HI, FRIENDS, THIS EMAIL ARRIVED THIS MORNING. Everything in quotation marks is part of the email.
“From: Eric Anderson <lordship-grey@hotmail.co.uk> Subject: Inquiry. Date: June 26, 2014 11:33:13 AM EDT Reply-To: <ausdda@gmail.com>
Good Morning I want to place an order in your store,I will like to know if you ship to Singapore. Do you have credit card facility?Get back to me with your website.I will await your prompt response.
Best Regards, Eric Anderson”
This message has SCAM written all over it.
1) I do not have a store.
2) Do I ship to Singapore? HUH?
3) Credit Card facility? Me? Whaaat? Please be careful out there… Ronnie
MorristownMemos 
Comments on: "SCAM, SCAM YOU CAN’T CATCH ME!" (22)
D Bag tried the same thing on me, with the same name. If you google Eric Anderson Singapore Scam there are quote a few results. I sent him back a very nice message saying if he sent me $10,000,000 cash that I would ship him the item he wanted to purchase. I’m waiting for his reply.
That’s wonderful! You must have made him furious with your “I know you’re a fake” answer! Good for you.
Misdirected shopper. Too silly to be a scammer, but goes in the trash basket anyway?
Someone has to relate to that!
Hey, Eric! Great hearing from you. Here’s my bank info, my SSI #, my DOB, and the date of my last labotomy. Signed, Here’s Johnny from “The Shining.”
Ronnie … While this email is pathetic, they have much more effective shysters out there scamming grandparents out of their life savings, and bilking businesses for fraudulent expenses, etc. It’s infuriating.
That’s true. The elderly have a responsibility to themselves to become more knowledgeable about the ever increasing kinds of scams to separate them from the contents of their bank accounts.
My hard and fast rule is: “if you don’t know these people, don’t respond”. Email can open such a can of worms for you, and such a wealth of information for a scammer. You’re so right to warn/remind everyone, Ronnie.
That’s a good rule. But the scammers develop more and more alluring come-ons.
Scam messages can be tricky. The latest I received–about a month ago–showed I’d just won a trip to Barcelona. I’d be lodging in a five-star hotel already booked in my name. All I needed to do was fill their acceptance form, including my bank and credit card details. Holy Molly, I deleted the message at once! There is more to scam in this part of the world. I wonder if you have ever read the novel, “419”? It’s plot is centred on those who engage in scam.
No, Uzo, I’ve never read that book. It sounds interesting and a little scary. But come to think of it, scaring people is what you like to do!
I wonder if the people who send these emails get similar messages themselves, and if so, how they respond to them.
They probably answer them by trying to win them over to THEIR scam!
I get so many of these! The big clue is usually the broken english. Imagine all the elderly people scammers prey on who don’t know better! Grrrr!
Yes, I’ve had that experience with broken english, but this one seemed to have a fine command of english.
The scammers are everywhere and it is amazing how many times one reads that they have caught people out…
We have so many on the cell phones here specially the one where Nokia has given me a prize of R 250 000… now the first thing that astounds me is that Nokia would award a prize to a Samsung phone, and the second if they were giving away such prizes why are they not phoning you themselves for the PRO.??
In my boredom once I phoned the number given and went through the obvious scam on the other side of the phone, Brendon could not answer my questions but informed me by sending him R 300 of airtime he could process the prize… more astounding when I climbed into him and told him his fortune and what a Bas…d he was he continued to try to convince me this was real…
It seems that at one time or another we all have been or will be approached in one way by a scammer. They’ll have to get more clever, though, because this one seemed so obvious to me…
Those scammers are everywhere. The ones that look like they come from the USPS (United States Postal Service) are especially tricky. They tell you they couldn’t deliver a package to you, and that you need to click the provided link to get the pick-up information. But the link is a scam that will hijack your computer and freeze everything up unless you pay a ransom to get the password to unlock it. There was an article in USA Today about this a few weeks ago. I’ve gotten that email several times, but I just delete it. Scary stuff. We have to be ever vigilant.
Perhaps if I ever get bored enough I might try to come up with a foolproof way to plan a great scam. Like the one in the movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman, “The Sting.” That was great fun…
That’s one way to prepare for retirement. 😉
You’re the one to write a similar script: think Hugh Jackman and Jake Gylenhall.
It’s a shame that we have to watch out every move, but thanks for the warning.
If you received an email like that would you realize that it was a scam?