I have seen a lot of emails from African scamsters and most of these usually land up in my Bulk box.
Today, my dad today received a similar scam email. However, what was surprising was the nature of it’s customization.

Firstly, the subject of the email addressed my dad by his first name.
Secondly, my Dad is in the Gulf and the “merchant” also happens to be from there (or so he claims). Mere coincidence?
Thirdly, my Dad is also very active religiously, and the person in the email is rather repents.

However, the contents of the email remain similar to most scams. Person being diagosed with cancer, has a lot of money, wants to give it to you … blah … blah …

Hello dear,

I am Mr. Lawson Rhodes, a merchant in Dubai, Arab Emirate. I have been diagnosed with Cancer which was discovered very late, due to my laxity in careing for my health. It has defiled all forms of medicine, Right now I have only about a few months to live, according to my Medical Doctor. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for myself but the oil business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance and heal me I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. I have sowed a seed for my healing I have willed and given most of my properties and assets to my immediate and extended family members and as well as a few close friends.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul and so, I have decided to give arms to charity organizations and give succour and comfort to the less priviledged of the Tsunami Victims, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in India and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this my self anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts in Saudi Bank and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization and to the less priviledged in Bulgaria and Sudan Africa They cashed the money but kept it only to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them already.

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of twenty two million dollars $ 22 million that I have in the Vault of a Financial company in europe for safe keeping.

I want you to collect this deposit on my behalf and disburse it to the Tsunami EarthQuake victims in Asia for the less priviledged.

I will set aside 20% for you for your time and efforts. I need your urgent reply so that I will not have to go on sourcing for a credible person to handle this project.

If you are okey with the condition, do not hesitate to send me mail so that i can furnish you up with all the informations needed.

I wish to hear from you soon.

God bless you.

Mr. Lawson

—————————————————————
Universia – Esse e o seu Universo.
www.universia.com.br

Please note that this is a scam and if you receive something like this delete it immediately.

And yet another Orkut Hoax has popped up. Boy do people sure have imagination!

The mail reads as:

someone by your name scraps u,delete it immedietly within 10seconds. Its a virus. Tell everyone on your list because if somebody on your list feads the scrap then his comp will also be affected. It is a hard drive killer and a very horible virus. Please pass this on to everyone on your list. We need to find out who using these accounts

Firstly, what if I am offline? Then does the ten second limitation still apply? What if someone else has the same name as me? I know I found someone in Mumbai called Ajay D’Souza.

I’m not sure if the spelling mistakes in the message above were because of the person who sent it to me or if it is the original mail.

If others have received this, please do give me your feedback.

And for those who plan on forwarding this, STOP! And reply to the person who sent it to you that it is a hoax.

Thanks.

Yet another Orkut hoax floating around on the internet is this one:

GIRLS BEWARE PLEASE.. IT IS SERIOUS! HELP URSELF

It has recently been found out that there are some spammers present on Orkut who download the Photographs of Girls from their Profile and they get 5 cent per photograph. This photographs are later sent into Image Editors like Photoshop where they are morphed and superimposed on the images of Porn Stars. These people are so expert in this field that the photographs looks completely real and anyone can get decieved by generated images.

These photographs are then used for multiple purposes like Printing in International Magazines, Uploading on paid Porn Sites and sometimes even blakmailing. And the post consequences are a known fact. So after knowing about this fact my advice to all sisters of my brothers here to please remove their photo’s from Orkut and don’t give the culprits a chance to do play around with You. Afterall Prevention is better than Cure. AUR BHAI LOG PLZ IS MAIL KO JAHAAN TAK HO SAKE FORWARD KARO TAKE CARE

It is good that you thought to spread the message and I know the thought is noble, but please stop this stupid email chain!

I have researched this and haven’t found a single place which actually confirms this. It doesn’t take much time to research. Please do check and if you find some truth in what you are about to send, only then send it. Otherwise stop and don’t cause unnecessary panic!

I simply can’t understand how gullible people can be, and most of them are engineers (some even computer engineers) and MBAs!

I last posted about a similar orkut hoax and now I’ve received over 10 messages in the past 3 days from friends with contents as follows:

Dear user because of sudden rush of people signing upto orkut is come to an attention that we are vastly running our of resources so with in a week any one who does not receive this scrap will be deleted of our server. We know that you are still using this account We want to find out which users are actually using their orkut accounts so if you are using your then please send this scrap to every orkut user that you can if u do not pass this scrap to anyone then we will delete your account

Just follow these simple steps.
1. Click on the “Messages Tab” in your account.
2. Click on the “compose mail” option which is the last
one of the four icons you see together.
3. Select “all friends”
4. Cut and Paste this mail
5. Send it……..

Let’s look at this message.
The message states that Orkut is running out of resources, so you should send a message to prove you are active.

Have you realized that sending the message actually consumes resources?
Have you realized that if every user sends messages like this to each other, how many resources will actually be consumed?

In Feb itself Orkut posted this notice on their News Page

Is it true? Inactive accounts will be deleted? 2/16/2006

We heard there’s a rumor going around orkut that says orkut.com will delete your account for inactivity. We’ve even received this notice from someone pretending to be Orkut himself! This is not true and you can safely disregard these messages or scraps.

Please please please check if the message you are sending actually has any sense. You may be all scared that your account will be deleted, but if that is the case Google (who own Orkut) will contact you personally and not your friend via an email or scrap!!

And by sending these messages to all your friends you are just giving an open invitation to spam.

Just received the same email from two of my friends today via Orkut. It read:

Important
Dear user because of sudden rush of people signing upto orkut is come to an attention that we are vastly running our of resources so with in a week any one who does not receive this scrap will be deleted of our server.
We know that you are still using this account We want to find out which users are actually using their orkut accounts so if you are using your then please send this scrap to every orkut user that you can if u do not pass this scrap to anyone then we will delete your account

From
Orkut Buyukkokten

I am still surprised how people can fall for hoaxes like this.
Please ask yourself some questions before you forward an hoax mail.

1. Firstly who in the world is Orkut Buyukkokten? Why will he delete my account?
2. Do I know that Orkut is run by Google?
3. Have I bothered to research if this is a hoax or real?
4. Do I realize that every message / email / post / scrap I make on Orkut actually consumes more resources. And that this very email I sent consumed some amount of resources. If Orkut is really facing a resource problem then this email will just bother them not solve that problem?

Of the four points I listed above, the third can be a starting point for any hoax or email that you suspect. Most probably, this has already been documented by someone.

These few questions can go a long way in knowing that the email was actually an hoax. And “being safe” is not a valid explanation for forwarding an hoax email.

So what do I do?

So next time you receive something similar please pause for two minutes before hitting that Forward button.
Open your favourite search engine and search for some words in that email. And if you find it to be already listed as a hoax please don’t send it.

You may feel you are not doing much by sending one mail, but the people you send it to send it to still more starting what is known as a “snowball effect” :O

If all of us decide to stop and not send that hoax, it can mean a lot of less emails, a reduced chain (and hopefully terminated sometime) and a lot of resources saved!