Sep/Oct 2008 - Korean War Veterans Association

Scam Alert
A scam attempted on KWVA National Officers
allegedly by one of the Directors...
24
We are all aware of scams perpetrated every day by a variety of
creative con artists. Two recent scams affected—or almost affected—the
KWVA. One involves the use of former National
Secretary Bill Hutton’s name in emails from people hawking fake
Rolex watches. Mr. Hutton is in no way involved in such a scheme.
The other deals with Nigerian scam artists.
Here is the Nigerian scam story as told by KWVA National
Secretary Frank Cohee. The KWVA people involved will remain
unnamed to protect their identities should other scammers try to
get to them.
Fraud: we all go through this everyday, especially on the internet.
Recently, some KWVA national officers received an urgent
plea for money—and some of them almost responded positively,
i.e., they wanted to send money. Why not? We are all trained to
help a comrade in trouble, so they responded, even though it
should have been obvious that it was a scam.
Fortunately, I had talked recently to the person who was supposedly
asking for help, and he was at his home at that time. So, I
called him immediately. As I expected, he was still at his home and
was not aware of the email in which he was allegedly requesting
funds. I then alerted other people to the scam. That probably saved
a few people some money—and possibly some embarrassment.
However, I must admit, primarily because I am very close to the
person that supposedly was asking for help, that I was on the verge
of sending a personal check. In this specific illustration, the sender
sent a message to all of the National Officials allegedly from one
of our Directors. Here is the message:
Hi,
I am sorry I didn’t inform you about my traveling to Africa for a program
called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty
and Lack of ducation, the program is taking place in three major countries
in Africa which is Ghana , South Africa and Nigeria . It as been a
very sad and bad moment for me, the present condition that i found
myself is very intoxicated for me to explain.
I am stranded in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where
my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept
on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am in a very bad situation here
because ii have no money with me. I am now owing the Hotel where
am staying the sum of $900 and they wanted me to pay the bill soon
or else they will hand me over to the Police, i need your help very
urgent to enable me return back home successfully without any harm,
I am in a terrible and tight situation here i don’t even have money to
feed myself for a day i have been starving all this while so please
understand how urgent i needed your help,i want you to help me with
the sum of $2,500 USD to sort out my problems here and leave with
the next available flight back home but if you are not too buoyant
enough to send me all the $2,500 USD i will also appreciate what so
ever amount you can afford to send me for now and i promise to reimburse
the money back to you once i get back home without hitch delay.
Kindly look for a Western Union Money Transfer Local stores around
you and send me the money to my receiving information
below.Through Western union i can receive the money faster and safe
without any problem here.
After you have sent the money email me the western union transfer
details such as:
MTCN
Test Question: To whom?
Thanks for your kind help,waiting to hear back from you with the transfer
information.
Warm regards,
Okay, at first glance that letter may sound plausible. But, my
advice to you is to be very careful and check out any message that
appears to be questionable. How?
One major clue is to look at the spelling and the grammar. The
scam message is rife with mistakes that most people fluent in
English would not make, e.g., lower case “I,” inconsistent capitalization
of Western Union and other words, misuse of words such
as “intoxicated” and “buoyant,” etc. There are many other blatant
errors.
Another way to check out a scam like this is to call the alleged
sender. No doubt he or she or someone in the family can refute or
support the sender’s whereabouts. In short, be dubious of any plea
for money like this one. Save yourselves some money and embarrassment.
Anyone who gets into situations such as the alleged
sender did in this scam would have enough sense to contact the
U.S. Embassy or other authorities for help. They would not be
sending legitimate requests to randomly selected friends or
acquaintances.
Remember: caveat emptor…buyer beware. Do not fall for
scams. Check out every request from strangers for money. That is
the best way to avoid scams—and save your money.
September – October 2008
The Graybeards