how do you report an email that is a scam about a relative being stranded in
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
United States
February 26, 2010 4:40pm CST
Nigeria? i know we all know the whole "you have won money or the can you help out so in so from nigeria etc" emails but this one is a little different. it actually combined several reported fraud emails on different sites so it wouldnt match totally to any of them.
i am copying the email here so you can see but hiding names of course
[i]How are you doing today? I am sorry I didn't inform you about my traveling to Africa for a program called "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education, This program is taking place in three major countries in Africa which are Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa . It has been a very sad and bad moment for me, the present condition that I found myself is very hard for me to explain. I am really stranded here in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in the Cab where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because I have no money left on me. I am now owing a hotel bill of $800 and they wanted me to pay the bill soon else they will have to take over my bag and hand me over to the Hotel Management., I need this help from you urgently so that i will be able to get back home, I need you to help me with the hotel bill and i will also need $2,100 for meal and to help myself back home so please can you help me with a sum of $3,700 to sort out my problems here? I promise to get you back your money once i get back to the state, I need this so much and in time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don't even have any money left with me for meal for a day which means i had been starving so please understand how urgent i needed your help.
I am sending you this e-mail from the city Library and I only have 30 min, I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and I promise to pay back your money as soon as i return home so please let me know on time so that i can forward you the details you need to transfer the money through Money Gram or Western Union.
Sincerely,[/i]
i googled the charity and found that there is a bunch of scam letter from there from people that got hacked BUT i dont know where to report it to the government! i know that you can report SPAM to a certain email address to the government (dont want to post it here because the rule against posting emails) but does this work for this type of thing? i mean its spam but its really a SCAM so i didnt know if there is a separate area or not..
my poor mom had it sent to her from a relative and tried to call and no one is answering which made her freak out more
3 people like this
8 responses
@rosdimy (3926)
• Malaysia
27 Feb 10
The emai gave itself away right at the beginning. If this relative left his(hers?) little bag containing money, passort, documents and other documents, that relative would not have been allowed to enter the country. Or the person has certain powers enabling him/she to pass through Custom and Immigration without any problem? 
2 people like this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
well we dont really know much about that stuff since we dont travel out of the states but yeah it was a relative and we all thought it was weird the wording of how he lost it.. the only thing that really made us wonder if it was right or not was that we couldnt get ahold of them on the phone!! they are always home!
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
26 Feb 10
There's really no law enforcement or internet agency that you can report this to because the problem of these Nigerian scammers is so widespread. One thing that you can do is to go to scamwarners.com and see if they have this one. If not, let them know about it so that it can be added. It's always a good idea to be cautious with anything that comes over the internet.
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
i will have to check them out.. im just so glad my parents didnt fall for it since they are really gullible with internet stuff
@ladym33 (10979)
• United States
28 Feb 10
You can report it to your email provider, then they can investigate if they like or they can start making sure that emails from that server no longer reach their customers. That is about all you can do. Most internet companies take things like this very seriously and will investigate these emails.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
it was through gmail so would they really do anything? its not an isp
@mentalward (14690)
• United States
27 Feb 10
I did a search and found this site that gives you names and places to report fraud: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/reporting.php
It also gives lists of reported scams and what to watch out for. I'm going back there to look around more because I can't believe how many of these scam emails are circulating. Some days I receive over five of them!
I normally write back to them and let then know that I'm reporting them to every authority I can in order to prosecute and imprison these despicable people who try to steal money.
The one thing I think is hysterically funny is that they sometimes claim they are from the FBI or FedEX, yet their email address is always something like hotmail. They really are stupid. Plus, they can't type. 
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
thanks! i knew some one would be able to tell me.. lol.. i was having one of those days where i didnt have 5 minutes to spare much less who knows how long to look so i looked for a little bit but had to move on but promised my mom i would check.. im going to book mark this one right now! yeah there are a ton going around and this one i saw was like 3 diff letters in one which was clever.. and yeh they cant spell for crap
@reploid (1371)
• France
2 Mar 10
Well, I think that every e-mail that talks about money is a scam. They just want you to give out your credit card number so they rob all your money. I think we cannot prevent scam or spam, well, I see you've been smart enough to do a search before taking this e-mail seriously. I also belive most of the e-mail scams come from nigeria. Once I received a scam e-mail. I was in a very good mood that day so, i've reply to the e-mail knowing it's a scam. I made that person scamming me believe in all sorts of things.. I never gave out my credit card number and that person ended sending me some gross words by e-mail. Ha ha.
@sunny68 (1327)
• India
28 Feb 10
"Nigeria? i know we all know the whole "you have......."
the problem is that even the spammers know that we all know about the Nigeria story...
so they try new innovative ways to scam. emotional blackmail is perhaps the new trend..Haiti is the latest case. scammers are using Haiti to scam people..(shame on them!!)..but its true. so think twice before giving to online charity...or its better to give to your local charity...
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
i dont give to any charity unless i know its a well established and that the way to donate has always been the way (as in not a new site to go to etc)
@Ravenladyj (22902)
• United States
27 Feb 10
I'm sure if you went to your local Gov website there must be a link somewhere for this sort of thing...its unfortunately a common scam that sadly so many ppl DO in fact get sucked into so the authorities really dont take it lightly....Best I can suggest is like I said, go to your local gov (state etc) website AND do a search online for reporting email fraud maybe or something like that..
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
i was at one site for the fbi but then it took me some where else and didnt seem like it was the right place.. but i did have her fwd it to the spam email at least
@scammerwear (1433)
• Singapore
27 Feb 10
If it ended up in my hotmail, I'll hit the pishing button lol. I heard of groups out there who would use the email and 'fish' out the scammer's details then post them online, but not into it myself.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
1 Mar 10
nope it was gmail she got it on
1 person likes this
