In the interests of making this blog more of a resource for those who are unclear about whether an email they received is legitimate or not, I thought it was worth posting some of the bigger examples of scams which should be easier to identify as scams, but for some reason are still accepted as believable by a chunk of the public. That this scam is still in use in 2011 says to me that people are still falling for it, and don't appear to be aware of what's wrong with these messages and why they should be avoided at all costs.
One of the most common scams out there, which has been going on for many years now, is the FBI "anti terrorist and monetrary crimes division" scam.
Every week (in fact as of this writing, it's nearly every single day) I receive one of these messages.
The moron Nigerian criminal and / or their Russian counterpart who wrote the bait message in the first place, take great pains in trying to convince the recipient that the message is from the FBI - specifically from Robert S. Mueller, the director of the FBI - despite the fact that the response email address is universally a throwaway email address hosted by one or another free-email provider (Hotmail, GMail, AOL, Yahoo, etc.)
Result: This is absolutely a scam.
Message Claims:
- The message claims to come directly from Robert S. Mueller, the director of the FBI
- It claims that there is (of course) a very large sum of money which for some reason is being reserved for you in a secured bank account.
- It claims that the FBI has previously attempted to contact you regarding this money, and now they require a response and identification to begin the transfer of these funds to your bank account.
- The message always uses a free-email account as the reply address, or it is explicitly mentioned in the message body itself.
- The message is usually full of confusing language about how much money there is being held, how it transferred from which bank to which bank, etc. This is meant to sound official and confuse the recipient into thinking this scammer knows what he's talking about. It is all nonsense.
Actual FBI Website:
http://www.fbi.org/
Does the alleged Robert Mueller ever include an email address hosted at fbi.org?
NO (High scam score)
Google count for scam reports of this message:
For the phrase "So to this regards you are to re-assure and proof to us that what you are about to receive is a clean money by sending to us FBI Identification Record":
http://bit.ly/ejI0Zi
[1,570 results]
For the phrase "The FBI Criminal Justice Information.Services (CJIS) Division processes these requests to check illegal activities in uk and united states.":
http://bit.ly/g0H3cw
[90 results]
This means that you are not the only one receiving this message. If it was so important that this remain a secret, why are there over 1,500 others with the same message, openly posted on the internet?
Why this should be considered a scam:
Here is the wikipedia entry on Robery S. Mueller:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller
You can see that he has been the director of the FBI since he was appointed in 2001.
Nowhere on that entry is there any mention of a "monetary crimes division" in the FBI. In fact you can try searching for that exact phrase (in quotes) in Google, and the only thing tat will be returned is thousands of pages of these scam messages. Not one result will be from the actual FBI. That's because there is no such division, and never has been.
The message may refer to one or another division of the government of Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe or Ghana. It will describe "diplomatic payments" which have been transferred. The funds in these transfers have something to do with "terrorist activities", but they don't describe it further.
Another really ridiculous statement is that one or another bank in Nigeria, Kenya, (etc.) is somehow incapable of handling this transfer directly, which is utterly wrong, since banks perform wire transfers several billions of times per day, every day. Instead they want you to contact the FBI (Robert Mueller himself!) and provide personal identification documents, and the FBI will credit your account. In that last segment they typically reference a "reliable" US or UK bank. (e.g. "jp morgan chase" - note the lack of capitalization.)
Here is a picture of my favorite message I received this week:
Take a look at that. They're actually using the Comic Sans font. Comic Sans is perhaps the most universally disliked font in the world today. An elderly grandmother might choose it to send a witty birthday greeting to their 9 year old granddaughter. Ask yourself: Would Robert S. Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, use Comic Sans to send a message of such an allegedly secure and private nature?
Further: would the director of the FBI have to resort to using a Hotmail account for what is purportedly FBI business? Of course not! He has his own address on the fbi.org email server.
There is usually some sort of deadline on this fund transfer. It is, of course, also nonsense. If you replied to it weeks or months past that alleged deadline, the scammers on the other end would tell you you "just made it" or are still somehow eligible.
Evidence that this is indeed a scam (besides the obvious notion that Robert Mueller is not in the business of randomly emailing recipients of large sums of money using a Hotmail account and written in Comic Sans.):
Scam Radar, Dec. 8, 2008
Fraud Watchers, Sept. 16, 2009
Message body:
Anti-terrorist and monetary crimes division
FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Federal bureau of investigation
J. Edgar Hoover building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
Ref: FBI/JU/25/2011
Attention: Fund Beneficiary,
This is an official advice from the FBI foreign remittance/telegraphic dept.,it has come to our notice that a bank from Nigeria district has released Ten Million united states dollars into Bank of America in your name as the beneficiary, by Inheritance means.The C.B.N bank Nigeria knowing fully well that they do not have enough facilities to effect this payment from the united kingdom to your account,used what we know as a secret diplomatic transit payment S.T.D.P to pay this fund through wire transfer, they used this means to complete the payment.
They are still, waiting for confirmation from you on the already transferred funds, which was made in direct transfer so that they can do final crediting to your account. Secret diplomatic payments are not made unless the funds are related to terrorist activities why must your payment be made in secret transfer, if your transaction is legitimate, if you are not a terrorist, then why did you not receive the money directly into your account, this is a pure coded, means of payment .Records, which we have had with, this method of payment in the past has always been related to terrorist acts, we do not want you to get into trouble as soon as these funds reflect in your account, so it is our duty as a world wide commission to correct this little problem before this fund will be credited into your personal account.
Due to the increased difficulty and unnecessary scrutiny by the uk authorities when funds come from outside of Europe, and the Middle East, the F.B.I bank commission for Europe has stopped the transfer on its way to deliver payment of Ten Million united states dollars to debit your reserve account and pay you through a secured diplomatic transit account (S.D.T.A). We govern and oversee fundsTransfer for the World Bank and the rest of the world. We advice you contact us immediately, as the funds have been stopped and are being held in our custody, until you can be able to provide us with a diplomatic immunity seal of transfer (dist) within three days from the world local bank that authorize the transfer from where the funds was transferred from to certify that the funds that you are about to receive from Nigeria are antiterrorist/drug free or we shall have cause to cross and impound the payment, we shall release the funds immediately we receive this legal documents .
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------
We have decided to contact you directly to acquire the proper verifications and proof from you to show that you are the rightful person to receive this fund, because of the amount involve,we want to make sure is a clean and legal money you are about to receive. Be informed that the fund are now in United kingdom in your name , but right now we have ask the bank not to release the fund to anybody that comes to them , unless we ask them to do so, because we have to carry out our investigations first before releasing the fund to you. Note that the fund is in the jp morgan chase right now, but we have ask them not to credit the fund to you yet, because we need a solid proof and verifications from you before releasing the funds.
So to this regards you are to re-assure and proof to us that what you are about to receive is a clean money by sending to us FBI Identification Record and also Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer(DIST) to satisfy to us that the money your about to receive is legitimate and real money. You are to forward the documents to us immediately if you have it in your possession, if you don?t have it let us know so that we will direct and inform you where to obtain the document and send to us so that we will ask the bank holding the funds the jp morgan chase to go ahead Crediting your account immediately.
This Documents are to be issued to you from the World Local Bank that Authorized the transfer, so get back to us immediately if you dont have the document so that we will inform you the particular place to obtain the document because we have come to realize that the fund was Authorized by the bank that initialized the transfer Identification Record and Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer(DIST) often referred to as a Criminal History Record or Rap Sheet, is a listing of certain information taken from fingerprint submissions retained by the FBI in connection with arrests and, in some instances, federal employment,naturalization, or military service. These conditions is Valid until 2nd of March 2011 after we shall take actions on canceling the payment and then charge you for illegally moving funds out of Nigeria. Guarantee: funds will be released on confirmation of the document.
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------
Final instruction:
60f Credit payment instruction: irrevocable credit guarantee
61e Beneficiary has full power when validation is cleared
62 Beneficiaries bank in uk. can only release funds-
62 Upon confirmation from the world bank/united nations.
64 Bearers must clear bank protocol and validation request
------------------------------ ------------------------------ -------------------
NOTE: We have asked for the above documents to make available the most complete and up-to date records possible for the enhancement of public safety,welfare and security of Society while recognizing the importance of individual privacy rights.. If you fail to provide the Documents to us, we will charge you with the FBI and take our proper action against you for not proofing to us the legitimate of the fund you are about to receive.
The United States Department of Justice Order 556-73 establishes rules and regulations for the subject of an FBI Identification Record to obtain a copy of his or her own Record for review. The FBI Criminal Justice Information.Services (CJIS) Division processes these requests to check illegal activities in uk and united states.An individual may request a copy of his or her own FBI Identification record for personal review or to challenge information on the Record. Other reasons an individual may request a copy of his or her own Identification Record may include international adoption or to satisfy a requirement to live or work in a foreign country or receive funds from another country (i.e.,Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer, letter of good conduct, criminal history background,etc.)
FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller, III
As always: stay far away. If someone you know has received this message and is taking it seriously, point them to this blog.
Additionally: as with 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 will often shut the offending accounts down within the same day you report them.
Stay safe out there...
SiL / IKS / concerned citizen
