Are Scammers Getting Better?
I received this e-mail this morning.
HM Revenue & Customs
Crownhill Court
Tailyour Road
Plymouth
PL6 5BZThis is to officially inform you that we have thoroughly completed an investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that your packaged ATM CARD that was received from the Headquarters 1 (HQ1) of the International Monetary Fund, 700 19th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20431 was forwarded to the ATM Issuing Institution for proper verification on the authenticity and it has been confirmed that your ATM CARD is good and ready to be used.
You are advised to forward to our office or via email the following:
1. Identification
2. Electricity bill as proof of address
3. 65GBP for handling and delivery cost.
Joe Amond
For: HM Revenue & Customs
It’s obviously a scam, as it has all the usual elements of a free ATM card, that you really have no right to.
It was also addressed to undisclosed-recipients, which usually means it’s spam. Has anybody ever received an e-mail to undisclosed-recipients, that wasn’t crap?
But :-
- Where are the spelling mistakes?
- There is no expensive phone number.
- The address is genuine, but it’s the Customs Seizure Unit, where you make a claim if they’ve seized your goods.
- They have put a reasonable fee in to the e-mail. But that of course is only the start.
- The e-mail address it was sent for seems OK on a first look. I think it actually came from Russia.
So I believe this e-mail might be good enough to fool some vulnerable or gullible people. Perhaps the Russian education system is better than that of Nigeria?
I must say I’m very tempted to send a cheque for £65 payable to HM Revenue and Customs to Joe Amond in Plymouth and see what happens. THe trouble is I don’t have a cheque book, as I always transfer money directly.
The Anonymous Widower 
I dont think they are getting cleverer, I think they are aiming at people who are cleverer and more aware, who would check the address of the IMF – which is correct. The address at the top, for HMRC doesnt check out as a Tax Office address on an initial search – it is a real address, just doesnt come up as HMRC on direct.gov or BT.
But the people who are too aware to fall for the awful badly written misspelt ones, but who are still gullible and easily taken in, might well fall for this. When the hackers got into my email and told everyone I was stranded in Nigeria, three people including a retired bank manager were about to send the money! The reason why – they know I dont have a positive relationship with my parents and wouldnt ask them for money, and friends or more distant relatives there were flattered to be asked!
Comment by Liz P | August 23, 2010 |
Itis a genuine saddress for Customs. Type the postcode into Google and you’ll find it.
It’s a pity though they didn’t ask for thirty quid, as I would seriously thought about sending it, just to see what happened.
Comment by AnonW | August 23, 2010 |
I am currently doing battle with the management company who are supposed to be managing my late aunts flat. And are hopeless beyond anything Neil or I have ever come across before. So cant be bothered to deal with scammers. Otherwise, as you say, it would be tempting
Comment by Liz P | August 23, 2010 |
I agree. On the other hand dealing with useless estate agents and the like gives you good practice about dealing with scammers.
Comment by AnonW | August 23, 2010 |
The actual estate agent who will be selling the flat is the only sensible one of the lot! This management agency just manage the building, some flats are owner occupied, as my aunt’s was, and some have tenants in. All these idiots have to do is collect the maintenance payments, insure the building, and enable repairs. The solicitor isnt very dynamic, he applied for probate with the wrong will!
Comment by Liz P | August 23, 2010 |
I’ll ask my tame solicitor about the last point.
Comment by AnonW | August 23, 2010 |
We sorted it, my aunt had made a later will with a different partner and when the partnership the solicitor was with split up, he didnt have a copy of the new will, didnt know it existed. however, a few weeks before her death, my aunt had added a codicil, and the solicitor had gone to the nursing home to make it, and got the date of the will off the one my aunt had in her paperwork. The filled in probate from the one he had in his file. Probate office noticed the error and with a lot of very assertive conversations with a senior partner at the practice who now had the original of the latest will, I got it send to the probate registry by DX in time for us to still keep the original appointment. And fortunately, there were no real differences in the two wills, just a slight change of charitable legacies.
Comment by Liz P | August 23, 2010 |
I’ve just received the exact same email. It’s absolutely a scam unless some credit card company has been proactively issuing lots of accounts and bulk mailed them to Washington on our behalf. I’d suggest that’s the oversight – why do they talk of the International Monetary Fund in Washington when it’s the HM R&C in Plymouth? If any bank did issue a card without a proper address it’d surely be returned to them or at the very least handed into somewhere in the UK, not sent off to America.
Interestingly, they didn’t ask me for any money. Just the ID.
Comment by Robert | August 24, 2010 |