BURLINGTON, ON. August 9, 2013. The first time you read the email you wonder – what is this? How did they get my name and – this isn’t real is it?
A lot of people take a second look and click on a link or respond to a message. When they do that they have begun to engage the person who sent the email. The people who send this stuff are patient; they have nothing else to do but build confidence with you, make you believe that they are for real.
Dear Sir/Madam
I am sorry to bug your privacy. My name is Siti Rohani Salleh, I am the wife to late Abu Talib Yadin who happens to be a government contractor, trader and a politician. My husband was divisional treasurer of trade and contractors of the Malaysian Indian Congress in Perak state. He was brutally murdered by opposing members of his party for his straightforwardness and accountability though the government claimed that it was a robbery attack but everybody know it was assassination by some people in government. I was lucky to stand this gruesome murder on the night of Saturday, 15th September 2012 but they still stabbed me on my abdomen but I was lucky to escape. I was rush to the hospital by some neighbors and eventually the same assassin still came to the hospital in Malaysia just to take my life but eventually they miss their access to my ward.
So I had to instruct our account manager to transfer our money to South Africa where I had to run and seek asylum/refugee. Presently I am in the government hospital.
Please copy link below and read more about the incident where my husband was murdered on 12th September 2012.
https://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?sec=nation&file=/2012/9/15/nation/12034249
I write you to seek your assistance in the security of US$5.5million Deposited by me with a SOUTH AFRICAN RESERVE BANK before I seek refugee/asylum here. The South African reserve bank will allow you go on their online banking to transfer the funds. I am the only one with direct access and information of this deposit.
I decided to seek help knowing that My days are numbered having received a call from the Reserve bank that they will turn the deposit to its government treasury if I fail to present a representative for the claim. I seek your assistance to be made the Administrator to this inheritance since I have no relative or children. I intend to introduce you to the director of the bank whom I deem very competent to guide you through this claim process. Please get back to me for more information on this inheritance.
I was lead (note the spelling error) by the Almighty to send this mail to you after serious thought of all emails I saw on the internet. Please treat this seriously. I have all documents of deposit of this fund to proove I hope to hear from you soonest before I go.
Thank you. send your reply to me so that we can finalize this transfer within 3 days, I have all documentation to back up this claim, this is my email address: mrsitis@aol.com Mrs.Siti Rohani Salleh. Reply me to: mrsitis@aol.com
The people who sent you this are hoping you will be enticed to click on the email and if you do that – you have taken the first step to someone beginning the process of stealing more of your identity and as much of your money as they can.
The stealing of your identity will have already begun if you get an email like the one below. They have your email address – what else do they have?
There are people who earn their living this way – they look for naive people, gullible people, curious people or greedy people and they work their scam.
Just how this is done was explained all too well in a book written by Will Ferguson “419”, a title that became a best seller and won the Scotiabank Giller prize in 2012, is the story about a man who got pulled into one of these scams and chose to end his life.
The book is a great read – and an interesting look at what the police in this country can and can’t do about identity theft.
We quote from the book, which is fiction, and very well researched. Detectives from the Economic Crime Unit of a police service are explaining to a woman whose father got taken that “The only defence we have with these types of fraud is education”.
In the novel the police show the woman some of the documents they have collected. “One is both very specific and oddly vague: A Fund Management Agreement issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria; an International Remittance voucher; a Certificate of Registration; Letters of Intent, affidavits, court orders, banking forms, all duly signed and duly sealed.”
And all phony, all created to fool people into parting with their money.
The people who do this type of thing are pretty good at it – but they succeed only because they gain your confidence.
In Will Ferguson’s “419” he takes you through just how the thieves, all from Nigeria in this book, work to gain a person’s confidence.
“These are some of the actual documents your father received; our tech unit recovered them from the cached files on his hard drive. You father had tried to delete them in the days before his accident. He thought he had cleared the memory – here – your father would have scanned and signed these forms and then emailed them back to Nigeria as attachments.”
When you get emails like this – scroll through it – some of the claims these people make are amazing – just don’t click on any of the links – you don’t really know where they are going to take you.
This is one of an ongoing series the Gazette will be doing on Identity Theft as part of an effort to make our readers more aware of what might show up in your email inbox one day.
The old adage rings true. If it’s too good to be true then it isn’t.
These predators are despicable.
There is a person(s) who frequents epilepsy support websites claiming to have tons of money, from a deceased person that also had epilepsy, to give away.