Result: This is absolutely a scam. You should ignore and delete this message if you received it. You should also, if you like, report them to the appropriate free-email provider.
Message Claims:
- Claims to be from an employee of the International Commercial Bank in Ghana or Accra-Ghana
- Claims that there is a bank account for a deceased person (different name every time) containing from $1 million to (usually) $3.5 million US dollars.
- Claims that he is ready to transfer these funds to the recipient's bank account pending a reply to (always) a free email service such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail. (High scam score)
www.icbank-gh.com
Actual bank contact page / email address:
http://www.icbank-gh.com/contactinfo.php
enquiry@icbank-gh.com
Does the alleged employee ever mention the bank's actual contact information in their message? NO (High scam score)
Further: ICB Bank in Ghana does not list any Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail accounts as legitimate contact email addresses. (High scam score)
Note: I have a request in with the actual ICB Bank in Ghana, so that I can post their official policy regarding how they actually handle accounts of deceased persons, and to further explain why these messages should never be considered legitimate in any way.
Google count for scam reports of this message:
For the phrase "Pardon me for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer as it is"
http://bit.ly/cfoN0w
[13 results]
For the phrase "by my branch office the International Commercial Bank which I am the manager"
http://bit.ly/b2tTCI
[Thousands of results.] (High scam score)
Why this should be considered a scam:
- Unless they are a criminal, or engaging in purely illegal activity, a bank employee will never randomly contact large numbers of individuals to randomly claim there is an excess that they are somehow eligible to receive.
- No such "excess" should legally be allowed to be transferred to any random stranger. They remain in the bank account.
- It is not up to the bank to discover who the relatives are of a deceased person. It's up to the relative of the deceased person.
- No genuine bank employee will use a free email service such as Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail to contact potential clients, or potential recipients of funds as a part of legitimate bank business.
- If this message is "utterly confidential", why has it been sent to at the very least a dozen recipients in numerous countries, and at the very most thousands of recipients? Confidential means: it's a secret. This message is very widely available to read.
This type of scam has been sent extremely often from 2001 through today (2010.) There are probably millions of these messages being sent every other week to at least several million recipients. There is absolutely no way taht all the millions of people would ever be eligible for such a "deceased funds transfer" for the same allegedly deceased person.
Of course for any Nigerian scam, you can report their contact addresses to their email providers very easily by using my Nigerian ScamerAtor™ which is available here:
http://bit.ly/TxcMqc
Believe me: it works. The scammers hate this tool. The email providers you report to (Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) will often shut the offending accounts down within the same day you report them.
From name: Mr. Frank Asamoah
Other from names used while sending this message:
Mr. Frank Wuddah
http://www.mail-archive.com/spip@googlegroups.com/msg00006.html
http://www.romancescam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&p=130437
Mr Konar Gamba
http://spamsiteblog.com/page/3.aspx
Dr. David Mensah
http://spamemailgraveyard.com/2009/08/very-important.html
Mr Marafat .A. Kallonga
http://zoqy.blogspot.com/2010/04/todays-e-mail-scams_14.html
Sample Subject line: Good Day
Response email addresses:
frkasamoah1@yahoo.com.hk
frankasamoah02@terra.com
Other addresses used to send this same message:
mrfrank.m_wudah@aol.in
Message body:
Good Day,
Pardon me for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer as it is utterly confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature. I write to solicit your assistance in a funds transfer deal involving US$3.5M.
This fund has been stashed out of the excess profit made two years ago by my branch office the International Commercial Bank which I am the manager. I have already submitted an approved end of the year report for the year 2008 to my head office here in Accra-Ghana and they will never know of this excess. I have since then, placed this amount in a Non-Investment Account without a beneficiary.
Upon your response, I will configure your name on our database as holder of the Non-Investment Account. I will then guide you on how to apply to my head office for the Account Closure/ bank-to-bank remittance of the funds to your designated bank account.
If you concur with this proposal, I intend for you to retain 30% of the funds while 70% shall be for me.
Kindly forward your response to: frkasamoah1@yahoo.com.hk
Regards,
Mr. Frank Asamoah.
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Models & Computers Plus. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this Email in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this Email is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message from your E-mail system. All electronic transmissions to and from Models & Computers Plus are recorded and may be monitored.
hi i just had a scammer who tried to make my ming rounding.
ReplyDeletei know from the start that it was a scam but i continue comunicating to know further how they do.
One man showd an interest in me telling he was a military and he was working in a dangerous war zone of Afghanistan.his son was residing in Ghana.and he told me that he need to get his vacation money for him to get out of the war zone.so he want me to open an account and the ICB bank will send the money to my account .
i told them i dont want toopen an account i told them to send it to me by DHL
they said ok so they want to ask me all m info passport number and home address
there i stop communicating for i never wanted to give any of those info to them
they are using the email address enquiry.icb_bank@yahoo.com
its just funny because they sent me mail even in my yahoo messenger
and this email account was on line on my ym all the time which is very suspisous.
they even give the contact number +233 247632025
i just want to give this people a lesson but i dont know how
I don't usually publish anonymous comments, but I'm getting so many of these I thought I'd publish that last one.
ReplyDeletea) You don't have to keep providing me with new scammer email addresses or phone numbers. They're all throwaway items that rarely last a week. It's not particularly helpful data either way.
b) These scammers use as many harvested or stolen email addresses as possible to try to contact as many people as possible. It's not surprising that they would also attempt to contact you via Yahoo messenger. Anything that results in someone falling for the scam is what they want.
These people really are looking for the stupidest people on earth to fall for these scams. They're counting on it. The saddest part about this whole thing is: they usually do find at least one such person, and then they're set.
SiL