Man Arrested in Australia Over Nigerian E-mail Scam

slasher_14 writes "A 39 year old Sydney man has been arrested over the Nigerian Scam. Simultanious raids were conducted in two homes by police, who siezed computers and documents. Over the last 6 months, Australian police have tracked about 1.5 million dollars. The man faces Dubbo Local court today, charged with 17 offenses." Hopefully this means my inbox will be seeing less of these e-mails.

Comments

using WHOIS

[dnahelix]

I got this email this morning...

Hello,Previously you had requested some information online in regards to potentially earning additional income from home.Our company Travelogia(one of the fastest growing companies in North America) has ...[bulk edited out - you get the idea] ... earning additional income, I will not waste your time. Remember, it won't cost you a dime to check us out...sure might cost you an absolute fortune not to! http://www.ProTravelBiz.com Sincerely Robert Holman

it was from "abeulicnta@ebay.com" <ihmribcyph@sina.com> which is messed up because it's like a fake email within a fake email. Of course, it was formatted the same way you see here, no correct breaks or anything. Anyway, I go look up the website name on register.com's WHOIS feature. (Note: I had to hit refresh several times before I got more than a 'timeout') Well, this is what I got! (in the form of a gif image, go figure)

Organization:
Robert L. Holman II
Robert Holman II
4617 E Holiday Estate Court
Granbury, TX 76049
US
Phone: (817) 326-6107
Fax..: (817) 326-5066
Email: Robert@Robert-Holman.com

Registrar Name....: enom.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.enom.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.enom.com

Domain Name: PROTRAVELBIZ.COM

Created on............: Mon, Oct 27, 2003 [Note the very recent creation date]
Expires on............: Wed, Oct 27, 2004
Record last updated on: Mon, Oct 27, 2003

etc, etc...


So I called him, apparently at his house, judging by the unceremonious, 'yeah this is Robert' answer. I confirmed it was Robert Holman and then proceeded to tell him I did not appreaciate his SPAM and he needed to at least put an opt out and use his real email address on the return. He stammered as he tried to tell me he could prove I 'opted-in' which is total bullshit. I told him if I got any more mail from him I was going to sue him.

So, my fellow SPAM-hating brethren and sistren, use WHOIS on register.com to fight back at these jerks.

I also used WHOIS to find out who was sending me bogus eBay login screens.