Furries and Nigerian 419 Scams

By now, everyone in the world must have received one of those annoying, poorly written emails from a "high ranking official" or a "business associate" somewhere in Nigeria. We now have discovered that said Nigerians have a love for Gold Digger and Ninja High School t-shirts. Furries with a store, an auction, or a print sales web site should probably take heed and just not ship to Nigeria. Read more for the rather silly details and e-mails from Rabbit Valley Comics.First, let me just start off by saying that we here at Rabbit Valley rarely let anyone into the inner workings of the store. Only a few folks have access to store information, only a few folks know where my house is, and even fewer know where to find me. :) But, I figured that this was worth it.

A Nigerian 419 Scam usually works like this. First, someone in rather poor English sends a dumb individual (whom we shall refer to as The Rube) saying he's a down on his luck businessman/politician/government official/military official/etc from Nigeria. In order to sneak a large amount of money out of the country, they need your bank account, and they are willing to part with 10% of the enormous sum as your payment. This results in the emptying of your bank account.

The new variation is either sending a "certified check" or a promise thereof to a merchant or individual. The Rube assumes that because a check is a Certified Bank Check, that it must be good. This is, of course, totally false. The scammer then takes the merchandise, and The Rube is stuck with a bad check and all the fees resulting therein.

So, that's how this all started. Just so you know, we did not send this scammer merchandise. I'm not that stupid. :)

From: kadiga john
Date: Sat Aug 16, 2003 11:26:50 AM US/Eastern
To: junkmail@rabbitvalley.com
Subject: urgent matter
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i am the sole owner of kammy store, and it is about
the largest in the north -south of ibadan city. and i
am intrested in some of the goods in your store,but i
ill like to know the shiping cost from your country to
nigeria because i have a store there and my friend is
the store keeper in nigeria.qty 9

Ninja High School T-Shirt XL
Cat Girl Comic Book Legal Defense Fund T-Shirt
Herobear and the Kid TShirt XL
Usagi Yojimbo: baseball cap

Note a few things. First, see what a horrible writer he is. He must be foreign, right? See how he wants 9 of each item? That sounds legitimate, right? And awww, he's working for his friend the store keeper. How sweet.

We immediately tagged him as a scammer, and sent him this, just in case he was legit.

Please use our online catalog at http://store.rabbitvalley.com to
calculate shipping for your order. The price of shipping will depend
on the quantity of items you purchase and the weight of those items.

It appears that the items that you wish to purchase are not discounted
for retailers. You will need to pay full US price.

All international orders must be prepaid via credit card or US check on
US funds. We do not accept money transfers or bank wires.

Sean

He's getting upset now...

 i already told u what i want, i told u what i want. i will pay in card. no transfer of money...i want to know how much it will cost.i do business on line, i don't shop the way u mean. i will like u to know u tell me when i will recieve my goods,or when it will be shiped if i give u my credit card no tomorrow.......... nice meting u and nice doing buisness with u
 
 
 
Ninja High School T-Shirt XL
  Cat Girl Comic Book Legal Defense Fund T-Shirt
 Herobear and the Kid TShirt XL
 Usagi Yojimbo: baseball cap

Yea, if you do your business online, buddy, why can't you use the web site like the other 3500 customers of ours? And, if I ship today, I get a credit card tomorrow. How lucky for me.
I'm just screwing with him now. By the way, the shipping quote I sent him was double the UPS International Overnight rate.

Please reply with the full shipping address, and I will create a quote
for you. We can ship as soon as your credit card is approved.

Sean

Notice how his IP address never changes? Try doing a traceroute on it. I can't get it to work.

Hello,
   Thank you for your response,here is the shipping address as you have requesyed:
SHIPPING NAME/ADDRESS:
KAMAL OMOTOSHO
31 OLOJE STREET,
PAPA AJAO,MUSHIN,
 LAGOS,23401.
  NIGERIA.
I will like you to mail me back today ASAP.Hope to hear from you soon.
regards.

We sent him a quote and got this. I still have no clue what the hell this means.

hi,
    thanks for  the reply,i told u thant am gonig pay what cerdit card.than who u carculate the goods i don`t understand. pls mail back.
      thanks
           kamal 

And now, suddenly he wants to switch payment methods. In the meantime, he also figured out how to use our web site and put in an order with a bogus credit card number. And note, instead of 9 shirts, he now wants FIFTY of each. And, let's not forget the standard ALL CAPS WRITING.

> HELLO SEAN ,
> HOW ARE YOU ? THANKS FOR YOUR REPLY CONCERNING THE ORDER I WILL LIKE TO
> MAKE THE PAYMENT WITH A CERTIFIED CHECK I HOPE YOUR COMPANY DO ACCEPT
> CHECK .
> I WILL BE NEEDING 50 PIECES OF EACH OF THE ITEMS I ORDERED FOR I HOPE YOU
> CAN GET THAT FOR ME COS I WILL BE NEEDING THE GOODS IN A WEEK TIME .
> I HOPE TO SEE YOUR REPLY TODAY
> REGARDS
> KAMAL
>
> Rabbit Valley Customer Service and Support
> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> The following is a price quote with shipping as you requested.
>
> You may now either mail your credit card number to us, fax it to us at
> 781-207-0385, or call us at 781-373-1950 and leave the card number as a
> message. You may also use our web site catalog online at
> store.rabbitvalley.org to place an order like every other customer with
> a credit card does.
>
> Once we receive your card number, I can process your order and ship
> your goods. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL A CREDIT CARD NUMBER TO US. Thank you.
>
> Sean

This, I thought was going to be the last email.

Kamal,

We're not taking a check from somebody in Nigeria. I don't care if it's
certified or not. You pay cash or credit card with a verified billing
address or an international postal money order.

You guys have been screwing around with this order for the last week.
First, you couldn't speak English. Then, you couldn't figure out how to
operate a web site to put in an order. Yesterday, I got some call from
the AT&T relay service on my answering machine. Today, you want to switch
to a check. And, you want the goods before we can verify that the funds
will clear our bank.

This is the first time I have ever officially said this to a "customer."
We do not want your busines. I will not accept your order, and I will not
ship to Nigeria unless we have physical United States Dollars transmitted
via either Western Union or International Postal Money Order in my hand.

I am the President of RABCO Publishing Inc., so you are talking to the
boss. This is the final decision. Please do not contact us unless you
are willing to buy on our terms.

Sincerely,
Sean Rabbitt
President, RABCO Publishing Inc.

But no, he keeps pressing. This is the last one to date right now... I'll be notifying the local FBI office just to see if I should keep screwing with him or not. By the way, the credit card number he provided WAS legitimate, but we have a way to check if the billing address he's providing matches the billing address on the card. It didn't, of course. We notified our bank to let the card holder know that their card was stolen. I've edited the email for obvious reasons. Oh, and this time, instead of all caps, we now have BOLD HTML style mail.

sorry for the delaying.here is my payment of method.
 
here is the shipping address.
 name:kamal omotosho
 address:31 oloje street papa ajao
               mushin,
 state:lagos,nigeria.
 zip code:23401
 
card type:visa
card number:4120xxxxxxxxxxxx
card expiry:08/0x
 
 i will like u to charge this card and send those goods immediately after you gace verify the information. I will be waiting for your reply and tracking number soon.
Kamal

I'll let you know how this turns out with further updates. :) As a side note, we have added a section to our website talking about this and showing that we do not ship to Nigeria anymore... Guess he's too busy to check the main web page. Also, my email address was changed to prevent spambots from harvesting it. If you do want to contact Rabbit Valley, just hit the link on the bottom of any of the pages at http://store.rabbitvalley.com/