These emails are a few from a surge I had a few weeks ago, they are some good old nigerian/kenyan 419 scams, but it was like a load of guys in the same shitty cyber cafe were all trying to scam me as maybe they thought I was a hot lead… As you’ll see from the start of his first email, its worded like he knew I was baiting someone else at the same time…

This is was the first email from Edger;

from:		mwalker2035@nc.rr.com
reply-to:		edgerhoover22@yahoo.com
to:		Recipients <mwalker2035@nc.rr.com>
date:		18 March 2015 at 11:07
subject:		No Subject
mailed-by:		nc.rr.com

Firstly – note the from and reply-to addresses are different. This is an alarm-bell moment and a good indicator something is up…

From; Edger Hoover,
Investigating Officer,
HM Treasury.
630066 Hatton Garden,
London ECIN 8LE.

Not the treasury address!

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.
Dear Friend,

My name is Edger Hoover; I work with the HM Treasury, and I have seen that
several times people tried to divert your funds into their own personal
account I mean those you call your partners. Now I write to you in respect
of the amount which I have been able to send to you through the United
Nation Diplomat, now I want you to know that the diplomat would deliver the
funds which I have package as a diplomatic compensation to you and the
amount in the consignment is $11,000.000.00 (Eleven Million Dollars Only).

The amounts don’t match, but his first line makes me wonder if this could be part of the same scam group that were sending me other emails at the same time.

To this end, I did not disclose the content to the diplomat that the box
contain money but I told him that it is your compensation from the Financial
Secretary and from our affiliate, I want you to know that this funds would
help your financial status as I have seen in record that you have spent a
lot trying to receive this funds and I am not demanding so much from you but
Just 40% of the funds.

What the F is this guy on about? Worded terribly, and again, sounds like hes refering to some other conversations.

I want you to get back to me so that I can give you the contact information
of the diplomat who is now in Africa and has been waiting patiently to get
your information so that he can proceed with the delivery to your doorstep.

Yours Sincerely,
Edger Hoover.

Definitely one of the strangest first emails I’ve ever seen. Bad spelling and wording, the first ones are usually fairly polished.

I sent a classic reply;

Hello,

Yes i can accept the money.

What is the protocol?

And he very quickly replied with;

Dear Friend,
Thanks for your mail received, like I said in my previous message that I have tried reaching you several times but all to no avail, I am glad now that you finally responded.
Thus, I want you to contact the diplomat who is presently in Africa now, and inform him about the address where you want the consignment delivered to.
You can reach him immediately with the below information:
Name: Fredrick Taylor
E-mail; fredrick_taylor22@diplomats.com
or fredricktaylor0@gmail.com
Also send him your full address and contact information’s for easy delivery of the consignment to your doorstep.
Kindly keep me posted regarding your communication with the diplomat and when the consignment will be delivered to you, and note that the diplomat does not know the content in the consignment is money, do not inform him. You can call me with my mobile number thus: +447700309129 but please not in my working hours.
Please make this a top secret to avoid diversion, as I have decided to attach my working identification card to this mail, for you to know who you are dealing with and also the picture of the consignment box.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Edger Hoover

I replied as he did not attach the ID or photo, Im dying to see them 🙂 the content of the email is just BS with a subtle attempt at prising some data out of me.

Unfortunately he hasn’t replied to me again yet, but as soon as he does ill stick it on here.

My blog subject of choice is scams, and more often than not – online scams. My friends know I have an interest in this and they often send potentials to me via email. A few of them have asked me “Why do people do this anyway? I mean, surely no one falls for it?”…

Well i’m afraid to say they do, and before you condemn these people for being stupid,  you first need to realise the sheer size of the problem;

According to Commtouch’s Internet Threats Trend Report for the first quarter of 2013, an average of 97.4 billion spam e-mails and 973 million malware e-mails were sent worldwide each day in Q1 2013 (h/t Softpedia)

That is nearly 100 BILLION spam emails sent every day in the first half of 2013! Thats 37 daily spam emails for every active internet user at the time!

The number of active internet users grew by 200 million in 2014 from 2.7 billion to 2.9 billion, and that will probably be more like 3.3 billion now so I dread to think how much more spam is being sent out – and scam emails make up a huge percentage of all these unwanted messages.

Suddenly a handful of people falling victim to these tricksters every now and then doesnt seem so ridiculous.

Its up to the savvy ones amongst us to ensure our family and friends don’t end being ripped off or scammed, so make sure you educate the people you care about and show them what these things look like so if one slips the net they can spot it and delete it!

And always remember, If it looks too good to be true, or if something just doesn’t look right – mark as spam (or  ‘phishing’) or DELETE!

NO ONE is going to give you $50,000,000,000 over a completely unsolicited and unexpected email.

Read more about Online Scams here.

–> Meet Simon Macbeth 🙂 <–

Last week I noticed I’d started getting comments on my original Simon Macbeth post, so I Googled his name to see if I was ranking and it was on Page 1. Then, I noticed the original website that exposed him as a dirty scammer was gone;

Surely he’s not had Google remove the website?

I felt the need to email the website creator and ask if Simon Macbeth had in fact been a douche and had the website removed from Google or something?

In actual fact, the website creator was arrested on suspicion of harassment because of the content on the website.  He accepted a caution as he didn’t want to go to court & pay for a defence, he accepted it on that basis alone and through no admission of guilt or wrong doing. The police were very reasonable with him, I think they could see how ridiculous the situation actually was.

A few days later he received an email from Simon Macbeth to his work despite being under strict orders not to speak to him;

Hello Daniel

Hope you’re well after an eventful weekend.

Thinks he’s funny doesnt he. His attempt at spelling next is funnier 😉

I’m going to give you an opportunity to move on from your unhealthy obsession with me.

Some time ago you asked what other 2 Court cases I intent to issue against you. They are for damaged coursed by your harassment and damages coursed by the defamation.

*Caused. Have you turned your spelling/grammar checkers off you moron?

It is my intention to seek £43,000. You kindly admitted the harassment to the Police and the defamation will not be easy to prove.

I think there is enough online proof proving Simon Macbeth is a thieving dirty scammer so as to justify why the site author did what they did. It wasnt unprovoked and none of it was untrue. The truth hurts, Simon. Maybe stop being a massive dick? That may discourage people from wanting to share their stories about you?

The existing court case I have against you for around £2700 will go in my favour, despite your lame attempt of a defence and nonsensical counter claim.

Sounding confident here like he knows what decision the Judge is going to make.

Don’t count your chickens, Simon 😉

In full and final settlement of all 3 cases I will accept £12,500. This is in full and final settlement of any and all cases relating to pass events. You have 7 days to accept my offer or I will take further action against you.

Did you type that with your feet, Simon? My blog is far from perfectly spell checked and grammatically correct but i can spell “Past” for gods sake hahah 🙂

Simon M. Macbeth

The middle  M stands for Marzipan. His parents were very cruel.

Needless to say, the original website author ignored this unofficial pointless collection of words and numbers and got on with his life, when two weeks later this arrived from one of Simon Macbeths current shagpieces’ email accounts, and had been sent to the authors main works email account;

RE: XXXX XX

Last month Mr XXX received a Police Caution for Harassment. Mr XXX is subject to the provisions in the SRA Handbook.

Think you need to get some help from someone that knows how to read before making such bold statements, Simon! 😉

The SRA Code of Conduct applies to managers, owners and employees of the firms that the SRA regulates and therefore would apply to Mr XXX. Chapter 10 of the code requires “you” to “report to the SRA promptly, serious misconduct by any person or firm authorised by the SRA, or any employee , manager or owner of any such firm”. I consider that such a Police Caution for Harassment fits the criteria of “serious misconduct” and therefore the matter must be reported.

You dont employ people do you, Simon? Lets look at the definition of “Serious Misconduct”;

“Serious misconduct is behaviour, on the part of an employee, which is so bad that it destroys the employer/employee relationship, and merits instant dismissal without notice or pay in lieu of notice.”

Still think that Mr XXX’s actions can be considered to be “Serious Misconduct”? Nah, didn’t think so.

In addition it is my opinion that it is wholly inappropriate for Mr XXX to remain employed by a legal firm.

Haha, and they should give a shit about your opinion because…..?

The circumstances of the Harassment are: Mr XXX entered into a contractual relationship with a 3rd party. When this relationship broke down Mr XXX then took it upon himself to blackmail the 3rd party.

Err, what? Blackmail? So how come Mr XXX hasn’t been arrested for attempted blackmail and given 14 years in prison? What is it about these scammers and the “Blackmail” word? They can give it all day long can’t they, but as soon as someone stands up and fights back they go all defensive.

Man up, losers!

Mr XXX told the 3rd party that he would send defamatory statements to others if the 3rd party did not cease their rights under said contract.

Hahahahahaha. Im sure that was more of a throwaway comment after you were totally unreasonable about something that could have been very easily resolved. In this world of red tape and cover-ups its nice to have an outlet like the internet where strong minded people like me and Mr XXX can speak our minds.

Mr XXX went on to post online hundreds of defamatory statements about the 3rd party causing the 3rd party to be seriously harassed.

Awww babas. I picture pitchforks and torches and an angry mob outside his house. If only haha.

Also he made one website with a few pages – the internet did the rest. Mr XXX is not responsible for the comments from the 1000’s of unhappy customers.

Statements that included the 3rd party was a paedophile, child rapist, fraudster as well as a statement that included the 3rd party should be physically harmed.

Again, you can’t hold a website owner accountable for the comments posted by a 3rd party.

The truth hurts, Simon.

These statements where seen by over 100,000 people (according to Mr XXX himself)

*were. Maybe stop being a wanker and people will stop slagging you off online?

My complaint is twofold

Your complaint is also complete bullshit.

1) That you have not reported this matter to the SRA
2) That you still employ Mr XXX.

Around the same time Mr XXX’s workplace got the above email, their company website also started being DDOS attacked to the extent it got taken offline for a while. Some websites are not set up with the security required to defend off such attacks so it can cause lots of problems. Im waiting to hear back from their IT department about what they find in the server logs. Should be interesting!

So to summarise, Simon Macbeth has tried to get this guy arrested for simply speaking the truth & making a website which attracted 1000’s of other comments from people who’d also been ripped off or scammed by him. He then tried to have him SACKED from his job and shut the company website down that Mr XXX works for.

Ironic really – he’s claiming this guy owes him £12,500 in damages and then tries to get him sacked from his job? You’ve got a sure-fire rock-solid plan there, Simon!

And I think that when you look at the situation as a whole, there is more evidence to suggest that Simon Macbeth himself has been a dirty little sneaky bastard and tried more under-hand tactics against Mr XXX than Mr XXX ever did to him. Im sure a court of law would agree too, especailly after the two emails I featured here and what followed them in the form of DDoS attacks.

This scam is a hybrid version of some old free mobile phone scams that used to circulate, and the regular 419 nigerian lottery scams. The email itself was pretty much empty;

It was from user90911270@centurylink.net and the senders name is set to User90911271. If i hit reply it tries to email the centurylink.net email.

The attachment itself is called “Confirmation Letter zxaa665.pdf” and contains this;

Ha.

Ok, so firstly its obviously a scam – I mean, come on??

Secondly, there is no way on earth Microsoft Outlook, Windows (another MS product, not sure why they would endorse something separately?) and Nokia would club together and run a raffle!

It later mentions Aol, Gmail and Yahoo! – just in case you didn’t use one of the products mentioned earlier, they’ve surely snagged your interest now, right?

Then just in case you thought it might be a scam as you never signed up for no damn lottery – they drop a link in saying how its all electronic and automated and the winner is picked without anyone applying.

Then, of course, comes the usual “please send your details” part at the bottom, however there is  no mention of anything financial in this email or attachment. Many of the recent scams have been like a “double opt in” style, where the first one is to gain interest and then in their reply to you they will drop the clanger.

I’ve emailed back asking for my prize, so hopefully they get back to me soon and I can add in part 2 of this humorous email scam 🙂

PS this wasnt caught in Gmail spam filters, so watch out as who knows what else will slip through!