Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead!

compuXP · 02-06-2006, 03:03 AM

The "epic tale" is what I got in this hilariously serious spam message which I have posted below ...

Quote:

Dear Friend,
You may be surprise to receive this letter from me,since you dont know me personally,I am Maxwel
UbanKo. The son of Dr Steven Ubanko, Who was recently murdered in the land
dispute in Zimbabwe.
I got your contact as i was searching for a reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential
business which involve a transfer of fund to a foreign account and i decided to write you. My late father
was among the few black Zimbabwean opposition party rich farmers murdered by the agents of the ruling
Government of president Robert mugabe,for his alleged support and sympathy for the Zimbabwean
opposition party controlled by the white minority,
Before my father death,he had taken to johannesburg and deposited the sum of twenty five million united
state dollars (US$25,000,000)with a security and financial company,The money right now is in
(EUROPE), as if he forseen the looming danger in zimbabwe. The money was deposited in a box as
valuable items to avoid over taxed custom clearance.
This money was allocated for the purchase of new machinery and chemical product for Agro-allied farms
and for establishment of new farms in lesotho and swaziland.This land problems arose when president
Robert mugabe introduced a new land act that wholly affected the rich white farmers and some blacks
vehemently condemned the "modus operandi"adopted by the government.
This result to rampant killings and mob action by the war veterans and some political Thugs,precisely
more than three thousand( 3,000) people have so far been killed.Heads of government from the west,
especially Britain and united states have voice their
condemnation of Mugabe's plans.Subsequently, south Africa have development community(S.A.D.C)has
continousy supported mugabe's new land act, it is against this background that my entire family who are
currently residing in South Africa have
decided to ! transfer my father's wealth and south Africa's government seems to be playing along with
them.I am face with the dilemma of investing this money in south Africa for fear of encountering the same
experience in the future, since both countries have almost the same political history.
Moreso,the south African foreign exchange policy does not allow such investment,Hence i am seeking
for(political asylum) AS a business person whom i entrusted my future and that of my family into his hands,
i must let you know that this transaction is 100% risk free and the nature of your business does not
necessarily matter.
For your assistance we are offering you 20% of the sum 70% for me and my family,while 10% will be
mapped out for any expenses that we may incurre during this transaction.We wish to invest our money
on commecial properties based on your advice. Finally, i will demand for assurance that you will not sit on
the money when it gets to your personally account or comp! any account in your country, If this proposal
is accepted please confirm your interest by sending this above to
maxwelubanko@netscape.net

Thanks.

God Bless You,
Maxwel Ubanko

Anybody else find this funny? lol.

-Matt

rohan2kool · 02-06-2006, 08:27 AM

Well, I've hot 7 such mails till date. The latest i recieved was from some ******* manager of oriental bank of iran whose customer had an account of 30 billion $ and he died in an air crash and left no survivors.

Edit by Staff: Please clean up your language a bit, thanks

Louis11 · 02-07-2006, 01:15 AM

I used to recieve them alot. Are these guys serious... I don't see how any one could possibly fall for this?

compuXP · 02-07-2006, 03:03 AM

Heh, I got another one today. Seems some people on NamePros have too. Dang, where are they getting our email addresses?

microdude431 · 02-07-2006, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by compuXP

Heh, I got another one today. Seems some people on NamePros have too. Dang, where are they getting our email addresses?

Could be possible that they scan domains and pick up email addresses from whois.

Louis11 · 02-08-2006, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by compuXP
Heh, I got another one today. Seems some people on NamePros have too. Dang, where are they getting our email addresses?

Lots of places. Could be through WHOIS, maybe on a site you left your email on? Ever notice how some people do the louis.lang [at] gmail [dot] com? Long shot, but maybe you recieved it from a buddy?

compuXP · 02-08-2006, 02:47 AM

Actually I read somewhere that some scanners pick up the "username [at] domain [dot] com" and "username at domain dot com" syntaxes... kind of scary!

rohan2kool · 02-08-2006, 04:22 AM

Well... you yourself can try this thing out. Go to www.blogspot.com or www.google.com for that matter(or using php's fsockopen()). Search using the word 'contact'. Now the hyperlinks on the page can be caught by php, using the preg_match function. Then using fsockopen(), get the HTML for that page, or for that purpose go to the page and view the source. Now, all you need to do is, convert the HTML code into a string and use the following PHP code to parse out the e-mails:

Code:

$content = //The HTML content of the page
$_name = "/^[-!#$%&*+\\.\/0-9=?A-Z^_'{|}~]+";
$_host = "([-0-9A-Z]+\.)+";
$_tlds = "([0-9A-Z]){2,4}$/i";

$emails = array();
$emails[0] = array();

preg_match_all($_name."@".$_host.$_tlds, $content, $emails[0], PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);

The e-mails for this site will be returned as $emails[0][0], $emails[0][1] and so on... You can use this for many sites with php. It's really... really easy...

Many people are therefore obfuscating e-mails on blogs so that they can be used by humans alone. For example, instead of 'hello@bye.com', I can use it as 'hello [at] {the} ;rate; 'of' bye.com OR helloREMOVE_THIS@REMOVE_THISbye.comREMOVE_THIS...

Indyan · 02-08-2006, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohan2kool

Well, I've hot 7 such mails till date. The latest i recieved was from some ******* manager of oriental bank of iran whose customer had an account of 30 billion $ and he died in an air crash and left no survivors.

Edit by Staff: Please clean up your language a bit, thanks

Not fair.I have only got 1 such mail so far.May be even the nigerian scammers doesnt think me worthy enough

Louis11 · 02-08-2006, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by compuXP

Actually I read somewhere that some scanners pick up the and "username at domain dot com" syntaxes... kind of scary!

Yea it would be simple to pick up the "username at domain dot com" (regular expressions could take care of it for you) but no application is smart enough to pick up all of the different variations you can format your email. Just an example

rohan2kool · 02-10-2006, 03:50 AM

Got another one today... these spammers irritating me:

Quote:

Greeting,
Sir,
I am contacting you believing you are a honest and trustworthy person.I believe you will not betray the confidence I am willing to repose in you, for me to have contacted you even though we've not met before.
My name is David Bah ,the only son of late Mr.Peter Bah who was the chairman /President/CEO,Cacao-Cafe & Agro-Alimentary industries plc.SCAFECAO)"Bouake" and ex-owner of Polyclinic LA-MADONNE, of the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire.
You can find the story on this website:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2269238.stm
On 19th of September 2002,a group of so called rebels took over the city of Bouake to over-throw the Government of Mr.Laurent Gbagbo the President of Cote d'Ivoire. On the 20th day morning at about 4:18am some fractions of the same group of rebels break into our house and killed our security guard and pass-through the gate entrance to the main building and took my father away to an un-known destination.
After about four hours later we found him (my father) at the road side, by then he had been totally beaten and was bleeding to death lying in the pool of his own blood. From there, we rushed him to a near by hospital and hours later he sent for my mother. So he told her that he can not make it from the doctors diagnosis, he also told her that it was because he (my father) was not from the northern part of the country that he has been treated this way and also being a political activist. And again he said he is suspecting some of his business partners for conspiracy and this sort of brutality. He also told my mother that he deposited a huge amount of money i.e US$ 10.5million dollars(Ten million five hundred thousand us dollars only) into a Bank he also told my mother where he kept the whole documents concerning this deposit that is made for investment purpose in the western world.
That same day, he (my father) gave up the ghost. Then with the help of the French soldiers, we escaped to Senegal, where we are now.for rafaga camp I am now contacting you believing you are honest and trustworthy to help us to receive the money in your account for investment, I and my mother has decided in compensating you 30%of the total amount for your assistance .
Please do take your time to go through the mail and get back to us, so that I will simply introduce you to the Bank where the fund are being kept now for onward transfer. So you can contact me through my alternate email adress for security reason.
Email david_bah@walla.com am waiting for your response.
Thanks and God bless. you
David Bah .

jcorkern · 02-13-2006, 08:08 PM

I think it is funny because there are people out there smart enough to use a computer to recieve this type of email and stupid enough to fall for this scam! Then they want to complain to our politicians because they need protection from their own stupidity!

King-Jullian · 02-14-2006, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by compuXP

Heh, I got another one today. Seems some people on NamePros have too. Dang, where are they getting our email addresses?

They look at your profiles and signatures if they see one of your sites they whois it and then spam message ye! :eek:

02-06-2006, 08:27 AM	#2
rohan2kool Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 132	Re: Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead! Well, I've hot 7 such mails till date. The latest i recieved was from some ******* manager of oriental bank of iran whose customer had an account of 30 billion $ and he died in an air crash and left no survivors. Edit by Staff: Please clean up your language a bit, thanks __________________ Eat healthy, Stay Fit, Die Anyway. --==-- If there is a man who knows everything about women, there is a Windows distribution without bugs. Last edited 02-07-2006 at 03:02 AM.

02-07-2006, 01:15 AM	#3
Louis11 Smurf Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 41	Re: Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead! I used to recieve them alot. Are these guys serious... I don't see how any one could possibly fall for this? __________________ Puerto Vallarta Tours

02-07-2006, 03:03 AM	#4
compuXP Retired Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 139	Re: Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead! Heh, I got another one today. Seems some people on NamePros have too. Dang, where are they getting our email addresses? __________________ Retired Moderator/Member/Friend/Helper - it was great working with all of you!

02-08-2006, 02:47 AM	#7
compuXP Retired Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 139	Re: Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead! Actually I read somewhere that some scanners pick up the "username [at] domain [dot] com" and "username at domain dot com" syntaxes... kind of scary! __________________ Retired Moderator/Member/Friend/Helper - it was great working with all of you!

02-08-2006, 04:22 AM	#8
rohan2kool Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 132	Re: Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead! Well... you yourself can try this thing out. Go to www.blogspot.com or www.google.com for that matter(or using php's fsockopen()). Search using the word 'contact'. Now the hyperlinks on the page can be caught by php, using the preg_match function. Then using fsockopen(), get the HTML for that page, or for that purpose go to the page and view the source. Now, all you need to do is, convert the HTML code into a string and use the following PHP code to parse out the e-mails: Code: $content = //The HTML content of the page $_name = "/^[-!#$%&*+\\.\/0-9=?A-Z^_'{\|}~]+"; $_host = "([-0-9A-Z]+\.)+"; $_tlds = "([0-9A-Z]){2,4}$/i"; $emails = array(); $emails[0] = array(); preg_match_all($_name."@".$_host.$_tlds, $content, $emails[0], PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE); The e-mails for this site will be returned as $emails[0][0], $emails[0][1] and so on... You can use this for many sites with php. It's really... really easy... Many people are therefore obfuscating e-mails on blogs so that they can be used by humans alone. For example, instead of 'hello@bye.com', I can use it as 'hello [at] {the} ;rate; 'of' bye.com OR helloREMOVE_THIS@REMOVE_THISbye.comREMOVE_THIS... __________________ Eat healthy, Stay Fit, Die Anyway. --==-- If there is a man who knows everything about women, there is a Windows distribution without bugs.

02-13-2006, 08:08 PM	#12
jcorkern Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 64	Re: Now THIS is a funny "spam" message - An epic tale of $25 mil and thousands dead! I think it is funny because there are people out there smart enough to use a computer to recieve this type of email and stupid enough to fall for this scam! Then they want to complain to our politicians because they need protection from their own stupidity!

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