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Another very suspicious E-Mail Message and a Peculiar PayPal Message Too!

By Mott Marvin Kornicki

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Waterway Realtors® • Notary Public & Apostille Florida RE Broker

January 30, 2009 03:19 AM

IF IT LOOKS SUSPICIOUS, JUST HIT DELETE!

I just this morning received this message...

"From Miss Olivia Coulibaly
Abidjan Cote d'ivoire
West Africa

Dearest One

Please pardon me if my mail has startled you, since we don't know each other I am Miss Olivia Coulibaly the only daughter of late Mr Pierre Coulibaly. I had been a female Medical student of the University of Accra Ghana in West Africa, My late father Mr Pierre Coulibaly died and left me and my mother Mrs Aicha Coulibaly. I am 20 years old ,

My late father Mr Pierre Coulibaly owns many companies here before he died which he left for my mother Mrs Aicha Coulibaly. Within a year of my late fathers death, my Mother Mrs Aicha Coulibaly was killed by hired killers, after my mother was killed my late fathers lawyer called me to hand over my late fathers documents to me, after my fathers lawyer have handed over the documents to me, my uncle started demanding for the Documents of my late fathers wealth and properties.

I now called my fathers lawyer, he came and told my uncle that my father made a will that all his properties belongs to me. After my fathers lawyer have made that statement my uncle started fighting against me to an extend he went and arranged for hired killers to kill I and my younger brother.

The first time they came to our home when I wasn't around, my younger brother Emmanuel was shot and two of our security men was killed also before the police men came, they had escaped, that made me to park out of the compound i thought it will be over that way but it continue happening, that makes me to stop going to school.Because i am afraid let something not happen to me in school premises,That is the reason why i contacted you as an honest person so that you can help me in transferring my late fathers money into your bank account.

The said fund is (£2.5 Million British Pounds Sterling) Two Million five hundred thousand British Pounds Sterling which he had earlier confided in me was for the establishment of a medical establishment overseas,has been deposited into one of the banks in Abidjan Cote D' Ivoire in West Africa, I will offer 15% of the total amount to you for your help in transferring of this fund successfully to your account, and after transferring the money i can come over to your country and continue my education. Please you are require to respond back to me through my private email address for more details, (oliviacoulibaly@hotmail.fr)

Please do help me and God will blessYou.
Miss Olivia Coulibaly."

Now for part TWO:

Just a few days ago, I received a suspicious, but certainly official looking request from a trusted site; PayPal®- It looked official enough at first glace, all the logos were perfect, the URL was a bit off kilter, it started with the domain for a hotel in some far away place; maybe Spain or Mexico. Everything else was just perfect. I was in a hurry, my partner needed a ride somewhere and was rushing me out the door.

I had a few PayPal® transactions in process and figured... Let me get this PayPal® request for verification of card number AND security code- done and over with!

Sure enough, with a few hours of "verifying" my PayPal account information- a charge for 9¢ ~ No big deal- I thought... Then, just a few minutes after getting approval for the 9¢, another and yet another approved transaction was posted to my debit card!

I had no idea that the fraudulent activity had happened until I tried to withdraw a few bucks from an ATM. My card was sucked in and a message came out- "UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITY!

It seems that MY bank realized that something fishy or should I say more appropriately "PHISHY" was going on! My bank immediately suspended my account and is investigating the fraud.

So, If you get a request for personal information-

Don't be QUICK to respond.
Verify the source of the request.
If it looks suspicious... IT IS.
If it sounds too good to be true- keep on going!

Please add any helpful tips to avoid this type of activity!

Mott Marvin Kornicki // Real Estate In Miami // Associate | Broker

Aventura-The Waterways // Bal Harbour // Sunny Isles Beach • Florida

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Steve Loynd

Alpine Lakes Real Estate Inc., - Lincoln, NH

800-926-5653, White Mountains NH

Mott, As I read the text I began to draw a parallel with so many people I meet each day. I think you are too Suspicious this seems reasonable and plausible, do you mind if I respond to this kind woman seeking advice and attempting to give away a large fortune...OK only Kidding..the only thing that rang true in this letter was that a Lawyer caused her mother's death, we know they will be the death of us all...Hit Delete..

Jan 30, 2009 03:35 AM

Lori Isaacson

Credit Restoration Consultants - Plantation, FL

I can never understand how naive people can be. In my business of credit repair, I see so much. I can't understand how quickly people give their personal information like social security numbers, date of birth and other information....

Thanks for the warning. Now if people only read it and listen!!

Happy Friday!!

Jan 30, 2009 03:44 AM

AJ Minton

Sam Switzer Realty - Defiance, OH

Mott,

Unbelievable. In the future you can check out www.snopes.com. This website shows various myths and/or facts about various scams, etc. You can type in a search of what your looking for. Also you can also search the name of deceased or other information. This will bring up a red flag, if no 'real' searches come back.

Just a thought.....

Jan 30, 2009 03:56 AM

Portsmouth NH Real Estate Agent - Rebecca Skane, Realtor®, e-PRO®

Keller Williams Coastal Realty - Portsmouth, NH

OH NO! Never ever log into any account via an email you received! You could have lost everything in your account!

Jan 30, 2009 04:24 AM

Marc Baysek

Iron Horse Properties, LLC - Rockingham, NC

Iron Horse Properties

Most of these are Nigerian scams....convienently a country which has no agreements that give the US any jurisdiction to prosecute the scum responsible for ripping people off.

Jan 30, 2009 04:32 AM

Liz Moras Migic

Chilliwack, BC

Chilliwack, British Columbia - Realtor

hmmm..............she BCC'd me too! ;-0

Jan 30, 2009 04:28 PM

Will Nesbitt

Nesbitt Realty at Condo Alexandria - Alexandria, VA

Nesbitt Realty is a family-run brokerage.

Thanks for sharing my fellow "mugu".

Jan 30, 2009 11:03 PM

South Austin Real Estate Blog

Sky Realty South Austin - Austin, TX

I found out that if you hit reply, alot of times you will see the reply is not a real paypal account office. I tried that a few times then hit delete. IF paypal wants something from me they will ask me to call them and they will know my ssn and etc. It will be on file. My spam folders get so full of this kinda trash its unbelieveable. I love gmail for that!

Feb 02, 2009 12:08 PM

Mary Ellen Elmore

Nunnelly, TN

The world of cyperspace has created anew kind of crime that is truly unbelievable yet real.

Feb 02, 2009 12:41 PM

Not a real person

San Diego, CA

It would have done you no good because I had already responded and have the $2.5 million British Pounds Sterling in my offshore bank account -- LOL.

Feb 02, 2009 02:22 PM

Mott Marvin Kornicki

Waterway Realtors® • Notary Public & Apostille - Sunny Isles, FL

Miami Notary & Apostille 786-229-7999

Steve~

It is kind of funny! We all get these types of e-mail messages from far away places, looking for an honest, trustworthy person to help these people in difficult situations. They just need our bank account numbers to DEPOSIT large sums of money!

Lori~

I never give out my personal information. This one time, the message from what I thought was PayPal looked real- even though I had doubts, I was in a rush to just get it over with.

Rebecca~

Thanks for the advice! I won't be logging in direct from an e-mail message anymore!

Will~

MUGU?

Gail~

I saved the suspicious e-mail from "PayPal" and when I tried to go back to the site, it did not exist. It was strange! The URL was "just not right" it started with a foreign hotel, and ended with /paypal.com - suspicious from the get go.

Mary~

The Internet has brought us many great things, but with the good comes the bad! Guns don't kill people, People kill people.

Russel~

These people just don't stop! I guess they have some success at scamming innocent people.

UPDATE:

I received a letter from my bank today- "Heartland Payment Systems has experienced a security breach in which check card information was compromised. Your card was included in the list of comprised cards..." You will not pay for unauthorized charges...."

Thanks

Feb 04, 2009 03:43 AM

Gwenn Tanvas

NEXA Mortgage LLC an Equal Housing Lender NMLS # 1660690 - Appleton, WI

The Mortgage Gal, 920.267.7891~ SMART - INNOVATIVE

Mott: I have been getting these email from time to time for several years now. The latest twist is one from a US Soldier asking for help. . . I just wonder how many people actually but into this scam? Thanks for the great information.

Feb 14, 2009 06:26 AM

Chuck Willman

Chuck Willman - Alpine, UT

NewHouseUtah.com

I too have received many such emails... glad to see that many of them are being caught in their tracks.

Feb 17, 2009 03:16 AM

Raymond Worrilow

RayCat Ent. - Mulberry, TN

As long as everyone reads these emails and deletes them. Your system won't be hurt.. But there is a thing call Java code.. and some people call them Java Scripts.. that have been written to work in the background of your stystem. NEVER visit or click on any link that might be in these emails. That is just a way for them to add your IP address to their system.. or if they are viscious enough. sometimes java code/script is placed hidden in the website they want you to visit and cause you ALL kinds of HAVOK

Feb 23, 2009 04:26 AM

Russel Ray, San Diego Business & Marketing Consultant & Photographer

Russel Ray - San Diego State University, CA

I was watching a program a couple of days ago that had a fraud investigator on. He said something that stuck with me (loosely quoted): "No entity that deal with money will ever contact you by email asking you anything about your account. They already know about you and your account. They have multiple redundant backup systems so that if they lose one, they still know everything about you and your account. Some might call you, and if they do, thank them, hang up, and call your bank at the number you have on your credit card or bank statement. If the bank has outdated information on you, they will simply suspend your account, forcing you to call them. Everything else is fraud."

Feb 26, 2009 06:05 AM

Mott Marvin Kornicki

Waterway Realtors® • Notary Public & Apostille - Sunny Isles, FL

Miami Notary & Apostille 786-229-7999

The funny thing is that the "scam" and the contact from my bank came at virtually the same time. The next thing I got, was a notice from my bank- saying that THE BANK card system was compromised! So, after all- it was not a PayPal scam/phishing deal after all.

Mott

Feb 26, 2009 08:14 AM

Sylvie Conde

Sutton Group-Associates Realty Inc., Brokerage - Toronto, ON

Broker, Toronto Real Estate

I think I got copied on both of those emails.... and I passed it on to a couple of Police officers in the area, whose full time job is to ensure no one around here gets ...... errrr..... 'taken', for lack of a better word.

Just yesterday I received a phone call telling me I had won a cruise to I don't know where, and which credit card would I be using on my trip.... Can you believe it?

The tougher the economy, the more scams they'll invent.
BEWARE!!

Mar 01, 2009 08:31 AM

Everard Korthals

---Preferred Lifestyle Advisors--- - Lancaster, PA

Mountain Realty

This is a scam that is spreading to numerous people on this network. It started happening to us in the beginning of this past month and in some instances have traced a couple back to this network. I know it's happening to others around here too so you're definitely not the only one. Just delete them straight from your spam/junk folder and don't open them. They all say the same thing; you won 30 trillion dollars, etc how would you like for us to send it to you etc, give us your cc details . etc.

Mar 01, 2009 10:31 AM

Mott Marvin Kornicki

Waterway Realtors® • Notary Public & Apostille - Sunny Isles, FL

Miami Notary & Apostille 786-229-7999

The scammers and spammers are getting more and more creative! I've been getting regular e-mail solicitations from "political" refugees wanting to invest in real estate in the Miami Area- they need a very secure property- as to be expected. Strange- they want to deposit huge sums of money to MY account in order to quickly expedite a real estate purchase!

Mar 20, 2009 04:35 AM