Solved "BUSINESS PROPOSAL!!‏", how fake is this scam?

Hey guys, I've got another spam email that says that somebody died and that I can take their "$24,500,000" amount of money...
View attachment 208979
This just seems so spammy... I mean, the spelling isn't great as usual, is it? Could somebody tell me about it and whether I should delete or report it or something? Thanks.
(BTW, who would send something like this at 5:47 in the morning? I was asleep!)

I see a delete button at the top of that page. Personally, I'd use it asap.

OK, I'll delete it, but is there a backstory behind all of this? I don't think many people fall for these emails at all, do they?

The general rule of thumb is "If it's too good to be true, then it usually is", try not to get dragged in. Whilst I'm sure the majority of the population do not fall for these emails, unfortunately, on occasion, some poor individual does.

Agreed. Pure scam. Delete ASAP, and certainly never reply to anything like that. There is no money waiting for you (or indeed anyone else who has received the self-same email), and all they are wanting is your details in order to empty your bank account. They've already asked for your name/address, and if you reply with that info they will then ask for your bank account details in order to make a transfer of the money. Only it won't be money being transferred into your account, it will be your money that they transfer out of it.

Unfortunately, people do fall for this type of thing, and even a reply from one person in 10,000 (or even more) makes it worthwhile for these criminals.

@TypeR Yeah, I always know a scam email when I see one!
@Dwarf I've deleted it ASAP! Scam mail is a simple click of the delete button and problem solved.

gln2d3 said:

@TypeR Yeah, I always know a scam email when I see one!

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Good, glad to hear it. Stay safe out there.

@TypeR I will.

Next time to help your account learn what to look out for you can mark those types of emails as phishing scams: Hotmail Tutorial - Spam management

There are other tutorials out there:
Microsoft SmartScreen: Spam Filtering | Microsoft Security
Windows Live Hotmail Tutorial



EDIT:

gln2d3 said:

Thanks Anak, I'll look into it.

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Your welcome!

Thanks Anak, I'll look into it.

Pretty simple! I marked it as phishing and now it's gone Thanks guys!

I mostly just report those (if I even get anything like that) as phishing scams. One of my online friends gets Blizzard WoW account things saying her account's in some type of trouble, and she doesn't even have an account.

2. Mark a message as Phishing Scam

If you receive a suspicious message that appears to be falsely mimicking a real company or that is requesting personal information, you can mark it as a phishing scam by selecting it and clicking Mark as in the menu bar, and then Phishing scam. This reports the sender and completely deletes the message.

Source: Hotmail Tutorial - Spam management

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One stop computing, what'll they think of next?

I have more friends in Nigeria than I do in the U.S.

Sad, really... :huh:

If you were wanting to know more about what these were, here you go.

These are "advance fee fraud" scams. They are often called "Nigerian Scams" and "419 Scams" as the majority come from Nigeria, and 419 originates from Nigeria's criminal code dealing with fraud.

They generally begin with some crazy proposition, such as that someone died and left millions to you, an ATM card from some bank you never heard of has millions on it for you, a shady business man wants you to hold his money for some time (and you get a cut), and the list goes on.

Generally the scammers try to make the deal seem as legit as possible. Their fake documents can sometimes be of rather high quality (also sometimes of rather low quality too, as in you can tell that the man's head in the picture is from someone else).

Now here's where the scam kicks in. After you converse with them for some time, they will finally say that they are ready to send the cash, but some complications have arose. There is now some reason they cant send it, such as someone needing to be bribed, bank fees, etc. The scammer now requires your help, he wants you to send him some cash. He also wants his cash sent a certian way. That way is via money wiring services such as MoneyGram or Western Union. By using those services, the scammer gets your money, and there is no way you can get it back; you can't reverse a wire transfer done by them. They try to get as much out of you as they can, and once they think you have been taken for what they can get out of you, they never contact you again.

Now you might think that nobody would fall for something like this, but there are enough people out there that do fall for this. Sometimes there are variants of the scam that make you think that you are sending money to help someone or some other good cause.

Now that's this scam in a nutshell. Generally you should just delete these, you can also forward them to your government ([email protected] in the USA). You could also have some fun by tricking the scammer into thinking that you are interested. For more information on the world of scambaiting and advance fee fraud in general, go here.

Have fun and stay safe.