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I have never understood what were the goals of these messages. People saying they have a fund of millions. Is everything arranged for me to send money to them?
by fiatjaf 10y ago
I have never understood what were the goals of these messages. People saying they have a fund of millions. Is everything arranged for me to send money to them? Simpĺe as that?
- hga 10y agoOne of the goals is to find someone who'll fall for such a scheme. If it was more plausible, they'd waste time on someone who'd end up not pulling the trigger when they realized it was too likely to be a scam.
- fiatjaf 10y agoWow. That makes perfect sense.
- jpalomaki 10y agoOnce spammers start using bots to carry conversation, this might change. If bots can handle part of the communication, it probably makes sense to start planning more subtle scams.
- conjectures 10y agoI'd assume they are already.
- NoGravitas 10y agoBasically, they spammer is hoping to milk you for "fees" that they will say are necessary in order to free up/transfer the money that they have waiting for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner
- Jill_the_Pill 10y agoI half-fell for one of these once. I was a teaching assistant with my contact info posted on our department page, and a woman in Africa wrote seeking a tutor for her son who would allegedly be doing a summer program at my university to prepare for enrollment in the fall. It all seemed reasonable until she wanted to wire funds to my account. I told her to have her son pay me in person, and she never wrote again! This was a pretty good scam because there were no millions involved, and she'd done her research to match the pitch to the mark.
- StavrosK 10y agoHow does the scam work, if they're wiring funds to you?
- jessaustin 10y agoDon't know where GP is, but in USA you can forge a check with bank and account numbers. Of course the check must still be cashed, but perhaps a string of deposits and new checks on different accounts would make this take long enough to get actual cash... The stereotypical 419 scam, however, has some "plausible" reason why the main transfer has to wait on a smaller transfer in the other direction.
- michael_h 10y agoUsually, you have to wire the fees in advance of the 'payout'. Spend a couple thousand to receive your millions.
- bkmartin 10y agoI think that once they get all your bank info they will do a withdraw from your account? That is the only thing that makes sense to me.
- mavhc 10y agoBecause, in general, banks are terrible. Wait, you want me to type in my username and password into your computer, and then you can take any amount of money from my account, and all everyone needs to do is trust each other?