Here’s an offer I received via e-mail that seems to be the answer to most peoples prayers; a large pile of money just for helping out someone move some money. Of course in reality it isn’t as simple as that, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here’s a screenshot of the e-mail in full:
It says it was sent by Tim McCarron of Fidelity Investments here in the UK. He is a fund manager for them. It seems that Tim, allegedly, has acquired over 145 Million US Dollars from his employers without their knowledge. Moreover he wants my help to move the funds, and for my trouble he will give me 50 percent; very generous. That is over 72.5 Million US Dollars…..tempting, isn’t it? 
All he wants from me are some personal details, some proof of identity, such as a copy of my drivers licence or passport, and a bank account number to use for the transaction.
To prove that he really exists, Tim has even included a link to some details about himself and his performance which is available on the Fidelity Investments website. How thoughtful!
Here’s a screenshot of the webpage in the first link:
See, there’s Tim’s name and various other detals about him and the funds he manages. Yes, this is the real Fidelity Investments website.
Let’s look in to this in more detail.
OK, the email reply address seems odd, it is timmacarron@superposta.com (seems Tim can’t even spell his surname correctly) but the From: address header in the email tells me his email address is tmcarron@ymail.com……hmmm, I’m confused. I know he is trying to cover his tracks, but why use two free webmail addresses?
So, what does this tell me?
Well for one this email is not from the real Tim McCarron, or from anyone at Fidelity Investments. Furthermore, there is NO MONEY; sorry to disappoint you.
If it was real, then the person responsible would have committed fraud; as they have stolen money from their employers and potentially customers too. Furthermore, if you took part in this, if it was real, you would also be committing fraud as well as money laundering….lucky there is no money then, eh?
Yes, this is yet another 419 scam [aka the Nigerian scam, also known as Advance-Fee-Fraud]. If you were foolish enough to reply to the email you would be assured that the money was real, but somehwere along the way you would be asked to part with money to pay for things such as, handling fees, taxes, shipping fees, and maybe even bribes! So, instead
of getting the alleged money you were promised, you would end up losing money, or worse. You would also end up on a so-called “suckers list” and get more 419s, not only via e-mail, but also through your letterbox.
So next time you receive such a tempting offer, remember the old adage “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is….too good to be true“. Also, think very carefully before
you click on any links or contact anyone mentioned in these email, at the very least you could end up on a phishing site, you could lose some of your money, or worse, as there have been cases of beatings and even murders linked to these scams.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the links in the email were included by the scammer to try and give extra credence to their outlandish financial proposal.
If you want to read more on the subject of 419s then I have written several articles which were published in the Virus Bulletin magazine, reprints of these can be found here, [http://momusings.com/papers] along with all my other published articles and papers.
Oh yes, and the personal details you supply them will almost certainly be used for identity theft and/or in another 419 scam, using your personal details and proofs to attempt to make it more believable.
