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Huawei Executive Arrest Inspires Advance Fee Scams (sans.edu)

Posted by BeauHD on from the heads-up dept.

UnderAttack writes: Scammers are attempting to trick Chinese victims into sending thousands of dollars in order to secure the release of Chinese Huawei executive Meng who was arrested in Canada last week. The messages claim to originate from Ms. Meng and suggest that she found a corrupt guard who will let her go for a few thousand dollars. Of course, there will be riches for anybody who is willing to help (and more). The scam is reportedly targeting people via WeChat, which may have a higher success rate than more widely distributed scams.

One of the messages reads (translated): "Hello, I am MENG Wanzou. Currently, I have been detained by Canadian customs. I have limited use of my phone. Right now CIA is trying to get me into the hands of the US government. I bribed the guard of my room, and urgently need US$2000 to get out of here. Once I am out, I will reward you 200,000 shares of Huawei. I will be good on my word. if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life. The guard's name is David, the account number is 52836153836252, swift 55789034. I will be good on my word."

6 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid Tax by youngone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life.

    Oh good lord, if you're dumb enough to fall for that you almost deserve to be scammed.

    1. Re:Stupid Tax by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Funny

      if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life.

      you mean, like, emacs versus vi?

      didn't know she was a fellow geek.

      (what was the guard's account number again?)

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Stupid Tax by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ginger is high maintenance. Maryann will change the oil in your truck while you hold her beer.

    3. Re:Stupid Tax by plague911 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference is that the "dumb" in this case are willfully this way. When people say this, they are rarely implying that the mentally handicapped should be taken advantage of. They are referring to people who should be capable but have spent their entire life sheltering themselves unwilling to gain intelligence/exposure to new ideas.

      That being said go take your SJW shit elsewhere, no one respects your retarded virtue signaling. Unless you happen to actually be retarded, then carry on (See that play on words there).

    4. Re:Stupid Tax by Enigma2175 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I believe the difference is the element of greed in this type of scam. It's more pronounced in the classic Nigerian 419 scams but present in this one as well, the person gets scammed because they think they are going to get a huge payoff for often ethically questionable activity (funneling a bunch of Nigerian oil money out of their banks, bribing prison guards, etc.). I think people have a lot more sympathy for tech support or "your grandson is in jail" scams than ones where people are promised a huge payout for sending some money now because they think that greed was a large element of why the scam worked.

      --

      Enigma

    5. Re:Stupid Tax by ChromeAeonuim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My understanding is that they deliberately try to be far fetched. If it costs as much to send out one spam message as it does a million, so they don't want to bother with the ten people who just might be dumb enough to fall for it; they want to specifically target the one person who is definitely dumb enough to fall for it.

      They're not trying to tip marks off, they're putting that in there as a selection measure so that only the most likely to actually go through with the scam reply.