From a Kindly Contributor in Denmark:
Hi
I recently downloaded Skype, and after having used it
for a while, I thought it would be fun to try to call
some of The Lads, since it's extremely cheap (e.g.
calling South Africa is 7,1 Eurocents per minute -
relatively affordable).
Most of the numbers on the list of 'Lotteries' are
unfortunately not available, but I did get in touch
with one Lad in The Netherlands (Mr. Fredrick Johnson,
0031-623-870-907). After calling him a few obsceneties
(which I won't dwelve on here), and telling him that
the police was coming, he was rude enough to hang up
on me, and turn off his cell phone! The nerves!
Anyway, once I figure out a way to tape both mine and
The Lad's voice trough Skype (it must be possible), I
figure it'd be a nice addition to Scamorama to have
the Lads on tape...
I hope this extended use of international crank calls
will catch on in the future, now that Skype has made
it affordable for the common man, and who but the Lads
will make the perfect test dummies? ;-)
[ works both ways of course... soon the Lads will be calling for free :(
hmm, this will really shake up the telephony business.]
This was actually sent in last year but it takes a while for the nerve impulse to travel up from the tail to the brain:
Hey:
I received quite possibly the most brazenly stupid scam in my Yahoo account today. A poorly typed and even more poorly punctuated email stated that Citibank (who, apparently can't seem to hire people who possess fine motor controlof their fingers) needed to "verify my email,"which I could do so by clicking on a link in the email, and then entering my ATM card number, checking account number, and ATM card PIN in a little popup window.
Here's the actual message:
==============================================
_Dear_ Citi-Bank _User_,
This_ Letter was se-nt _by the _citibank sevrer to veerify your_ email_ adrress_.
You must complete this process by clicking on the_link bellow and enttering
in the smal _window your Citibank_ ATM full_card nummber and Pin that
you use_ on the local Atm. That is donne for_your protection -n- becaurse some_of our
membres no_longer have access to their _EMAIL addersses and we must verify it.
www.yahoo.com/?l1qKBEQxh7PkKK0dp4Aon4CM0eo5Ma5abxVLbMjrVaNGWNUmTuLtyo5zEvFrFJCQh
To verify _your_ E_MAIL _address_ and akcess your citibank_
account, click on_the_link _bellow_.
yEtlYWh9JY6yRtrlgJV FPvika L1VoRc
=================================================
The popup is nicely adorned with Citibank logos, etc. and it even opened the actual Citibank page in the background.
They went through so much effort to make such a nicely convincing scam, I thought I'd reciprocate. So, below I've included code for a little Javascript toy that, when running, sends them a randomly generated, but authentic-appearing set of CC number, PIN, and checking account number. About every 3 seconds.
I toyed with the idea of sending arbitrarily large strings to eat up their bandwidth and server space, but I think this is better, since it obfuscates any real data they might have obtained.
Please feel free to use, distribute, post, etc. I hope you find this as amusing as I did.
To use, just copy and paste the code below into an empty HTML file, then open it to run. It should run nicely in the upper left hand corner of your desktop, and all you need to do to stop it is to close the window in the top-most left-most position.
I suggest leaving it to run overnight (like I'm doing).
=========================================
COPY AND PASTE BELOW HERE
=========================================
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">
function s() {
window.resizeTo(10,10);
window.moveTo(0,0);
var loc = "http://bu8io3e.mail15.com/obr2.html?screen_width=1024&cin=4";
for ( i = 0 ; i < 15 ; i++ )
loc += Math.round(Math.random()*9);v
loc += "&password=";
for ( i = 0 ; i < 4 ; i++ )v
loc += Math.round(Math.random()*9);
loc += "&acc=";
for ( i = 0 ; i < 9 ; i++ )
loc += Math.round(Math.random()*9);
loc += "&x=30&y=9";
w = window.open(loc ,'w','width=10, height=10, x=0, y=0');
setTimeout("w.close()", 3000);
setTimeout("this.location.reload()", 3000);
}
</SCRIPT>
<BODY onLoad="s();">
</BODY>
</HEAD>
</HTML>
We haven't tried this, and don't yet have a good body of data linking 419ers to phishing, though it would make sense. That web site may be down now, but the technique might work for other fake bank web sites. Try at your own risk!