newbie

After reading an article today about scams I became very discouraged. Has something that has helped us stay "connected" and avoid being obsolete leading us to our ultimate demise? I am probably being sensitive/paranoid, but out of the top 10 scams I have probably been contacted with two of them. And that's just what I am aware of! Years ago before I ever heard of the Nigerian scams I was contacted by one. Fresh out of college I was still young enough to be naive and I ended up giving him my name, address and telephone number. I always felt it was too good to be true so I did a google search of the e-mail title and found out it was a scam so I "played" with the person/punk on the other end. After a few e-mails of me telling him I have never had a real friend and I considered him my "best bud in the world" and that I was questioning my sexuality because I never felt so close to another man and I hoped he felt the same way I felt enough was enough and informed him that I sent an e-mail to the TBI (tennessee bureau of investigation) with all of the e-mail exchanges, etc (which was true). Needless to say I never received another e-mail from him, or from any other Nigerian scammers for years but they magically reappeared again recently. Anyways, since I gave him my name, address and phone number should I be concerned? I always thought that since I never gave him my bank info, routing number, etc I was safe but I read today they can use your name against you as well. Thank you and I apologize for the long post.

Hi and Welcome,

While it is certainly not ideal that you have given your information to a scammer, it is not the end of the world, it would have been much worse had you sent money,

Sometimes these scammers will make use of your identity to scam others, there is nothing you can do to stop this now nor are you likely to ever know they are doing it so dont lose too much sleep unless you have really upset this individual as we often do

I prefer to focus on the fact that you recognised it was a scam before losing any money to these criminals, well done

Please share any details of the scam with us, it may well prevent others losing money.

One last thing, what you did with your "best bud in the world" was called scambaiting, there is a community devoted to this very practice just next door at www.419eater.com they will be happy to teach you about safe baiting if you ask nicely, safe baiting could be described as "Annonymously annoying the crap out of a scammer by email and or phone for fun and adventure, while wasting the scammers time and keeping them from real victims" a very addictive sport so dont say I didn't warn you

It's funny that I came across that article today about the top 10 scams, because just the other day I decided to finally delete all of those e-mail exchanges. I saved them for the past 3 years on the off chance that there were some repercussions from me giving my personal information.

I recall getting that e-mail and feeling like I won the lottery, but I knew down inside it was too good to be true (hint number 1). It stated that a relative, with my last name which was included in the e-mail, was an engineer over seas and recently died in a car accident. The scammer claimed to be their estate lawyer and spent the last several years looking for an heir. He said I was the next of kin. How could I be the next of kin when I am the youngest of my family (hint number 2)? He tried getting me to give personal information so he could get the ball rolling.

They also used a real bank name. I knew it was real because I looked it up. This was all prior to me really knowing it was a scam so the fact that they were using a real bank name made me inch closer to possibly believing it. I looked up the contact name he put in the e-mail of the employee that worked there and would be helping with the transaction. There was no employee with that name (hint number 3). The fax and telephone number in the e-mail for the bank also didn't correspond with the bank numbers on their website (hint number 4). Finally, the most obvious hint, and I didn't really realize it until near the end were the e-mail addresses. Banks, financial companies, etc don't use yahoo e-mail accounts!!!

My only advice I feel I have earned to be able to give is question every detail and use the information they gave you against them as I did with looking up the bank, employee, contact info, etc. I have to laugh about it all now but it was actually a very upsetting experience.

Hi Tenctny

Don't get hung up about the name, address, phone number thing.

Pick up any White Pages (or go online) and you'll find the same details there for millions of other people, freely available for anyone to read.