HOW TO DETECT FRAUDULENT EMAILS

Nigeria, Sept, 05, 2016 – Fraudsters are on rampage, no thanks to the economic situation and they are looking for every opportunity to defraud anybody within reach.

For them it is nothing but a game, hence the refrain is ‘mugu fall, guy man wak”, meaning they are at the receiving end (profiting) when the foolish man falls. This is seen in the wild parties they throw each time they succeed in their fraudulent games.

However, with just a little bit of care and attention to details, you should be able to detect any fraudulent mail. At proverbs 22:3, wise King Solomon said, “the shrewd one sees the danger and conceals himself, but the inexperienced keep right on going and suffer the consequences”.

These wise words are so important because the fraudsters have all migrated online unlike before when they will bamboozle you with cock and bull stories to prey on you.

So each time you receive email or a message/chat on Facebook or any other social media requiring you to take any specific action take time to ponder on Proverbs 14: 15, which says that the naive person believes every word, but the shrewd one ponders each step.
Here are a few of the fraudulent letters that have been sent to me in recent times all in attempt to defraud.

Consider this letter,
LC ( LETTER OF CREDIT)
info
DEAR SIR,
PLEASE FIND THE ATTACHED INFORMATION FOR THE LETTER OF CREDIT
THANKS.

This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the addressee and may also be privileged or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the addressee, or have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not copy, disclose or otherwise act upon any part of this e-mail or its attachments. Internet communications are not guaranteed to be secure or virus-free.

“Stallion Group does not accept responsibility for any loss arising from unauthorized access to, or interference with, any Internet communications by any third party, or from the transmission of any viruses. Any opinion or other information in this e-mail or its attachments that does not relate to the business of Stallion Group is personal to the sender and is not given or endorsed by the Stallion Group.

LETTER OF CREDIT .html

Here are some faults in this letter. In the first place ask yourself what sort of business are you doing? In the first place, I have not submitted any quotation, neither have I had any deal with Stallion Group of companies. Besides, the letter came with Hyper Text Message Link, (HTML) that is unrecognizable, making it very clear that it is nothing but a virus intended to access my email accounts.

A click on the html box will give the fraudster access to your emails from where they will pose as the owner of the account and send emails requesting favours from unsuspecting contact in your emails. They could send messages such as you are in London, stranded and needed some cash to buy ticket buy to Nigeria whereas you the original owner is in Nigeria.

Solution: Most business emails come in PDF, Word or other recognizable format, so when you receive emails of this nature please don’t attempt to open it, just mark it as spam and delete it.

They could also defraud you by purporting to auction vehicles in behalf of the Nigeria Custom Services after impersonating officers of the Nigeria Custom Services on Facebook. The price tag on such vehicles are usually ridiculously low and as the saying goes, don’t believe it when it is too cheap!

I have for instance received notices, some through tags, which I have disclaimed severally.



NIGERIA CUSTOM AUCTION SERVICE 2015/2016 SESSION; WE SELL ALL KIND OF CLEAN TOKUNBO CARS AT CHEAPER AND AFORDABLE PRICE INTERESTED BUYER SHOUD PLEASE CONTACT OUR ZONAL OFFICER CUSTOM BALOGUN JOY ON (09035953898) FOR CLEARANCE, DELIVERING, REQUITMENT FORM AND REGISTRATION AND JOB:SOME OF THE CARS LISTED ARE Golf2,3 & 4 N250,000. to =N300,000 =Toyota Camry big.
daddy=N600,000. Toyota Camry Tiny-Light =N450,000.

Solution: Please note that the phone number quoted in the notice is the number of one of those in the fraudulent ring. No matter how real, it might seems to be. One fact remains that the Nigeria Custom Services does not auction vehicles on Facebook or any social media.

In the cause of writing this peace, I called the office of the Nigeria Custom Services in Ikeja, Lagos and Officer Emmanuel told www.starconnectmedia.com that that Nigerian Customs Service does not sell vehicles on Facebook or any social media.

“It is not true, Nigeria Custom Services does not sell or auction vehicles on Facebook. Vehicles are only auctioned in the premises of Nigerian Customs Service and in each case you will be required to have physical access to the vehicles”, he said. So, to verify the source of appealing and cheap vehicles on Facebook, please call Nigeria Custom Services on Phone: 0814 030 6815.

One of the greatest ways fraudsters defraud individuals, especially in Nigeria is by posing to be officials of banks. The fraudsters have become so sophisticated that they can even clown logos and colours of the bank so perfectly that you can easily fall into their traps.

For instance, I have received this letter from a fraudster who claimed to be acting in behalf of Diamond Bank. Account Number : 00********
Description :DIAMOND MONTHLY CUSTOMER DIGEST SUBSCRIPTION
Reference No : 81596777
Transaction Amount : 8,098.55 NGN – NIGERIAN NAIRA
Transaction Date : 06-sep-2016

As a result of this transaction, the balances on this account would be deducted within 2hours.
To maintain this subscription do not take any action as this would be a constant deduction
from your account every month. If you wish to unsubscribe for this monthly bulletin, kindly do so here ==>CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION
Kindly Update the mobile code sent to your phone to be unsubsribed from the monthly debit immediately. A customer representative will call you after you update the mobile code.

Thank you for banking with Diamond. This is an automated Transaction Alert Service. You are getting this email because a transaction just occurred on your account that met the threshold you set. Please DO NOT reply this mail. For further enquiries, please call our Contact Centre on 07003000000, send an SMS to 30811 or email us at [email protected].

“The Information contained and transmitted by this E-MAIL is proprietary to Diamond Bank and/or its Customer and is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or exempt from a disclosure under applicable law.

“If this is a forwarded message, the content of this E-MAIL may not have been sent with the authority of the Bank. Diamond Bank shall not be liable for any mails sent without due authorisation or through unauthorised access. If you are not the intended recipient, an agent of the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering the information to the named recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution, transmission, printing, copying or dissemination of this information in any way or in any manner is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please delete this mail and notify us immediately at [email protected]”,. Now what is wrong with this letter? In the first place the recipient which is me, has not subscribed to any monthly bulletin to warrant any deduction to the tune of N8,000. They also sent similar account from Access Bank purporting to have deducted such an amount from my which has nothing less than N500. So where did they find such an amount.

You may also receive email purportedly from your bank requesting you to send in your Bank Verification Number (BVN) due to system upgrade. The point is that, all such emails are from fraudsters. No bank will ever request online or through Short Text Messages(SMS) details of your BVN, just as no bank will deduct money from your account without authorization for any monthly bulletin.

Bank bulletin are usually meant for in-house staff and for those who subscribe and they are free. In fact only 5 percent of online newspaper charge fee for subscription not to talk of banks whose core business is not journalism. Just a click on unsubscribe above will make all your details available to the fraudster. So don’t click, just mark it spam and delete.
However, one of the banks, Guarantee Trust Bank, issued this email to warn customers to beware of fraudsters parading themselves as officials of the bank.

SCAM ALERT – NEVER DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL DETAILS
“Our attention has been drawn to recent text messages sent to our customers informing them that their ATM card has been deactivated due to an on-going upgrade of our system and, requesting that they call to reactivate their cards.

“Please disregard and delete all such messages requiring you to call any number to re-activate your ATM card as GTBank is not performing any system upgrade. Kindly be assured that your GTBank Naira MasterCard remains operational and will not be restricted or prevented from carrying out any banking transaction.

“Please do not disclose personal information such as your Card details, PIN and Token Codes to any third party as GTBank or its staff will never ask for such personal details.For further enquiries, please send an email to [email protected] or call GTConnect on (234) 1-448 0000, 0700GTCONNECT (0700482666328), 080 2900 2900 or 080 3900 3900”, the bank said.It could also be letters from international scammers. I have received dozens of such letters but I will reproduce just one for you.

“Hello Dear Friend
“Please read this letter very carefully, I must apologize for barging this message into your mail box without any formal introduction due to the urgency and confidential of this matter, knowing that this message will come to you as a surprise, please this is not a joke and do not joke with it. I am Mr. Mohammed Abdul Salam: I am the Credit Manager in the Bank of African (B.O.A) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

“I hope that you will not expose or betray this trust and confident that I am about to establish with you for the mutual benefit of us. I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of ($15.5) Million United States dollars into your account within 7working banking days. This fund has been dormant for years in our Bank without claim due to the owner of this fund died along with his entire family in an air crash since July 31st 2000. Please go through the website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ world/europe/859479.stm)

“I want our bank to release this fund to you as the nearest person to our deceased customer while I come over to your country to share this fund with I don’t want this fund to go into our Bank treasury as an abandoned or unclaimed fund you as soon as you confirm this fund into your account and ask me to come over.. So this is the reason that made me to contact you so that our bank will release this fund to you as the next of kin to the deceased customer.

“Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete it if you are not interested. Upon the receipt of your reply and indication of your capability, I will give you full details on how the business will be executed and also note that you will have 45% of the above Mentioned sum if you agree to handle this business with me while 50% will be for me and 5% for any expenses that may arise on the process. Because I don’t want anyone here in our bank to know my involvement until you confirm this fund into your account and ask me to come over for the sharing as I indicated. You are free to contact me through my alternative. email ([email protected]) Please kindly fill your information below I am looking forward to hear from you soonest.
“Sorry if you received this letter in your spam, Due to recent connection error here in my country
Your Full Name……….
Your Sex…………….
Your Age…………….
Your Country…………
Your Occupation………
Your Personal Mobile Number………………….
Thanks.
best regards.
Mr. Mohammed Abdul Salam”.

This is just one of the numerous letters you may receive, sometimes, they work on your emotions to trick you . But the best solution is that when the deal is too good, then it is nothing but fraud.