scary: targeted Nigerian scam

Everyone knows the Nigerian scam. Easy to spot.

This one is a little scary; it mentioned my first and last name and an old address I used to actually live at. I suspect the info leaked out of Yahoo somehow, as that is the account info I had on file there and was delivered to the Yahoo email address. Nice.

Other than that it's the normal "we'll put money in your account" scam.

[myLastName redacted] [myFirstName redacted]
[myLastName redacted], [myFirstName redacted]

[myStreetAddress and myApartmentNumber redacted]

[myZip, nearbyCity (incorrect), myState redacted] USA


Dear sir/madame

My name is Wang Huang , i am the vice president sales and business development of Huang Steels Group. We are looking for Account officers in Europe and North America who can help us collect our funds from our customers . Your function is to accept our payments from our customers who because of language bareers or japanese laws could not remitt or trranferring our monneey .

We loose millions fof dollars every year from customers and coporate clients who site such reasons as why they can not pay . Japanese laws is very rigid and sometimes we neeed you to help pay other partners to avoid japanese tax man , if you know what i mean.

For your services , we will pay 10% of any payment you receiving on our behalf .

Upon your interest, we will like you to contact our recruitment lawyer in the UK , who will verify your details further . You will have to sign an MOU with him before we can proceed and he will verify your ID and your addresses.

His contact details is as follows:

Perry Nott(esq)
Principal partner
Fulbright & Shepherd UK
Tel: +(44)203-239-[redacted]
Mobile: +(44)-703940[redacted].
Email: perry.nott@fulbright-shepherd.com
Hotmail: perry.nott@hotmail.com

The job refrence number is 349877. Contact him if you are interested. Because of our anti-spam policy, if you are not interested in this job offer, reply to this email in capital letter STOP .

Sincerely,



Wang Huang

VP sales and business development

Company address:
1-8, 2-chome, Bingo-machi, Chuo-ku
Osaka 541-0-051 , Japan
Tel: +81-6-6537-[redacted]
Fax:+81-6-6537-[redacted]
Mail: wang.huang@huangsteelsgroup.[redacted]

Kinda late for that

Dark out, and you appear on my doorstep.

You: "I noticed your No Solicitors sign and {blah, blah, blah, I'm not listening} auto shop up the road {blah blah blah}."

Me: "Not interested."

You leave.

I find it odd that you started out your hustle with your admission you read my No Solicitors sign. Note to street hustlers: If it's dark outside in Texas and a homeowner answers the door with his strongside hand behind his back, he's not holding Jiffy Pop in the hand you cannot see.

Conn's full of scumbags? No way!

I am shocked, SHOCKED to hear that Conn's is full of lying scumbags.

I went into the Conn's in Richardson (by Pho Pasteur) to get something trivial, and got hustled, hassled and generally enraged. It was a clusterfsck of the first order, full of ignorant/agressive salesjerks.

I came out to the car and swore to the Dear Wife that I would never, ever darken their doors again. So you can imagine my (lack of) surprise seeing the article above.

more mortgage scumbaggery

Same schlock as before, only it indicates we should contact lharris@flagshipfinancialgroup.com

Registrant:
WILL FARRAR
2520 N UNIVERSITY AVE
PROVO, Utah 84604
United States

Administrative Contact:
FARRAR, WILL WFARRAR@NFMPROVO.COM
2520 N UNIVERSITY AVE
PROVO, Utah 84604
United States
(801) 380-2240 Fax --

Extreme VA Mortgage scumbaggery

I have learned to shred mortgage scams without reading them, but this one was so devious that I need to address it.

The front of the trifold mailer says:

"President signs the Veteran's Benefit Act of 2008" and "Immediate economic relief for Veterans.

Well, since the former President did not do that and no special relief has been target for vets I thought I would investigate further and expose this scam.

The inside says

"Bailout Program Eligibility Notice",

then goes on with more hype and misleading crap gleaned from public records. It ends with this footnote:

Mortgage relieve (sic) referred to above is the 2008 Stimulus Act passed this year by Congress and signed by the President. For details please visit http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-5561.

Please do visit that site and read how the bill was not passed and was not signed by the president. The flyer contained an email address eric@yourvapro.com in case anyone has questions about the offer. Does anyone have questions?

Registrant:
Valley Capital Investments.com
170 S interstate plaza dr #300
Lehi, Utah 84043
United States

Administrative Contact:
Austin, Eric eric@yourvapro.com
Valley Capital Investments.com
170 S interstate plaza dr #300
Lehi, Utah 84043
United States
8016024745 Fax -- 8665840606

Post-mortgage scammers

Before we bought the house I was listening to some mortgage-related podcasts. One of them mentioned to be wary of any mortgage-related snailmail and phonecalls you receive after closing.

Boy, were they right.

Each day we get 1-2 pieces of scareware junkmail that mocks up the correspondence to make it look like it came from your mortgage company. There is a tiny asterisk which leads to a footnote that says something "we are scammers, and are not associated with your mortgage company". But how many gullible folks fall for this?

The wife and I are fighting back in a small way. We dutifully mail back each "no postage necessary" envelope back to the mothership. These envelopes contain no information that identifies us. Hopefully {this} return brings income to the USPS and dings the scammers a few cents. We shred and recycle the rest of the packet.