Has anyone ever been scammed with a company asking to send money to the Ivory Coast for a release of funds?

i have been sent an e-mail from a woman asking to send Â£500 via money gram to release funds to me as there jurasdiction only allows people from the UK to release money

It's a scam called variously Advanced Fee Fraud, Nigerian Advanced Fee Fraud or 419 Scam. Recently a lot of the scammers seem to have moved to the Ivory Coast.

The Nigerian Scams are known as such because the type of fraud that they attempt originated in Nigeria. Before the days of email the same type of fraud was attempted by post, so they are not new by any means! They are also known as "419 scams" after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code which makes this type of scam illegal in that country.

Basically they tell you some hard luck story and say they have millions of dollars that they can't get hold of without your help... and they offer you a massive slice of the cash if you "help" them.
Then they report various obstacles that they need you (and your cash) to help them overcome. The idea is to slowly bleed you dry with promises that just one more bribe to a customs official or whatever and the money will be on its way to you. There is no money (or if there is then it's fake).

There are basically three things that can be done with a "419" email, depending on how much time and effort you are prepared to spend:-

1. The simplest of all - DELETE it. Never reply, even to say "ha ha I know you're trying to scam me" This just confirms that you have a functioning email address and the scammer will then try to sell it on to someone else - so what you'll get is more 419 emails!

2. If the email comes from an email provider that you recognise and trust, like Yahoo, Hotmail, Netscape etc then forward the message headers to the email provider with a note of the complaint. [The message source maybe faked but often a contact email address is quoted in the message the scammer actually writes to you.]
To do this on Outlook Express:-
Right click the message and select Properties
Click on the Details tab
Click on Message Source
Right click the mass of code you see and click Select All to highlight the entire message
Right click again and click Copy
Paste into your message to Yahoo, Hotmail or whoever

The address to email this to is "abuse@(the email provider) eg. abuse@yahoo.com

I have a standard message in my autosignature to save time, which reads:-

"Dear Sirs,
We have today received the message, forwarded below, which appears to be from one of your users, namely [here I quote the email address of the scammer]

We believe that this message is an attempted West African Advanced Fee
Fraud, also known as a "419 Fraud". See London Metropolitan Police Fraud Unit website at:-
http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419....
for further details.

We trust that you will take appropriate action against such abuse of your terms and conditions of use.

For your information, the message source code is provided below:-
******************************...

[I paste the message source in here]

******************************...

Sincerely "

Yahoo in particular is very good at deleting these scammer's email addresses so they don't get any replies and can't work their scam on unsuspecting victims

3. The third thing you can do is for experts only - but it is very amusing... play the scammer along and make him waste his time and money on you. WARNING: Don't try this unless you are confident that you know what you are doing. These guys are ruthless criminals and are likely to get VERY annoyed with you.

Visit this site for loads of advice (and some very amusing tales on how the scammers have been themselves scammed):-

http://www.419eater.com/index.htm...

But whatever you do, don't fall for it and don't let any of your friends or relatives fall for it either. The mere fact that these scams are still being attempted means that SOME people must be being fooled otherwise the scammers wouldn't be bothering to send out their nasty little emails

WORK-AT-HOME SCAMS
Work-at-home and business opportunity scams are often advertised as paid work from home.

On application, would-be workers are asked for money up-front to pay for materials and, after payment, hear nothing.

Alternatively, people are asked to invest in a business with little chance of success.

TELEPHONE LOTTERY SCAMS
These include scams which go under the name of genuine lotteries like the Canadian lottery and the El Gordo Spanish lottery.

Unsolicited calls tell people they are being entered into a draw

Unsolicited telephone calls tell people they are being entered into a prize draw.

Later, they receive a call congratulating them on winning a substantial prize in a national lottery.

But before they can claim their prize, they are told they must send money to pay for administration fees and taxes.

The prize, of course, does not exist.

MATRIX SCHEMES
These schemes are promoted through websites offering top-of-the range electronic gadgets as free gifts in return for spending about Â£20 on an inexpensive product, such as a mobile phone signal booster.

Consumers who buy the product then join a waiting list to receive their free gift.

The person at the top of the list receives his/her gift only after a prescribed number of new members join up.

The majority of those on the list will never receive the item.

PRIZE DRAW MAILINGS

"Prizes" such as holidays can only be claimed in return for administration fees

Holiday prize draws, sweepstakes and foreign lottery mailings form the basis of many scams.

The majority appear to be notification of a prize in an overseas draw or lottery.

Prizes can apparently only be awarded in return for administration or registration fees.

PROPERTY INVESTMENT SCHEMES
Investors attend a free presentation, which aims to persuade them to hand over large amounts of money to enrol on a course promising to make them a successful property dealer.

Schemes can involve the offer of buying yet-to-be built properties at a discount.

Other variations include a buy-to-let scheme where companies offer to source, renovate and manage properties, claiming good returns from rental income.

The properties are generally near-derelict and the tenants non-existent.

PREMIUM RATE TELEPHONE NUMBER SCAMS

Premium rate phone numbers offer good returns for scammers

Postal notification of a win in a sweepstake or a holiday offer in this scam include instructions to ring a premium rate number.

This is generally an 090 number.

Calls to the number incur significant charges, the recorded message is lengthy, and the prize often does not exist.

INVESTMENT-RELATED SCAMS
An unsolicited telephone call offers the opportunity to invest in 'soon-to-be-rare commodities such as shares, fine wines or gem stones.

These investments often carry high risk and may be worth a lot less than you pay.

The shares are not quoted on any stock exchange and could be difficult to sell afterwards while gem stones are often said to be stored in secretive Swiss bank vaults, so the investment can never be seen.

NIGERIAN ADVANCE FEE FRAUDS
These frauds take the form of an offer, via letter, e-mail or fax, to share a huge sum of money in return for using the recipient's bank account to transfer of the money out of the country.

The Nigerian advance fee fraud has been around for a number of years

The perpetrators will often then use the bank account details to empty their victim's bank account.

Alternatively, they can convince the victim that money is needed up front.

They will often say this money is necessary to bribe officials.

CREDIT SCAMS
This is another advance fee fraud, this time usually originating in Canada.

Adverts appear in local newspapers offering quick loans regardless of credit history.

Respondents are told their loans have been agreed but they must pay a fee to cover insurance before it is released.

After that fee is paid, the consumer never hears from the company again and the loan never appears.

PYRAMID SCHEMES
Pyramid schemes offer a return on a financial investment based on the number of new recruits to the scheme.

Investors are misled about the likely returns. There are simply not enough people to support the scheme indefinitely.

This is a SCAM as most others have said. One component of many such scams is that even a money order, which many of us treat the same as cash, is NOT real money. Your bank may hold up paying you until the money order "clears", but weeks later the originating bank may determine that there is no money to cover the payment, charge back the money to your bank, which in turn deducts that money from your bank account. You've lost big time!

Even such "small time" businesses as craft artists can be targeted by similar versions of this scam where overseas individuals want to purchase large quantities of your product. The money will never make it into your pockets.

The worst versions of this scam don't just steal your money, but also your whole identity.

Don't get taken by anything like this that sounds too good to be true!

YES!!!! My mother got something just like that. She brought a copy of the email to the bank & they checked it out..........it was a scam!!!!

obviously its a scam.

don't do it and do NOT respond or click the "remove me from list" option as you will thusly receive tenfold the amount of SPAM you currently do

This does back beofre emails and were sent by letters. Its hard to believe anyone falls for it but, someone must.

My other half has received loads of these e-mails either so called lotteries telling him he's won milllions or telling him one of his long lost relations has died and he can claim some dosh. Dreadful really some poor old soul may fall for it.

It usually involves Nigeria...

It's an old scam. Anyone who asks for money to give you money you should run! That includes long lost relatives and lotteries you never entered.

well i didnt fall for it. im not stoopid

Yes, that's a familiar e-mail scam that's also called the "419 scam" or "advance fee fraud" - you can look it up on Wikipedia. The best thing to do is simply to ignore it completely and mark it as spam - this way the scammer can't use that particular e-mail account anymore to pester people.

Its a downright scam!!!!

in the future also dont fall for such stuff,

there are many scams operating on the net and one needs to be careful and not get scammed!

always check any company which makes any kind of tall claims and never pay any money, ok :) best of luck :)

I have been sent emails from people like this and I always ignore them. I have seen this scam countless times on the news and am always surprised by the greed people show in falling into this trap.

this scam has been done to death - its about 10 years old - where have u been?

I was way toooooo smart for that scam . Did you win the Niggerian lotto too along with the Swahililand lottery . If not you will shortly !!!!!!

Lots of variations of this one. Report them if you have the time. In Canada you can send it to phonebusters.com. Do a web search for your own county under 'e-mail fraud".

i always get those spam messages in my bulk mail. just ignore it dont even open it.

Delete and complain to your url provider

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Excellent site for really funny 419 cases

no but i get that scam email every once in a while

This is a famous scam. I'm sure there are people who fell for it but it's widely known now. You can't make money that easily.

I've had loads of these just delete them ASAP!!
Don't know anyone who's actually let themselves be conned by it though!

i have, i talked to this women for like 2 weeks and she asked me to send her money, and i was like NO and she kept on asking, and i kept on saying no, so in the end she was like ill send u a cheque as over there it will take to long to cash it and could i just send the money to her thro western union, so i gave her my mail box address so she didnt have mine, and when the cheque come i took it to the police and they told me it was stolen. so i beg all the people out there, if any1 from africa asks u for money, say NO and take all the info u get to the police,

Don't send them money! Send it to me instead. =D

If your gonna do it, then can you give me your email addy and I will send similar email too?

Its a load of old b0llocks. Anyone asking for money to say that you have won something/ will receive something/ are owed something living anywhere like Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana etc etc are always scams. Come to think of it - it can be any country in the world - US and UK included! Dont respond and bung the email in your spam folder.

Try running the contact names through any search engine & you may find the countless sites of these extremely stoopid people who actually prompt other extremely stoopid people to fork out hand over fist for nuttin but trouble! I usually return these kinds of 'contact emails' with a polite, 'Thanks but no thanks, I was born at night, jes not last night!'

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