follow....
"Dear Elder Phil North ,
My name is brother David Opara.I am the proprietor of Lehi Compassionate School,and I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter Day saints Old umuahia branch umuahia district,Nigeria.
We are a non profit educational institution composed of my wife and other volunteer teachers whose mission is to give free basic education to less privileged latter day saints and non latter day saints children and adults from elementary to junior secondary.Please visit us at our website
As part of our resolve to improve the quality of what we teach these students,we have included in our school curriculum for 2009,computer education and we wish to extend our hand to you for your computer donation to this selfless effort.
We are not asking for money,all we ask is that old PC of yours no matter how old or new,it will greatly benefit these students.
We trust it will help to hone students' critical thinking skills as well as provide a forum for their creativity.
We would also be more than grateful if you could make the computer available to us by the end of January or first week of February to enable us start with it this term.
May God bless you and replenish you ten fold as you become an instrument in God's han nd.
Brother David Opara,
Proprietor Lehi Compassionate School,
Kilometer 47 Umuahia-Ikot Epene Road
Ibere Nta Village
Ikwuano LGA Abia State,
Nigeria."
OK so I have a few problems with this...
1. There are only a few ways to get my email address and then connect it to the church. I guess they could have gotten it off of Linked In and saw that I went to BYU, they could have hacked the BYU Alum. page, they could have hacked the church website, or most likely they have a virus or spy-wear on someone's computer in my ward/stake and data mined their email... (Update... OK So Tim helped me by googling my email address and it popped up on a public mission alumni page...GRRRR)
you have to understand that I'm ruthless with junk email. I have a special email address that I give to everyone who may sell or spam me. I never check that email I think that it has something like 20,000 new msgs in the inbox. If you sent me an email and didn't hear from me then you probably have the spam email address.... call me and we'll get that straightened out.
2. Nigeria is the SCAM capital of the world! This guy should know that and if he was legit he should have communicated in a fashion that is completely un-scam-like... NOT EMAIL.
3. This person is using a virtually anonymous free Yahoo email account.... All the Nigerian scammers use these free email accounts to stay anonymous.
4. These scam emails always have little grammatical and syntax errors. Look at the way the he types the name of the church. Why capitalize some title letters and not others. The idea is to make it look more valid, like a human wrote this in a hurry and sent it directly to you and not to 10,000 other people.SCAM.
5. These guys are professionals, they know that if they ask for money we'll all get suspicious. so they go for something less suspicious used computers. I'm not tech genius but I know that there are ways to get information off of a deleted hard drive even when it's been reformatted. My understanding is that the data is usually still there it's just the directories that get erased. This saves time... So here's a top tip. If you want to give away/sell a computer replace the hard drive just to be sure...
I can see a few targets that these guys have.
a )hard drive info with personal data, passwords, soc. tax info. contacts/email/phone numbers. Bank access, credit card i info with you security code.
b)They aren't clear in how or where to send the computers so that you will email them back or call them, either one confirms your email address as valid and or your phone number which can be sold to the next scammer.
c) They don't care about kids and I doubt that this school even exists.
6) These professionals are really smart. Church members are the nicest, most generous, and frankly generally trusting on the verge of being gullible. What a great group of people to target and take advantage of. Don't fall for this scam, Don't call this guy, Don't email them, Don't go to their website, Deleet Deleat Deleat, Report them as Spam.
RUN AWAY!!!!!
7) If this was legit then the Church has programs and countless donors who are willing to help.
Let me know your thoughts and if I have missed something....
Phil
