Many of you read my thread on how I got a Nigerian Scammer who went by the name "Yusuf Ali" to go to the Western Union looking for money I sent him. It was all quite funny, but there are many Nigerian Scammers who have innocent people reply to them and agree to send them money in hope for the big prize (much like the Watchtower Society). Many people have been harmed by these email scams, therefore I feel it's a good idea to post this. Hopefully some of you will join in helping put these scammers out of business.
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On the 1st of March 2004, about 50 scambaiters (internet activists against Advance Fee Fraud) e-mailed Affinity Internet Inc. ( www.affinity.com ) to warn them that they were hosting two fake bank sites. You can check them out by following the directions in the draft e-mail below. On 15th of March the South African Police Department responsible for combatting 419 type frauds ( www.419legal.org ) also advised them that these two sites were fraudulent. Furthermore Affinity Internet Inc. is hosting a third fake bank website. All three fake web sites are still on-line!
It's time that we made our voices heard!
Whilst we admire Affinity Internet Inc. for supporting freedom of speech, fraudulent sites are totally different. Affinity Internet Inc. should act now, if only to avoid the possibility of being successfully sued. If you agree such sites should not be permitted to flourish, we ask you to check that these 3 are still up and satisfy yourself that they are illegal. Then please send the draft e-mail set out below to the e-mail addresses indicated (The Jacksonville fbi handles internet fraud in Fort Lauderdale where Affinity Internet Inc. has its headquarters).
Please send a copy of your complaint to [email protected] from www.419legal.org. They will count how many people have send an abuse complaint. This will put extra pressure on Affinity Internet Inc., as they know they can not deny receiving thousands of e-mails.
Having sent the 5 e-mails, please copy the whole posting to 3 other forums. If you can translate it into a language other than English kindly do so. When posting into a new forum use the existing heading, but increase the Generation number by 1. ie Generation 2 is reposted as generation 3 and so on.
You could also call or send a fax to Affinity Internet Inc. - Their numbers are:
Phone: +1 954 334 8000
Fax: +1 954 334 8001
Please spread the word!
Tell your favourite newspaper, radio station or online media about this event!
The effect of this snowball could be quite dramatic. If only 10 people per forum take action, Generation 1 will produce 150 e-mails, generation 2 some 4,500, generation 3 about 135,000, generation 4 around 4m and generation 5 a staggering 120m e-mails. How many e-mails will it take for the Affinity Internet Inc. to pay attention?
It's like a snowball going downhill. It just grows, and grows, and... If you decide to join the Snowball, you will not only contribute to closing down three fake banks (and save a lot of innocent people) - you will also make it snow in California today, the 1st of April - The World's All Fools Day!
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Draft e-mail wording:
to be sent to: [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected]
cc: [email protected]
Heading: Affinity Internet Inc. is hosting 3 fraudulent websites
The following 3 websites hosted by Affinity Internet Inc. were, I believe, set up for the furtherance of fraudulent activity:
www.trans-atlanticgroup.net aka Trans-Atlantic Group On-line Banking
www.vanguardtrust.com aka Vanguard Trust Bank
www.ubci.net aka Union Bank Of California International
You can check out the legality of the three sites as follows:
Trans-Atlantic purports to be a Cayman Islands based bank. Go to Cayman Islands Monetary Authority website ( www.cimoney.com.ky ) click on Compliance and go to Information & Alerts, Download the latest Notice on Non licensed Websites and there you will see a warning about Trans-Atlantic.
Trans-Atlantic also offers very secure on-line accounts to their customers (i.e. to their victims): Their accounts are JavaScript protected! A tiny demonstration about the account security of this criminal fake bank you may find at www.artists-against-419.mugus.com/fake-banks.shtml
Vanguard Trust claims that its main office is in Maidstone, England and so it should be regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority. Go to www.fsa.gov.uk : click on the fsa register and search for the bank. It is not there!
Union Bank of California International is apparently based in New York, but it has no FDIC Insurance (check at this website www.fdic.gov ) and it is not approved by the Federal Reserve (check here www.ffiec.gov/nic ).
Service should be withdrawn IMMEDIATELY. Please take whatever steps may be necessary to terminate the offending websites and their related email addresses. Please forward all information about them to the legal authorities. Please replace their index pages with a fraud warning or redirect these domains to the website of the United States Secret Service: www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml
A copy of this complaint goes to [email protected] from www.419legal.org, the South African Police Department responsible for combatting 419 type frauds.
Thank you for your co-operation.
My name
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The Operation Snowball is part of the 4th International 419 Flash Mob - Go to www.artists-against-419.mugus.com/monthly419flashmob.shtml and join the FlashMob!
Note to the moderators of this board:
Although your forum rules may ban chain letters, we ask you to make an exception as, by deleting the posting whilst the websites are still up, you are assisting criminals in their fraudulent activities.
However, the purpose of the Snowball is not to attack Affinity Internet Inc. as such, but to draw the attention of all Web Hosters to their responsibility to the Internet Community. We ask all moderators to check the 3 sites regularly and soon as they are closed down, please post that the snowball is over and lock the thread to prevent Affinity Internet Inc. being swamped after they have done the right thing.