A scam that isn’t translation related September 27, 2010
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Scam alert.trackback
I thought you all might need a chuckle this Monday. I received an e-mail from an acquaintance this morning informing me she was stuck in London and needed a loan. Yeah, right. I listen to the news and know not to believe this stuff. I responded to the e-mail telling her it looked like she had been hacked. The hacker actually had the nerve to respond to me.
It’s me.. this is for real, i’m doing everything i can to work my way out of here peacefully.. i have checked with the consulate but there is nothing really working out, most important is i dont have enough money on please, please i need you to loan me some, i can pay you back in couple of days.
I called her at work and let her know that she needed to call the police and her ISP as soon as possible. Since I know this kind of thing is brushed off by the police I took it upon myself to write the hacker back and inform them that I had just spoken with her and had given her the number to my “colleagues at the FBI.” I thought about mentioning the fact that she has a good friend with the State Department that would help her in a situation like this, but I didn’t want to give them too much information. I hope they soiled themselves just a little bit, but probably they will just cross her off the list and move on to the next victim. If you get an e-mail from a friend who was “mugged in London” and needs “help flying back home” don’t believe it or call the person and verify the information.
Musings from an overworked translator 
A few years ago something like this happened to my other half; I think her friend had been travelling in Africa or some such thing, and when the “cry for help” came from that region, her reflexive reaction was to respond to it before my cynicism prevailed and she contacted him directly by telephone to confirm that it was all a scam.
With all the data now easily available through public sources, it’s a wonder this doesn’t happen more often.
Sadly, there must be some people who fall for it, or the scammers would drop this particular trick and move on to something else. Hopefully to honest work, and no – I don’t believe in that, or in Santa Claus. 😦
Good thing you didn’t fall for it and thanks for the heads-up!
This kind of frauds happen EVERYDAY in Taiwan! Almost everyone in Taiwan has received phone calls claiming that your family had a car accident or even got kidnapped. The caller would tell you to remit money to a dedicated bank account, etc., etc. At first some people were hooked, but now nobody belives such old-fashioned tricks. The fraud “industry” changed their methods now; they tell you they are national investigators, and your bank account is suspected to be used in money laundering. You have to withdraw all your money and hand it to the investigator. And they also tell you the case is confidential, so you can’t tell others!
The fraud calls are mostly from mainland China, so it’s difficult to track them down. But the Taiwanese is getting smart after years of “training”, so the frauds have fewer chances to succees.
I was living in Houston in 2006 working for the State Department and I got a phone call from GHANA and someone was telling me there was a hit put out on me. I have seen these emails as of late.
Of course, I flew off the handle. I asked him if there was a chance that he was going to get a visa to fly over to where I lived (he couldn’t confirm that was where I lived, BTW) and kill me. And, that additionally it made no sense that someone would kill me because I was seriously in the red!
Eventually, I just told him to suck it and go find someone else. A$$hole.