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One of Australia's Richest Men Lost $1 Million To Email Scam (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the house-of-cards dept.

Kaye Wiggins, reporting for Bloomberg: The multi-millionaire founder of Twynam Agricultural Group lost $1 million in an email fraud, a London court heard Thursday. The British man who facilitated the theft says he's a victim too. John Kahlbetzer, who is on the Forbes list of the 50 richest Australians, lost the money when fraudsters tricked the administrator of his personal finances into transferring it to them, his court papers say. Fraudsters emailed Christine Campbell, pretending to be the 87-year-old and asking her to pay $1 million to an account held by a British man, David Aldridge, which she did. Kahlbetzer is suing Aldridge to recover the funds, but Aldridge says he was being "unwittingly used" and was himself the victim of a fraud involving a woman he met online and believed he was in a loving relationship with. Email frauds where companies' staff are tricked into transferring money are a growing problem. U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics show "business email compromise" cases, where criminals ask company officials to transfer funds, have cost more than $3 billion since 2015.

84 comments

  1. Happened to a group I know by John+Jorsett · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Somebody attempted this with an organization for which I administrate a website. They got the Treasurer's email from the site and spoofed the President's email address, asking for the current account balances. Fortunately, the Treasurer wrote to the group's secretary and asked her to handle the request. When she called the President about it, he said he had no idea what she was talking about. Scam never sleeps.

    1. Re:Happened to a group I know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Where I work, we are required to take a the Kevin Mitnick online security training course every year.

      It is really basic. How to look at an email and detect whether or not it is a scam. Don't click on shady links. Beware of PDF and Word, etc. For many of us, it feels like a waste of time as we are reminded of common-sense stuff that we automatically do anyway.

      But.....the fact is....these scams work, and they hit businesses hard again and again. It totally makes sense for businesses to require their employees to do this every year, because among any large group of employees there is always going to be someone who needs to hear it.

    2. Re:Happened to a group I know by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      Two things:

      "Administrate" == BAD. "Administer" == GOOD.

      Do money managers really move millions around based on an unauthenticated email?? The mind boggles at the abject stupidity implied....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    3. Re:Happened to a group I know by Solandri · · Score: 2
      There are lots of scams involving implicit authorization. Some of the ones I've encountered include
      • Letters made up to look like an official government notice for you to do some required annual government filing. The ones I got were $150 to file a statement of information for your business with the secretary of state. When I took over my dad's business, I dumped these in the trash (you can file it online for $20). My dad had gotten one at his home address, and came yelling at me demanding to know why I hadn't paid these guys. I explained the scam to him. He sheepishly admitted he'd been paying them every year for over 20 years he'd been in business.
      • Copies of the same invoice (without an invoice number) sent to both the accounting dept and to the project lead. They're gambling that the project lead will assume s/he got the only copy and hands it over to accounting, and accounting will assume they are separate bills and will pay both. I try to make sure any contracts with installment payments have different amounts for each scheduled payment to avoid this. (e.g. Break up a $6000 bill into $3500 and $2500 payments, instead of $3000 and $3000.)
      • Letter doctored to appear as a magazine/membership subscription renewal, when in fact nobody at the company subscribes to the magazine or membership. Scammers are gambling that the accountant paying the bills will automatically pay renewal notices without checking to make sure they're actual renewals.
      • Phone call from someone claiming to be from a government regulatory organization, who then pumps you for information on your company like # of employees, pay, which banks you have accounts with, etc. Probably a prelude to some future scam where they can use that information to make themselves sound more legit since the "know" inside information about your company.
      • (Limited to businesses which rent out space.) Tenant uses your name and address on a shipping waybill, then skips out on paying. When the shipping company tries to collect, they have your info as the company that requested the shipment, and the package was in fact shipped to your address, with the tenant as the "employee contact" at "your company." By the time it's gotten to this stage, the tenant has already left for greener pastures.
      • And there's the straight-out fraud where employee who is quitting buys a bunch of personal stuff on their corporate account, before vanishing.

      The secretary did good by trying to confirm it first instead of blindly carrying it out. Hope she got a bonus and a raise.

    4. Re:Happened to a group I know by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

      Do money managers really move millions around based on an unauthenticated email?? The mind boggles at the abject stupidity implied....

      Yes. This is far from the first time this kind of scam has been pulled off.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    5. Re:Happened to a group I know by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Do money managers really move millions around based on an unauthenticated email?? The mind boggles at the abject stupidity implied....

      I know someone who was handling the estate of a deceased parent. She was executor of the will. There were numerous financial accounts in various forms: checking, savings, stocks, bonds...when transferring the money to dole out the inheritance to her other siblings per the will, she had very little trouble with accounts with balances >$100,000, but the smaller accounts provided the most difficulty in terms of verifying authorization.

      500 thousand dollars? Yea, no problem.

      5 thousand dollars? We're going to need to see the notarized birth certificate, current I-9, special power of attorney signed by the owning party in the last 30 days, blood sample, and aqueous humor sample.

    6. Re:Happened to a group I know by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying that this is bad, but you simply can't spot a good scam email by looking at it. Legitimate invoices do come via email The way to verify this is to find the initial authorization (usually in the form of a purchase order) for the invoice. Many larger companies won't pay any invoice without a purchase order. Unfortunately this also leads to embarrassment as things like domain name renewals end up not getting paid.

    7. Re:Happened to a group I know by Guybrush_T · · Score: 1

      And those advices are mostly missing the point because scams will just get better. A well made scam would have no shady link, no PDF nor word.

      You need proper procedure in all companies to make money transfers : either an oral confirmation, or an authenticated way to request transfers (or authenticated emails). People just don't know that there is no source authentication in emails.

    8. Re:Happened to a group I know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have seen these ones:

      - Scammer spoofs email of CEO and sends it to people in financial positions, based on the information posted on the website.
      - Domain registrar sends domain renewal notices by snail mail asking to renew (transfer) one of your domain names. I have private whois enabled, but somehow they still get through. Also, unfortunately, some of the TLDs do not allow private whois for businesses (I'm looking at you, CIRA!).
      - Scammer calls the main number asking for the name of the callee. Sends stationary, etc. then invoice at exorbitant prices, despite not having mentioned any of the items during the phone call.

    9. Re: Happened to a group I know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If people would sign their emails... Things would be different!

    10. Re: Happened to a group I know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But that would require additional PGP/GnuPG or other similar training on encryption, in addition to specific GUI used by those programs.

  2. John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mr. Kahlbetzer's net worth is estimated to be between 750 million USD and 950 million meaning this loss represents 0.105% to 0.133% of his total wealth.

    1. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With rich people, there never seems to come a stage that they stop caring about money.

      You'd think after the first few hundred million, they'd reach a point where internally they'd be thinking "you know what? I'm rich enough now. I can let this go."

      But nope. Doesn't happen. They fight for every fucking dollar like it was their last.

    2. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Mr. Kahlbetzer's net worth is estimated to be between 750 million USD and 950 million meaning this loss represents 0.105% to 0.133% of his total wealth.

      If your net worth was $500K, would you shrug being scammed out of $500?

    3. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by fredrated · · Score: 1

      I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

    4. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Did I miss the part of the article where Mr. Kahlbetzer complained about losing sleep?

    5. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Bad in math?
      You are off by some orders of magnitude, or don't know what the % means ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    6. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      You'd think after the first few hundred million, they'd reach a point where internally they'd be thinking "you know what? I'm rich enough now. I can let this go."

      I'm not rich but I'd still get pissed off by losing 0.1% of my money to a trick, whether that 01.% was $1 or £10. Like I'd get pissed off at someone beating me at a game of Scrabble if they did it by cheating, and that is worth even less in money terms.

    7. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by OldMugwump · · Score: 1

      It's their social duty to track down the criminal and see that he's prosecuted. Otherwise they'll find new victims.

      --
      "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
    8. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have been scammed out of more than that (Vacation "club", or anyone claiming to have the Costco/Sam's membership model for the fill-in-the-blank industry), and I was pissed (at myself, as much as at the people who scammed me) and probably lose some sleep over it at the time. Mr Kahlbetzer has the resources to go after the people who scammed him and I am glad that he is at least trying, but I hope that he is smart about it (using professionals, going through legal channels).

      But, advice for common people, from the school of hard knocks: Don't think that you are too smart to fall for a scam. They are counting on you thinking that way, and that is your first mistake. Also, don't count on coming up with some way to get revenge on them, because they are expecting that and have a well crafted plan for that too.

    9. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's the getting scammed part rather than how much it is.

    10. Re: John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as they believe they're covered legally, I doubt many prepare explicit contingencies for non-legal recourse. Consider high profile property developer scams where everybody knows the culprit. These people don't seem to have 'accidents' as often as I would expect. As in, never heard of it, though I'm sure it sometimes happens.

    11. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're saying if you had a few hundred millions dollars, you wouldn't care if someone managed to scam you out of a million? With that kind of attitude, you'd be in the poor house pretty quickly.

    12. Re:John Kahlbetzer's Net Worth by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      If the figures given above are correct he could have it happen once a month and it'd be less than the risk free rate of return by about an order of magnitude.

      In plain English, he makes more than that in interest, unless he has it all stuffed under the mattress.

      So no, he wouldn't end up in the poor house.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. It's time we start holding the receiving banks acc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's time we start holding the receiving banks accountable for these scams. Roll back the transactions via SWIFT whether they were authorized or not. Stop caring if the receiving back reports no money in target account. The money for the fraudulent transactions will still be recovered from the interchanges. The banks that got them will receive less money than expected the next time currency has to follow the transaction.

  4. Oops by ErichTheRed · · Score: 1

    Sounds like whoever he outsourced his financial management to is in trouble...

    It's interesting that so many of these scams involve massive wire transfers of funds. Wire transfers aren't too common for individuals in the US, but from what I understand it's the equivalent of handing over a bag of cash to the recipient. If the funds are taken out of the account, there's no way to get it back. Why would anyone, businesses included, rely on such an irrevocable form of payment? I can understand shady international payments to Cayman Islands bank accounts or spy agencies moving money around secretly, but normal everyday transactions? Why no safeguards?

    1. Re:Oops by Solandri · · Score: 2

      Wire transfers can and are reversed all the time. That's where the second victim in the scam (David Aldridge) comes in.

      The fraudster convinces David to accept a wire transfer on her behalf. When he receives the money, he withdraws it and hands over the cash to her. She then disappears. When the bank tries to reverse the wire transfer and finds the money is gone, the person liable for it is the second mark in the fraud, not the fraudster.

      If you've ever gotten a scammy-looking email asking if you'd help transfer some money by receiving a payment (Western Union is more common, though I've seem bank wire ones), and they'll let you keep some excess funds as payment, you are the second mark. The money transfer is fraudulent. And when the transferring bank/company tries to reverse it, you will be on the hook for the full amount. (This differs from the Nigeria 419 scam, where they try to make you pre-pay some fees to initiate a transaction which never occurs. In these scams, the transaction actually occurs, and the scammer is relying on the time it takes between the transfer and reversal to dupe you into parting with the ill-gotten money.)

  5. So this boils down like so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics show "business email compromise" cases, where criminals ask company officials to transfer funds, have cost more than $3 billion since 2015.

    "Criminal": I can haz moneys?
    Company: Sure, thanks for asking. Here's a million bucks.
    Criminal: Thanks!

    Where's the problem? If the company / individual didn't want to send money, they didn't have to. Just because you get an email asking for money doesn't mean you HAVE to do it!

    1. Re:So this boils down like so? by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

      You missed the important fraud part. Criminal claims to be someone else for purpose of deception. The idiot that didn't verify the request should be slapped with negligence as well, it's their ONE JOB.

    2. Re:So this boils down like so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed the important fraud part. Criminal claims to be someone else for purpose of deception. The idiot that didn't verify the request should be slapped with negligence as well, it's their ONE JOB.

      Your last sentence there is the whole point! If a company is going to transfer a million bucks based on some unauthenticated email that can be trivially spoofed, well... that isn't going to go well. Hell - I, a normal person, don't send $5 without verifying that really I owe the $5 to somebody - never mind a million.

      At some point basic incompetence needs to be a learning experience.

    3. Re:So this boils down like so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By the way, I could really do with that $5 back now.

  6. Good by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

    It won't hurt him much, and it's a small step in the opposite direction of the general trend of all money being concentrated in the hand of the few.

    --
    Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
    1. Re:Good by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 1

      I somehow don't think he was scammed by robinhood@sherwood.uk.

      --
      Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
    2. Re:Good by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      You're aware that anything that'll work on a billionaire will work equally well on your IRA/401K/whatever, right? How hard would it be to send a couple thousand emails to a couple thousand money managers and skim off 5-10K each?

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  7. Not Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Man worth $95 million loses 1% of wealth to scam.

    1. Re:Not Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oops, $950 million. Much less than 1%.

  8. Something does not add up. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Unless it is a routine run of the mill thing to transfer a million bucks from this account to that account, one does not transfer 1 million dollars based on email instruction.

    It is high time the Government investigate if there is a pattern of getting instruction through email and transferring money without asking questions to allow the rich guy deniability. Scenario like this: Rich guy hires goons to do stuff, sends email to financial advisor cryptically pay x $ to account Y. Financial advisor deliberately avoids getting any written instruction, phone calls, oral verification. Even if the police catch the perps, sniff up the money trail of the goons, it would stop at this "financial advisor". Who would again claim victim of fraud.

    They should find ALL the money transfers by that accountant, and see if any of it can be tied to funding illegal activity.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Something does not add up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People with that kind of money tend to be exactly the type that are technologically literate *JUST* enough to think an unencrypted email is exactly the right way to initial a transaction of this type, so financial advisers get used to doing stupid shit like just initiating the stupid transfer so they don't get yelled at for holding up a "million dollar deal" by trying to verify that their client really is that fucking dumb.

    2. Re:Something does not add up. by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 1

      I had no trouble closing a retirement account to cover the down payment for a house over the telephone. Zero authentication, no date of birth, no last 4 of SSN, no verification of account number, nothing...it might help that I went to school with the receptionist, and I'm sure they had caller ID to verify my phone number...but still...

    3. Re:Something does not add up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I went to a fancy bank once, a large part of the verifying ID for a cash withdraw was making sure I knew my family and was was going on.

      It was very conversational, but it was also clear the banker talks to everyone and gets details and makes sure they can collaborate when someone else comes to access the account.

    4. Re:Something does not add up. by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      This is one of the things I like about my bank and my insurance agent they know me when I walk in the door and call me by my name. This is a good thing as even if you had my social it wouldn't help they know me to well and they wouldn't do a major transaction over email. It would be to out of character and they would call me.They have called me because I used my bank card out of town on the opposite side of the state but still in my home state and when I left the state to visit family.

    5. Re:Something does not add up. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      If you transfer a million bucks, they will call to make sure, right? Why this accountant did not do that? It is the dog that did not bark, that is significant.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    6. Re:Something does not add up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... one does not transfer 1 million dollars ...

      Who are you to decide what is normal for millionaires? What is the legally required method for instructing a withdrawal of cash? I can do it with a VISA PIN or a banking password: Neither are legal documents bearing my authority (signature).

      ... find ALL the money transfers by that accountant ...

      Ahh, yes: The old 'presumption of guilt', 'tough on crime', 'think of the children' bullshit. For a start, all international money transfers are reported to the federal government. Next, demanding the government go searching private property and fishing for a crime, is a very slippery slope:
          The government should put cameras in children's bedrooms to see if they're being raped.
          The government should test all adults (receiving welfare) to see if they're drug addicts.

    7. Re:Something does not add up. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      Hey! lookie here! champion of the downtrodden millionaires!!

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  9. Try suing the right person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is he suing the recipient of the funds, and not the dude who negligently sent the money in the first place?

    1. Re:Try suing the right person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fix your assumptions, it wasn't a dude that was bamboozled but a chick .

    2. Re:Try suing the right person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fix your assumptions. Who said the chick was really a woman? Remember: On the Internet, men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents. ;)

  10. Aldridge claims he was being unwittingly used by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aldridge claims he was the victim of a separate scam. How is that the Aussie's problem? Aldridge's false romance has nothing to do with the theft of money from Twynam Agricultural Group. He might as well try to deflect the lawsuit by wailing that he has a broken toe, so the theft isn't his fault.

    1. Re:Aldridge claims he was being unwittingly used by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      Probably the "girlfriend" said "My uncle is sending a million bucks. Half for you half for me. He'll write it all to you. Then please put half in my account." Well this would seem unbelievable until a million dollar wire transfer showed up along with a card that said "Hope you enjoy the gift." This a really interesting way to take advantage of a third party. Typically you don't necessarily expect a scam when being *given* money.

  11. Scam? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    The word is stupidity.

  12. Know who is at fault here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fraudsters emailed Christine Campbell, pretending to be the 87-year-old and asking her to pay $1 million to an account held by a British man, David Aldridge, which she did. Kahlbetzer is suing Aldridge to recover the funds, but Aldridge says he was being "unwittingly used" and was himself the victim of a fraud involving a woman he met online and believed he was in a loving relationship with.

    I am appalled that the administrator did this without verifying anything. The extent to which people who control this kind of thing are completely oblivious to known forms of social engineering is really troubling .. no validation of email to a known value, no confirmation through a known point of contact ... just "here's your million".

    So, either this guy is the habit of transferring around large sums of money with just a quick email, or the person who blindly transferred it is an idiot.

    You can't be responsible for that much money and be so utterly clueless about basic security.

    Well, clearly, you can.

    But damn if this isn't a fairly elaborate scheme which would require some planning to get in place. That's some pretty fancy spear phishing and scamming there.

    1. Re:Know who is at fault here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, either this guy is the habit of transferring around large sums of money with just a quick email, or the person who blindly transferred it is an idiot.

      Or equally likely is that the guy is a royal fucking prick and the last 10 times Christine got such a request from him and tried to verify it she was told to do her fucking job or get out.

      Regardless, these fuckwits deserve to be robbed of every penny. Somebody didn't perform due diligence at some stage, all on the victim's end.

    2. Re:Know who is at fault here? by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      Even if all of this is true, they still don't *deserve* to be victims.

    3. Re:Know who is at fault here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consider that when people fail to live up to reasonable moral expectations, they "deserve" punishment.

      Furthermore, the stupidity of stupid people makes them dangerous and harmful to everyone around them. That means that everyone is under a reasonable moral obligation to invest regularly in the cultivation of intelligence and wisdom.

      Failing on this moral responsibility means one deserves punishment. Though the scammer's intent wasn't to punish the immoral...the side-effect is that a due punishment which society will not enforce has been otherwise enforced.

    4. Re:Know who is at fault here? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You're mostly right. But then again there was an article posted here, maybe a year back,about "Business at the speed of trust". It was all about cutting bureaucracy and red tape and just gettin' 'er done and other gung-ho number-one stuff like that.

      People, especially those that fly a lot, read stuff like that and it makes their point hair stand up with excitement.

      IIRC it was posted a week after a story about how some major corp got scammed because someone didn't do all that bureaucracy shit.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  13. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  14. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have you polished up Creimer's nob after you confessed to loving him? As bros, I'm sure.

  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  16. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Christopher, my love,

    Never mind those "hump leg" trolls.

    I am deeply sorry. I didn't feel well lately but I am better now since I had my meds adjusted. I am sorry that I called you all sorts of names and I feel truly ashamed of myself.

    The python click script you wrote for me my sweet love for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work.

    Could you come visit me in my studio so we could look at it?

    Signed:
    Your sweetee who will love you for ever.

    P.S. when I posted there was a funny form that asked me to retype the word "biceps" in a text field. That's funny and I went to look at your new picture again and got turned on. Please contact me ASAP.

  17. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So why don't you make a GoFundMe page like you did for your other imaginary friend, Jiggleupagus?

  18. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  19. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I have seen something similar, but much closer to home.

    A friend of mine started dating a single mom, who lived and worked in the same city as him. She used his affection for her to motivate him to spend very recklessly on her needs, including straight-up giving her cash to help with bill payments and such. Her demand for money kept rising, and when he finally said that he needed to roll his spending back, she dumped him flat.

    My point is that dating is dangerous, especially for adults with money. Your emotions will ruin your ability to think rationally, and will motivate you to make ridiculous levels of self-sacrifice for people you trust not because they have earned your trust, but because you wish that they were trustworthy.

    People tell me I am cynical. But I have seen this with my own eyes. If you have money and must date, the best thing you can do is keep the details of your wealth secret. If it keeps coming up in conversation, dump the one you are with and keep looking.

  20. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a knob polisher and a goat fucker?

  21. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No creimer, the GP is right!

    We all know that you don't even care about your siblings nor about your girlfriend:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    All you care about is yourself:
    http://ibb.co/mRVSaG

    And your chair, of course:
    http://www.keynamics.com/image...

  22. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  23. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You retard fuck, shut the fuck up!

    See creimy? it is possible to use the word "fuck" without any sexual connotation. What is your problem with sex anyway? Not having any?

  24. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That happens a lot to older people, who anyways tend to be more trusting because they grew up in a different culture. Scammers then come take advantage of the combo of trusting nature, money, maybe the beginnings of dementia, and loneliness.

    I've heard of people who've lost most of their life savings to such scams.

  25. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "How do I recover money sent to a scammer overseas? Asking for a friend."

    Sure, creimer, this totally didn't happen to you.

  26. This sort of thing is rampant by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 1

    Working on anti-spam products, I see some of the most amazing things.

    There are dozens of "spoof person A in email to person B to get something valuable" variations. Money, W2 forms, anything.

    A recent favorite is to compromise someone's email. Keep monitoring their email, and when some financial transaction is about to happen, forge an email as if it were from the party receiving the money, to the sender of the money, saying "Oh, because reasons, our bank account had to change, send the money to ...."

    The forged email has the whole legitimate back-and-forth conversation about the transaction quoted, just as if it were a genuine reply.

  27. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nurses are generally financially independent adults, not really creimer's type.

  28. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey Chris! Doesn't your amazing ebook of haikus drop in two weeks?

  29. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Holy shit! The Pedobear Trolls are laying this repetitive shit hot and heavy.

  30. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dang, creimer! I've never seen so much butt hurt on one thread.

  31. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Almost as hot and heavy as your "heavy creaming", Chris! All the girls call you that, right?

  32. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I've never seen other people really give a shit about this, Chris. You're terrible at pretending you're other people....

    "I've never seen so much butt hurt on one thread."

    "On", huh Chris? Your stubby mongoloid fingers gave you away again.

  33. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You sound bitter, sweet tits.

  34. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As predictable as an OCD patient, Chris. And as boring too.

  35. Re:Watch out for Nigarian Scammers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know how cringey this is coming from you? Are you trying to use second hand embarrassment to keep the Creimer Defenders at bay?

  36. Re:It's time we start holding the receiving banks by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    So what happens when a genuine seller gets payment in advance, ships the goods, and then the buyer rolls back the transaction?

    What if everybody starts rolling back transactions willy-nilly?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  37. Re:It's time we start holding the receiving banks by Local+ID10T · · Score: 1

    So what happens when a genuine seller gets payment in advance, ships the goods, and then the buyer rolls back the transaction?

    What if everybody starts rolling back transactions willy-nilly?

    Then the banks start charging 3% transaction fees so they can include "free fraud protection" like the credit card companies do. I am sure they would be happy to do so...

    --
    "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
  38. Re:It's time we start holding the receiving banks by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    And businesses will tell them to fuck off.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."