On Mon, 14 Nov 2005 11:35:32 +0000, The Rev
Post by The RevPost by Richard GaywoodI won a T-shirt! Hurrah!
I got a most amusing 419 scam t-shirt from The Register years ago.
I've never worn it.
I found the following letter in the Travel Trade Gazette (TTG - the
industry rag) and was pleased to see that some travek agents are
taking some action over 419ers.
Letter quoted below:
"Fraudsters wanted to fly to Singapore, so we took them for a ride"
AGENTS frequently get stupid enquiries from Nigeria for flights from
Lagos to everywhere in the world apart from the UK.
We get them all the time, but we recently decided enough was enough
and exacted revenge for the Nigerian fraudsters who took us for nearly
£4,000 five years ago.
We received an email enquiry for three business-class seats on an
Ethiopian Airlines flight from Lagos to Singapore.
We immediately checked the Abta website to see if these passengers
were blacklisted; it was no surprise to find they had tried this on
many times before.
We emailed back with some ridiculous prices, which the man was very
pleased with. He told us to make the reservation and faxed us a copy
of the card and a copy of the cardholder's signature.
We emailed him a suitably devised reference - T0553R - but he did not
twig that we were winding him up as he emailed us for yet more
flights.
We confirmed these new flights for him, with two more booking
references - W8NK3R and FR8UD5 - and in the meantime we reported the
card as stolen so no money was taken from it. We took an address and
telephone number for the "customer" and reported him to the police.
On the day of the first flight, our man rang: "There's a problem. I'm
at check-in and there are no tickets for us." My manager replied:
"Have you ever been had?"
The total amount for these flights came to over £14,000.
So, if one of these enquiries comes to your email, give them a lesson
they won't forget - and stop thousands of pounds of fraud at the same
time.