Tag - scam

Hurray, I'm rich (or not)

May 11, 2010
John Koetsier
news

This is funny … the Nigerian-style scams are getting better and better. I just got this email:

HALIZA ABDULLAH & ASSOCIATES
NO. 32A (1ST FLOOR) JALAN PENJAJA
3 KIM’S PARK BUSINESS CENTRE BATU PAHAT
JOHOR BARU, MALAYSIA.

Dear John Koetsier

This might not be the appropriate channel to contact you but situation necessitated this medium. However, I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.
I am Barrister Said Bin Abdullah, personal attorney to late Mr. Orik Koetsier, a foreign client of mine, who died as a result of heart-related condition on the 10th June, 2003. His heart condition was due to the death of all the members of his family in the Air Flight Crash in Iran while flying from Tehran to Khorramabad Aired Tuesday, 12 February, 2002, 16:21 GMT as reported on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1815680.stm.
I have contacted you to assist in distributing the funds left behind by my client before it is confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this deposit valued at USD10.4million United States Dollars is lodged. The bank has issued me a notice to contact the next of kin, or the account will be confiscated.

My proposition to you is to seek your consent to present you as the next-of-kin and beneficiary of my named client, since you have the same last name, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you. Then we can share the amount on a mutually agreed-upon percentage. All legal documents to back up your claim as my client’s next-of-kin will be provided. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.

This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. I must use this opportunity to implore you to exercise the utmost indulgence to keep this matter extraordinary confidential, whatever your decision, while I await your prompt response. I will like you to acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail as soon as possible to indicate your interest.

Best Regards,
Barrister Said Bin Abdullah
Attorney.

I’ve decided to have some fun with this guy. At least it will take up some of his time, which will then not be spent bamboozling gullible senior citizens.

I emailed back, saying:

Excellent, you can pay the amount into my PayPal account.

– john

I think a legitimate question, however, would be why he expects to share in the inheritance. See the second paragraph … “we can share the amount on a mutually agreed-upon percentage.” After all, if it’s my inheritance, why should he get any.

If he emails back, I think I’ll start arguing about the percentage. I’ll post any updates here.

This should be fun.

Outrageous cost of text messages

January 30, 2008
John Koetsier
news

There’s a reason why SMS is a hundred billion dollar industry … and it’s simply that phones companies are unbelievably greedy.

Note: the three examples cited are, respectively: from your internet service provider via high-speed modem, over standard text messaging systems, and snail mail via the United States Postal Service. All are assuming that data is transmitted digitally (in the case of the snail mail, the bits are written on paper.)

COSTS OF TRANSFERING 2,560 MP3s:

TCP/IP: $1
TCP/SMS: $61,356,851.20
USPS: $307,072.00 (Bits written out on paper)

So getting a SMS delivered is bit for bit 200x more expensive than getting a message hand delivered to your doorstep anywhere in the United States.

What exactly justifies making SMS messages sixty one million times more expensive than ISP data and 200x more expensive than TCP/USPS? How come technology, communication, and infrastructure is getting cheaper while the costs of SMS messages are increasing exponentially? My theory: SMS messages are transfered over air made of solid gold.

Full article here. Well worth the read!

(I originally saw this at Slashdot. As noted at Digg, here seems to be a technical issue with that page – if you don’t see the article at that link, try the home page. It should be the top story there for a while.)