Here’s a cleverly written email we received to our posted contact email. It’s quite good, and very deceptive. This is a "phishing" email, and has the same characteristics as this previous phishing email in its sophistication. However, as you’ll see, there’s a number of flaws:
Customer Service.
Dear Customer!
We have been waiting for you to contact us for your Confirmable Package that is registered with us for shipping to your residential location. We had thought that your sender gave you our contact details. It may interest you to know that a letter is also added to your package.
However, we cannot quoteit’s contentto you via email for privacy reasons. We understand that the content of your package itself is a ATM CARD worth of $900,000.00 USD. As you know, TNT do not ship money in CASH or in CHEQUES but ATMs CARD are shippable. The package is registered with us for mailing by your colleague as claimed, and your colleague explained that he is from the United States but he is here in Nigeria for a three (3) months Surveying Project as he works with a construction firm in the Nigeria West Africa We are sending you this email because your package is been registered on a Special Order.
What you have to do now, is to contact our Dilivery Department for immediate dispatchment of your package to your residencial address. Note that as soon as our Delivery Team confirms your informations, it will take only one working day (24 hours)for your package to arrive it’s designated destination. For your information, the VAT & Shipping charges as well as Insurance fees have been paid by your colleague before your package was registered.
Note that the payment that is made on the Insurance, Premium & Clearance Certificates, are to certify that the ATM Card is not a Drug Affiliated Fund (DAF) neither is it funds to sponsor Terrorism in your country. This will help you avoid any form of query from the Monetary Authority of your country. However, you will have to pay a sum of $291.USD to the TNT Delivery Services Department being full payment for the Security Keeping Fee which is just only $291 USD of the TNT Delivery Services as stated in our privacy terms & condition page.
Also be informed that your colleague wished to pay for the Security Keeping charges, but we do not accept such payment considering the facts that all items & packages that is registered with us have a time limitation and we cannot accept payment having known not when you will be picking up the package or even responding to us. So we cannot take the risk to have accepted such payment incase of any possible demurrage.
Kindly note that your colleague did not leave us with any further information. We hope that you respond to us as soon as possible because if you fail to respond until the expiry date of the foremost package, we may refer the package to the British Commission for Welfare as the package do not have a return address.
Kindly contact the delivery department (TNT Delivery Services Post) with the details given below:
Contact Person: Nelson Wilson
TELL: +234 807 0715 304
Email: wilsonnelson@deliveryman.com
Kindly complete the below form and send it to the email address given above. This is mandatory to reconfirm your Postal address and telephone numbers.
FULL NAMES:
TELEPHONE:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY –
This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ::::
CONTRIBUA COM O MEIO AMBIENTE. NÃO IMPRIMA ESTA MENSAGEM :::::
You’ll notice a couple of things about the email that set it off as a fraud.
First, their grammar is very bad, or more appropriately, very formal with verbiage that looks like a foreigner wrote it. For example, when was the last time you heard "demurrage" used? Even after reading this Wikipedia article, I’m not sure what it means, other than to say it’s a delivery delay that the shipper is responsible for. Even then, the phrase doesn’t have common parlance, except in a technical sense.
Second, remember anything too good to be true, probably is. Tell me honestly, when was the last time you received 900 thousand dollars without having to do anything.
Third, there’s usually some "crazy" looking email address or contact information to send the information to. Despite the fact that the first email has been "cleaned" for spam, I’m not trusting an email from "deliveryman.com." If you want to validate the email address, try entering it into your web browser and visiting it. Deliveryman.com doesn’t exist – at least there’s not "landing page." A "legitimate" email address will have a landing page. Moreover, I’m not sure where 234 807 0715 304 is from since I don’t do a lot of international calling, but a quick Google search tells me there are over 4 million results all leading to Nigerian scammers. Just note, nothing good comes from a Nigerian-based email.
Fourth, there’s usually some suspicious phrase or lack of information. In the first email, it’s " we cannot quoteit’s contentto [sic] you via email for privacy reasons. We understand that the content of your package itself is a ATM CARD worth of $900,000.00 USD." The "shipper" is telling me that they’re not able to give me the information, but in the next sentence, they give me the information.
Finally, the email will always contain vague information. In this scam there are several vague references: my "sender" didn’t put his/her contact information; the email is sent to "customer service"; my "colleague" works for an undisclosed Nigerian survey company; and my "time-sensitive" package has no time limit for acceptance.
Now, certainly if you’re dealing in international goods and services, you may deal with these issues on a weekly or daily basis. However, for you, there’s probably no reason to be replying to this email., because there’s certainly not going to be $900,000.00 at the other end (sorry, you’ll lose out if there is – in the end, you’ll thank me). Too many people get swindled because of the "Snake Oil Salesman."
Note: you may also be interested in this story about Facebook and Twitter scams that could potentially harm your computer.
