Hoax eMail from Fellow Cruiser (or not)

[sailingmonica]

I received yesterday an email allegedly from a fellow cruiser asking me for money. It is nothing but a hoax. The "Nigerian" uses my cruiser's friend full name and boat name and had set up an email address in his name too. Pretty smart so far, but the email itself is not. Who the heck writes like that?

It is titled "Emergency Help!" and goes as follows:

"Hello,

How are you doing hope you are keeping fine? I do hope that you receive this email in good health. I am presently in United Kingdom to be with my ill Cousin . She's suffering from a critical uterine fibroid and must undergo a hysterectomy surgery to save her life, am deeply sorry for not writing or calling you before leaving but the news of her illness arrived to me as an emergency and that she needs family support to keep her going, I hope you understand my plight and pardon me.

I want to transfer her back home to have the surgery implemented there because hysterectomy surgery is very expensive here, Am wondering if you can be of any assistance to me, I need about $2,500 to make the necessary arrangement, I traveled with little money due to the short time I had to prepare for this trip and never expected things to be the way it is right now. I'll surely pay you back once I get back home, I need to get her home ASAP because she is going through a lot of pain at the moment and the doctor have advised that it necessary that the tumor is operated soon to avoid anything from going wrong. I'll reimburse you at my return.

Anticipating your reply at the earliest to my request!!!

Regards

Real name of my friend
s/v his boat's real name"

[sailorboy1]

away

[Southern Star]

Wow, a slightly more elaborate email fraud than usual, to the extent that they had an email address in your friend's name and the correct name for the vessel. What a wonderful world we live in!

Cheers!

Brad

[sailcruiser]

It is spam. I wonder if the person has an auto signature that goes out on all emails. See:http://www.google.com/support/forum/...50d58051&hl=en

Identical email. SC

[sarafina]

I have noticed recently that the spammers seem to be getting smarter. How's that for a scary thought?

This morning we had one caught in the filters. The guy had actually posted a *make sense for the thread* kinda post before attaching the spam link to whatever he was pimping.

I had to read the damn thing twice to be sure it was spam...

Ought'ta be against the law!

[CharlesFCook]

Go here and see if anyone wants to play with them...

Welcome to 419Eater

[Wavewacker]

Would she be willing to reloacte after she gets better?

[tamicatana]

Second the 419eater recommendation.

Snopes is another good antihoax site

[skipmac]

I'm won't be worried until these guys learn grammatically correct English.

[S/V_Surya]

Heaven help us if they ever learn proper grammar and spelling. Apologies to above thread that posted before me. I was stuck in a meeting.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by S/V_Surya

Heaven help us if they ever learn proper grammar and spelling. Apologies to above thread that posted before me.

Great minds think alike.

[jackdale]

To confirm these check the header of the email, especially the reply-to portion.

[sailingmonica]

Yep, if I click "Reply" it shows the bogus email address "myfriendsname at live dot ca", whereas his actual email is "myfriendsname at somethingelse dot ca"

[wolfenzee]

I recieved one not to long ago allegedly written by a US Marine....supposedly they had come across a lot of money in some palace and needed my bank account # so they could transfer it back to the US (letting me keep a percentage)...even if it were legit it would be illegal, but the "Engrish" was just as atrocious as one would expect in this sort of thing, the scary thing is that there are enough people out there who are stupid/gullible enough to believe it to keep these going.

[easterly38]

In reality, do any of us have friends who would ask for money via email?