Funniest Email Scams

[imaccooper]

Over the past couple of weeks, I've received two hilarious email scams/phishing attempts. These got me thinking that it would be funny (and perhaps useful in some cases) for others to post about some of the funnier scam attempts that have happened to you recently.

Feel free to post emails as I have done, phone conversations, letters, people going door to door, or anything else you may have encountered.

This was the first email I received about a week ago (it was directly copied from the email so it really did look like that with all the spacing and grammar problems).

----------------------------------

Greetings.

My Name is Mr Michael Harrison,I am Accountant General to the United National Development Asia-Pacific Region called UNDP. I have a Legitimate offer for you worth (US$600,000,000.00) U.S Dollar.I shall be pleased to have your Personal Phone Number where I can Personally contact you,While looking Forward to a Successful Business relationship with you.

Best Regards.
Mr Michael Harrison
Senior Accountant General
To UNDP Asia-Pacific Region.

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As if that didn't make me laugh hard enough, this morning I received another email claiming to be yahoo! e-finance.

-----------------------------------
Yahoo! Asia
Lotto No.8429204320
Official Notification.

[We wish to bring to your Kind attention that your
E-mail account
has Won ($5,000,000) in the May2015 Yahoo! Draws.]

To claim your winnings, Please contact Our agent through the
Email below:

Mr.Eric Borchard
[Official Claims Director.]
Yahoo! Promotions
Asian Regional Sector
E-mail: ericborchard@qq.com


You are to establish contact with the Following Informations:

Name
Residential/Office Address
Telephone
Fax Number
Age
Sex

Thanks & Regards.
Yahoo Asia Team.

------------------------------

I want to do this mostly for funny scam attempts like this, but if you have any more serious stories feel free to share them also so we can all learn something.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Heh, well I guess I'll be the party pooper in this thread with something more serious

We get myriads of emails with Word document attachments (normally 'please see invoice' or something like that) that even scan as clean on VirusTotal. However if you open them, it'll deploy a payload, and boom - give a warm welcome to your new friend, CryptoLocker. It's definitely a Word document as well, not some invoice.doc.exe stuff.

So a Word of warning, pardon the pun, to those who are running Office 2007 or earlier on Windows - please update to 2010 or 2013, as you can quite easily get a nasty infection just by opening a document!

 

[firedept]

Some of my favorites are about updating my domain names. I will receive emails claiming that the domain names I own and manage are expiring from companies I have never heard of. Besides, I am well aware of when any of the domain names I own are going to expire. I would have a pretty upset customer if I let their domain expire and their site went down.

Received two of these emails this morning. Found them in my Junk mail.

 

[imaccooper]

Heh, well I guess I'll be the party pooper in this thread with something more serious

We get myriads of emails with Word document attachments (normally 'please see invoice' or something like that) that even scan as clean on VirusTotal. However if you open them, it'll deploy a payload, and boom - give a warm welcome to your new friend, CryptoLocker. It's definitely a Word document as well, not some invoice.doc.exe stuff.

So a Word of warning, pardon the pun, to those who are running Office 2007 or earlier on Windows - please update to 2010 or 2013, as you can quite easily get a nasty infection just by opening a document!

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing and I will make sure to keep a lookout for anything like that on some of the older office systems I know about.

 

[keysofanxiety]

That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing and I will make sure to keep a lookout for anything like that on some of the older office systems I know about.

No problem at all. Did some old posts on MWB's forums regarding it, just to provide a source if you're interested:

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/topic/160673-doc-malware-attachment/#entry905838

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/topic/162049-malicious-excel-document/#entry917819

Again not really sure how it works, though they're definitely intended for older Office applications that don't have Protected View by standard and stuff like that!

 

[imaccooper]

Had another one today. (Apparently I've gotten on some list somewhere that sells to some interesting people.)

This is what it said

I am Dr. Chris Ogbechie Chairman DIAMOND BANK OF NIGERIA PLc.There is counter claims on your funds presently by one Mr. Jones Tsai,who is trying to make us believe that you are dead and even explained that you had an agreement with him, to help you in receiving your part payment of $2.5Million US, kindly reconfirm to us, for your urgent release of the Premium immediately. Reconfirm the above information to avoid making payment to a wrong person.

Mr.Dr. Chris Ogbechie
Chairman Admin
DIAMOND BANK OF NIGERIA PLC