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OMG. I got a really strange email from the "FBI." Should I be worried?

iParis said:
Probably. I didn't feel like reading through all of it.
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So rather than reading an email that had you wondering if the FBI was tracking you down, you posted it to an internet forum? The first thing you should do when you receive an email like this would be to read it carefully if you suspect that there is any legitimacy to it, usually about 4-5 lines in it should be pretty obvious that an email is a scam, at which point it becomes fun to figure out how much detail they go into and how many grammatical errors they can cram into a 2 paragraph email.

Scippy said:
The FBI wouldn't be using a yahoo account.
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It's not inconceivable that a government agency would use a Yahoo account. Although the FBI isn't nearly as secretive as other agencies that work more covertly. Of course I doubt they'd use yahoo.cn when yahoo.com is available.
 
Barrack Obama is a black man and will stop races in America
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Watch out NASCAR!

atszyman said:
So rather than reading an email that had you wondering if the FBI was tracking you down, you posted it to an internet forum? The first thing you should do when you receive an email like this would be to read it carefully if you suspect that there is any legitimacy to it, usually about 4-5 lines in it should be pretty obvious that an email is a scam, at which point it becomes fun to figure out how much detail they go into and how many grammatical errors they can cram into a 2 paragraph email.
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Seriously. Reading comprehension kids. TLDR isn't a valid excuse for these things. :rolleyes:
 
There are just so many things wrong with that e-mail!

The return address isn't right (besides, who puts a return address at the top of an e-mail. That is usually placed in a sig at the bottom.). Why would the Director of the FBI sign a letter coming from "Mr. Smith Williams"? Shouldn't that be "Special Agent Williams"? What kind of name is Smith Williams? I have heard of having two first names, but two last names?

This whole thing reeks of being written by someone for whom English is not their first language.
 
A) Anything official from the government will come with the regular mail: the post office is RUN by the government, and email can be hacked.

B) This letter is utterly insane. Utterly. It's so amazingly insane I can't believe anyone would read it and even contemplate believability.

C) It is filled with awful grammar and spelling. This also adds to the insanity and makes the letter read like a kid's fantasy world scribbled in crayon and then transcribed to ascii.
 
It's not inconceivable that a government agency would use a Yahoo account. Although the FBI isn't nearly as secretive as other agencies that work more covertly. Of course I doubt they'd use yahoo.cn when yahoo.com is available.
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Now I understand why these scammers would even waste their time to try such a scam.
 
You mean this isn't real? Mine:

Attn: Beneficiary,


This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors claiming to be Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of Oceanic Bank, Zenith Banks, Mr. Michell Brown From union bank kelvin Young of HSBC, Ben of Fedex,Ibrahim Sule,Larry Christopher, Puppy Scammers are impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. During our Investigation, we noticed that the reason why you have not received your payment is because you have not fulfilled your Financial Obligation given to you in respect of your Contract/Inheritance Payment.
Therefore, we have contacted the Federal Ministry Of Finance on your behalf and they have brought a solution to your problem by cordinating your payment in total USD$10.5million in an ATM CARD which you can use to withdraw money from any ATM MACHINE CENTER anywhere in the world with a maximum of $10000 United States Dollars daily. You now have the lawful right to claim your fund in an ATM CARD.

Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this transaction, you have to be rest assured for this is 100% risk free it is our duty to protect the American Citizens. All I want you to do is to contact the ATM CARD CENTER via email for their requirements to proceed and procure your Approval Slip on your behalf which will cost you $150 only and note that your Approval Slip which contains details of the agent who will process your transaction.

CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: Kelvin Williams
EMAIL: kelvin_w231@yahoo.com

Do contact Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE with your details:

FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
TELL:
CELL:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:
BANK NAME:

So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment informations which you'll use in making payment of $150 via Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your Approval Slip after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected to your designated home address without any further delay. Please if you know you cannot be able to afford the $150 for the delivery of your ATM card via FedEx then do not bother to contact Mr. Kelvin Williams as we are in the begining of new year and he should be busy with some other things.

We order you to get back to this Mr. kelvin williams right away.

FBI Director Robert S.Mueller III.
Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to be in possesion of your ATM CARD, you are hereby adviced only to be in contact with Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE who is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from impostors to Mr. Kelvin williams so we could act upon and commence investigation.
 
NC MacGuy said:
You mean this isn't real? Mine:

Attn: Beneficiary,


This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors claiming to be Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of Oceanic Bank, Zenith Banks, Mr. Michell Brown From union bank kelvin Young of HSBC, Ben of Fedex,Ibrahim Sule,Larry Christopher, Puppy Scammers are impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. During our Investigation, we noticed that the reason why you have not received your payment is because you have not fulfilled your Financial Obligation given to you in respect of your Contract/Inheritance Payment.
Therefore, we have contacted the Federal Ministry Of Finance on your behalf and they have brought a solution to your problem by cordinating your payment in total USD$10.5million in an ATM CARD which you can use to withdraw money from any ATM MACHINE CENTER anywhere in the world with a maximum of $10000 United States Dollars daily. You now have the lawful right to claim your fund in an ATM CARD.

Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this transaction, you have to be rest assured for this is 100% risk free it is our duty to protect the American Citizens. All I want you to do is to contact the ATM CARD CENTER via email for their requirements to proceed and procure your Approval Slip on your behalf which will cost you $150 only and note that your Approval Slip which contains details of the agent who will process your transaction.

CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: Kelvin Williams
EMAIL: kelvin_w231@yahoo.com

Do contact Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE with your details:

FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
TELL:
CELL:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:
BANK NAME:

So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment informations which you'll use in making payment of $150 via Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your Approval Slip after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected to your designated home address without any further delay. Please if you know you cannot be able to afford the $150 for the delivery of your ATM card via FedEx then do not bother to contact Mr. Kelvin Williams as we are in the begining of new year and he should be busy with some other things.

We order you to get back to this Mr. kelvin williams right away.

FBI Director Robert S.Mueller III.
Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to be in possesion of your ATM CARD, you are hereby adviced only to be in contact with Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE who is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from impostors to Mr. Kelvin williams so we could act upon and commence investigation.
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LOL, you're kidding right?
 
ejb190 said:
This whole thing reeks of being written by someone for whom English is not their first language.
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And good thing too. For the past few years this one factor has been a HUGE telling factor in scam emails, scam eBay listings, scam Craigslists: the scammer has terrible English skills.

It's going to become a lot scarier when the scammers figure that out and suddenly a new generation will fall prey to well-worded, convincing stories....
 
H$R said:
maybe they can't afford they're own internet provider anymore, so they switched to something cheaper..you know, recession hurts everybody :D
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But the USG is about to pass a huge spending bill, you'd think they'd budget in the money to keep the FBI going ...
 
seriously, that's one of the dumbest scamming attempts i've seen.

btw: i thing some spammer got a few years jailtime. but what about these scammers (in the infinitely unlikely event they ever get caught)?

these are probably the only people i truly hate on this planet and where i would agree to cut them in pieces while they are alive.......
 
notjustjay said:
And good thing too. For the past few years this one factor has been a HUGE telling factor in scam emails, scam eBay listings, scam Craigslists: the scammer has terrible English skills.

It's going to become a lot scarier when the scammers figure that out and suddenly a new generation will fall prey to well-worded, convincing stories....
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English is very easy to learn to a basic standard, but apparently it is one of the harder languages to master to a high standard.

In my experience, most people with English as a first language still struggle with spelling and grammar, and wouldn't be able to write something capable of passing for a proper, official government letter from the FBI. I know I would find it hard, and I'm a writer.

And if you're posting here, on a computer forum, you probably already have better english writing skills than the average person.

(ps. you'd be shocked how many adults really really struggle with writing. I've met quite a few. It's nothing to do with intelligence - English composition just doesn't suit many people. )

So I don't think we'll see many scammers suddenly able to create well crafted letters. It's like movies. It's easier to tell what a good movie is than to create one. Most third-world people with the skills to write genuine-looking fake FBI letters are destined for better things in life than writing scam letters.
 
I just got an email from a friend, saying he is in a London jail and needs bail money. They used his email address, but instead of .com it was .something else.

The scary thing is that everyone who ever got an email from him in the past, got this one as well. Somehow, some Nigerians were able to get all of our email addresses.

His provider is investigating, but since no money was lost they aren't that excited about it.
 
notjustjay said:
And good thing too. For the past few years this one factor has been a HUGE telling factor in scam emails, scam eBay listings, scam Craigslists: the scammer has terrible English skills.

It's going to become a lot scarier when the scammers figure that out and suddenly a new generation will fall prey to well-worded, convincing stories....
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I keep seeing job postings for Advanced Level English teachers, for jobs in Nigeria. I always thought they were scams. Perhaps the job postings are real? :rolleyes:
 
iParis said:
am only 16, how the hell does this have anything to do with me. When I first saw it I thought that they caught me illegally downloading music.
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With that confession I'd say they have caught you now :p

'
And if they caught me doing something illegal they'd probably come to my house.
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They have probably already been in your house, thanks to the Patriot act they don't need much justification to keep you under surveillance while they build up their evidence... :eek:
 
carlgo said:
I just got an email from a friend, saying he is in a London jail and needs bail money. They used his email address, but instead of .com it was .something else.

The scary thing is that everyone who ever got an email from him in the past, got this one as well. Somehow, some Nigerians were able to get all of our email addresses.
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Easy answer. He has a virus or a trojan, which has send his email address book to them.

Or chain letters. I hate them for an obvious reason: your email address gets sent to many people you don't know and therefore shouldn't have your email address. And if someone has a virus they could even have my email address because of them.
 
fbi using a yahoo email....or email in general
nigera
asking you to pay
the content of the letter is laughable
the grammar

did that not give you a clue?

seriously do people still fall for this crap.....sorry op but im really amazed you are even worried about it/taking it seriously
 
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