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Nigerian Bank Scam and SPAM on Active Rain

By 1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Real Estate Agent with Hawaii Military Realty, Inc.

May 21, 2007 10:57 AM

Nigerian Bank Scams and SPAM: Are they affecting your inbox?

By: David Kucic, Hawaii Real Estate Agent

With the good comes the bad. While Active Rain is a great site to gain information from fellow realtors and other professionals, it is also a place for scammers to load up on email addresses.

Over the past 2-3 weeks it has gotten much worse for my inbox. How about yours?

I did some research and found 2 simple ways to try dealing with these people although I have no idea if it will help or not.

If you are receiving emails as part of the Nigerian Bank scams, you can forward the emails with full headers to the United States Secret Service at 419.FCD@USS.treas.gov.
If you are receiving unsolicited commercial emails (SPAM) you can forward those along with full headers to the Federal Trade Commission at SPAM@UCE.gov.

Maybe if we all take the time to do this we will be successful at helping to eliminate these jerks.

Aloha!

www.davidkucic.com

www.hawaiipcs.com

EDIT: See Jeff Belonger, The Mortgage Mans post about Best Spam yet, Beware

Comments(18)

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Beth Larsen

RE/MAX Sedona - Sedona, AZ

Sedona Arizona

I have never gotten any kind of response or acknowledgement from forwarding these kinds of things. OTH, if our mailboxes are full of this C*@P, just imagine how many THEY get!!!

I guess it can't hurt to send them, but for now it'll have to be someone else's duty. Rotsa Ruck.

May 21, 2007 11:04 AM

Michael Eisenberg

eXp Realty - Bellingham, WA

Bellingham Real Estate Guy

My Spam is growing daily, thanks for the tips

May 21, 2007 11:05 AM

Scott Gormley

Oak Valley Mortgage-California Home Loans and Refinancing - Chico, CA

Unfortunately, no matter where we go...we'll have to deal with such people :(

Scott

May 21, 2007 11:12 AM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Beth-I dont think they would send you any response but that sure would be nice to know when they caught these people (did you see Dateline NBC to Catch a Con Man?) I would think these agencies have some mainframe computer that sorts everything by some criteria and they can track where it is coming from. I think my tax dollars are paying for stuff like that.

May 21, 2007 11:20 AM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Michael-I was thinking about playing a game with them and sending them to places looking for me but I just dont have time for it. Maybe if they have one of their "diplomats" here in Hawaii, I could get the sucker to go downtown to Waikiki and wait for me by the statue of "Duke Kahanamoku". There is a 24 hour video camera that is on the statue and I can sit at home with and watch the moron waiting for me. Maybe I will do it someday.

May 21, 2007 11:23 AM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Scott-I was frustrated at my inbox this morning which is what prompted me to write the post. I figured it would be worth a try to nail some of these clowns.

May 21, 2007 11:24 AM

Beth Bastian

Rosemont Financial Inc - Simi Valley, CA

Simi Valley Real Estate

I had a person actually call me regarding one of these scams. He wanted to do business and he was calling from Africa. It was very odd.

May 21, 2007 11:25 AM

Roger Stensland

Keller Williams Realty Puget Sound - Maple Valley, WA

Let's Move!

I was wondering why I have been receiving so much junk mail, bank scams included. I used to get them all the time years ago. I had finally gotten my email cleaned up and never got much junk mail. Since joining Active Rain, the junk mail has started again.

May 21, 2007 11:33 AM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Beth-Wow! They have resorted to telephone calls too? I thought maybe they would only do that if they "hooked you via email".

Robert-Yes. I watched that Dateline special also. I want to know the same thing....are there really people out there that fall for this stuff? I sure would hope not.

May 21, 2007 11:36 AM

Matt Heaton

Timu Corp - CEO, ActiveRain - Co-founder - Bothell, WA

Due to spam, we've purposely never exposed members email addresses on ActiveRain, instead using the contact forms. There are members that occassionally put their email address directly on their profile or blog. Spammers have bots that spider pages just like Google spiders a web page looking for these addresses to add to their spam database.

There still are some spammers that are driven enough to manually send spam emails via contact forms, but we're usually able to catch them and shut them off pretty quickly.

May 21, 2007 11:36 AM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Roger-I dont mean to insinuate that it is Active Rains fault but the more I post to web makes me and anyone else more vulnerable to this sort of solicitation. If I had a choice of dumping AR and changing my email address or just dealing with the Nigerian Bank Scams I would just deal with it. AR is just too valuable of a tool to get rid of.

May 21, 2007 11:38 AM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Matt-Thanks for clearing that up. I probably bring it upon myself by putting my email addresses all over the place so I shouldn't complain huh? Like I had said to Roger Stensland (see above), I would just deal with it rather than ditching AR. Aloha!

May 21, 2007 11:41 AM

Celeste "SALLY" Cheeseman

Liberty Homes - Mililani, HI

(RA) AHWD CRS ePRO OAHU HAWAII REAL ESTATE

Randy's been getting phone calls at 4am! I just don't open and immediately send to blocked sender list.

May 21, 2007 12:03 PM

Randy L. Prothero

eXp Realty - Hollister, MO

Missouri REALTOR, (808) 384-5645

I played along with one of them who was messaging through Active Rain. I posted it in a blog post that when on forever. Every time I think they gave up they start again.

May 21, 2007 05:21 PM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Sally-I hope Randy hasnt figured out that it is me calling him! LOL!!! I swear that I put them on the blocked senders list but then I get twice as many from others! It is driving me nuts.

May 21, 2007 06:31 PM

1SG (Ret.) David Kucic

Hawaii Military Realty, Inc. - Ewa Beach, HI

President and Owner

Randy-I think Sally is doing it :)

May 21, 2007 06:32 PM

Jeff Belonger

Social Media - Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc - Cherry Hill, NJ

The FHA Expert - FHA Loans - FHA mortgages - USDA loans - VA Loans

David... how funny. Not that you get these, but that I just wrote a blog about this earlier today. Best SPAM yet..... beware....... But I didn't talk about a solution.... just showed the e-mail that I received, because it was different than the previous ones sent. I am going to link your post to mine, if you don't mind, because of the solutions that you gave.

jeff belonger