The "Nigerian" Email Scam?

what can i do to stop them? I get so many of them. here is one





Dear Friend,





With a very desperate need for assistance,I have summed up courage to


contact you.I am presently in Iraq with the USA marine platoon;I found


your contact particulars in an Address journal.I am seeking your


assistance to evacuate the sum of $900,000.00(Nine hundred thousand


dollars)to you,as far as I can be assured that it will be safe


in your care until I complete my service here.This is no stolen money,and


there are no dangers involved.





SOURCE OF MONEY:





Some money in various currencies was discovered concealed in barrels with


piles of weapons and ammunitions at a location near one of Saddam's old


palaces during a rescue operation,and it was agreed by all party present


that the money be shared amongst us,this was quite an illegal thing to do,


but I tell you what? No compensation can make up for the risks we have


taken with our lives in this hell hole.





The above figure was given to me as my share,and to conceal this kind of


money became a problem for me,so with the help of a German contact


working here,and his office enjoys some immunity,I was able to get the


package out to a safe location entirely out of trouble spot.He does not


know the real contents of the package,and believes that it belongs to an


Asian American who died in an air raid,and before giving up,trusted me to


hand over the package to his family.





There is a secured way of getting the package out to a safer country for


you to pick up,and i will discuss this with you when I am sure that you


are willing to assist me.One passionate appeal I will make to you is not


to discuss this matter with a third party,should you have reasons to reject


this offer.please destroy this mail as any leakage of this information


will be too bad for us.





I do not know for how long we will remain here but hopefully before the


year runs out,I have survived 2 suicide bomb attacks by the special grace


of God,this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to


reach out for help.





Respectfully,


Capt John Nielsen

The "Nigerian" Email Scam?
Although this kind of scam is known as the "Nigerian scam", not all of the scammers are from Nigeria. Actually this scam started as early as the 1920's, read about it here:


http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/nigeri...





and here:


http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer...





How to fight spam and scams:





#1: Yahoo has a spamguard filter, but only if multiple users report an address as spam will it be treated as such by the filter.





You have a personal list for blocking addresses in spam options. Anything you mark as spam in Mail classic will be added to that list, in New Yahoo mail adding addresses to the list has to be done manually. If you ever receive anything from those addresses in the future, it will be deleted automatically, you won't even notice when you got some more crap from them. One problem though: the list of blocked addresses is limited to 500 and spammers often change their address. So you must sometimes delete some of the older blocked addresses to make room for new ones.





Go to this link where everything is explained in detail:


http://help.yahoo.com/us/tutorials/mail/...





#2: The Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov) is supposed to help you eliminate spam mails. Forward spam to: spam@uce.gov, in the subject line enter something like "unsubscribe link results in more spam", "unwanted spam message", "no unsubscribe link" or something similar.





Here's how to do the forwarding bit: click the crtl key and at the same time click the "forward" button to forward a message as an attachment, mac users should click the "apple" key and click "forward" simultaneously.





When the FTC gets your mail, they will look into the matter and when they find out who the spamming source is, they will take legal actions.





http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/sp...





#3: Check Mailwasher, it helps to eliminate spam from your inbox...





Set up your email account(s) in MailWasher and hit the "Check Mail" button. It then downloads all new message headers and displays message details alongside each one (priority, subject, from, to, etc.). Any email that MailWasher considers to be spam is highlighted for easy sorting.





Two checkboxes are located next to each message header: "Delete" and "Bounce". If you click "Delete" the email will be marked for deletion, click "Bounce" and the mail will be marked for bouncing - a fake "address not found" email will be sent to the sender. Once you have decided what to bounce and delete, click "Process Mail" to get it done and your mail client launched for downloading all accepted emails.





MailWasher has a "blacklist" and a "friends list" to enter good and bad email addresses. Addresses in the blacklist are marked for deletion, and addresses in the friends list will be marked as okay. Filters can be set to increase MailWasher's effectiveness. You can have email addressed to "undisclosed recipients" automatically deleted and bounced for example.





Note: the program is free but limited to one email account. MW Pro supports multiple mail accounts.





http://www.mailwasher.net/
Reply:I used to get those and I don't anymore. I don't know who started that. I don't know why they send those emails no one even reads them anyway. I'd just delete it and mark it as spam.
Reply:- Say you can't let your husband know so you'll send cash


- Get mailing address


- Send them something pleasant (I'll let you decide what but may I suggest something on the fecal menu)
Reply:Okay, I'm Nigerian and I know some are criminals, but don't think all are criminals. Also how do you know their Nigerian. Also spam it DUh!
Reply:Block them.


Ask your local police to trace the email address.





Or, get a new email address.
Reply:Don't even open the e-mails. Just delete them and forget about them.
Reply:Get a new email.
Reply:LOL that is HILARIOUS.





I got one on Facebook with some guy telling me he wanted to buy my camera and that he was going to send me a cashiers check for 3,500 and to take an extra hundred for myself out of that, cash the rest and get it as a money order and send it back to him.





You'll just have to ignore them, they're hard to track because they delete their e-mail addresses etc





EDIT


This started from Nigeria therefore it's called a Nigerian scam. AKA 419 scam.
Reply:yeah, i get those too, Ive even written them back threaten to report them, some have stopped writing, some still come in my junk mail. and believe it or not, some do fall for it, wiping out their entire savings. Something that sound too good, isnt always true.