Scam Money Transfers -
Fake Grants
Example - The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation
-
www.queenelzabeth.co.uk
Mr. James Moore, in London (Zimbabwe or Hong Kong?)
Here's a variation on the basic scam money transfer email. You received a a check in the mail from "The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation", possibly using a name "Mr. James Moore" or website www.queenelzabeth.co.uk, of which you are supposed to return 10% to them (at this point you should be asking yourself, why they didn't just keep the 10%!)
Did the email say:
The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation, would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development.
While the phone number is a UK number, the message headers show us that the email was sent from Zimbabwe. The reply-to address is actually a free Yahoo account in Hong Kong. We'll bet that the phone is a disposable cell phone account (purchased on a trip to the UK or by phone) that actually forwards the call back to another number in Zimbabwe.
Their supposed website, www.queenelzabeth.co.uk, redirects to Tesco! ( http://www.tesco.com/)
In the specific case below (The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) there are quite a number of inconsistencies that add up to "scam" to us. See the email below.
And if you were crazy enough to write back to them, click here to a typical response the scammers send.
Sample actual scam letter from "The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation":
From The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation Fri May 2 19:52:38 2008
Attn: Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID.
This is to notify you that you have been chosen By the Board of trustees of the above international charity organization based in the England, UK as one of the final recipients of a Cash Grant/Donation.
The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation, established 1968 by the Multi-Million groups and now supported by the United Kingdom (UK), the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), United Nations Organization
(UNO) and the European Union (EU) was conceived with the objective of giving assistance to the next priviledge, human growth,educational, and community development. To celebrate the 40th anniversary program on the 1st May, 2008. We are giving out a yearly donation of �350,000.00GBP (Three Hundred and fifty Thousand Pounds
Sterling) to each 20 lucky recipients. And your batch no.is (QEF/222/018/08).
To file for your claim contact our agent with the following details:
FULL NAMES :..........................
ADDRESS:..............................
CITY:.................................
STATE:................................
COUNTRY:.............................
SEX:..................................
AGE:..................................
MARITAL STATUS:.......................
OCCUPATION: ..........................
E-MAIL ADDRESS........................
TELEPHONE NUMBER:.....................
Await your reply.
Best regards,
Mr. James Moore
Phone No: +447045779405
Woodlands Road
Leatherhead Court
Leatherhead
Surrey
KT22 0BN.
***********************************************************************
Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People is a registered charity No 251051. Registered as a company limited by guarantee in London No892013. Registered at Leatherhead Court, Woodlands Road, Leatherhead,Surrey KT22 0BN.
***********************************************************************
Message Headers
Return-Path: <foundation@queenelizabeth.co.uk>
Authentication-Results: mta332.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=queenelizabeth.co.uk; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 209.88.88.253 (EHLO webmail.zimpost.co.zw) (209.88.88.253)
by mta332.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 02 May 2008 19:57:39 -0700
Received: from webmail.zimpost.co.zw (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
by webmail.zimpost.co.zw (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id m432qd4I030094;
Sat, 3 May 2008 04:52:41 +0200
Received: (from apache@localhost)
by webmail.zimpost.co.zw (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id m432qdTB030092;
Sat, 3 May 2008 10:52:39 +0800
Received: from 41.204.224.15 (proxying for 192.168.0.14)
(SquirrelMail authenticated user lkasamba)
by webmail.zimpost.co.zw with HTTP;
Sat, 3 May 2008 10:52:38 +0800 (HKT)
Message-ID: <11868.41.204.224.15.1209783158.squirrel@webmail.zimpost.co.zw>
Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 10:52:38 +0800 (HKT)
Subject:
From: "The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation"
Reply-To: donation11@yahoo.com.hk
Bcc:
User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.4
MIME-Version: 1.0Queen Elizabeth's Foundation Woodlands Road, Leatherhead Court, Surrey KT22 0BN.
And please let us know about any suspicious calls or emails you receive. We look for patterns so that we can alert the authorities and victims to new scams, before it is too late!
For a comprehensive list of national and international agencies to report scams, see this page.