Welcoming 2010 and a brand new decade

It's the last day of 2009 today. What have we achieved in the last 365 days? What is good and what is bad? Were there more good days or bad days? What did we learn from it? What is to be improved, changed and what's to keep and take away? So many questions to ask, so many things to ponder.....

BUT keep it all for tomorrow! Just party hard today and get drunk. After all, all of us deserves it after a year of hard work and more of the same shit ahead of us. If there's a good day to get drunk, this is the day. What other day has a better excuse than today? Moreover, we're "celebrating" the end of one decade today. Another decade....man...how many have I gone through???? Urgh....scary.....not that many but enough to be scary.

We're supposed to drive down to a town in Tanzania tomorrow but just realised that there are something called the logbook which is locked with the company. We only have the copy and we must have the original to get pass the border of Kenya into Tanzania. And the keys to the cupboard is with the guy who has been on leave since 2 weeks ago :( Now gotta find out if a friend of ours is willing to "contribute" the use of his car instead of ours. He usually doesn't like taking his car on long trips coz its his own while ours belong to the company. If no trip, guess it's gonna be mahjong all weekend again. BORING!

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! And I hope 2010 is going to be a good year coz 2009 SUCKED BIG TIME ('cept grandma's birthday)!!!!!!

I'm a Mrs for 1 year!

On the 28th of Dec we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Amidst the all the "turbulence" in the marriage, we have managed to survive one year. Time seem to fly but in actual fact, it's a long journey towards this day. It hasn't been smooth as I'd imagined it to be.

Hubby came home from work early - he left home in the morning without any hint that he remembered what day it was. He arrived home way too early - around 2pm and stayed home sleeping till 6pm. It was only when I said I'm gonna go make dinner did he say he's taking me out for dinner.

Say hellow to MBP

:) I'm now blogging to you from my brand new MBP. Well, ok, not that new anymore since I've had it since Christmas day and have only managed to find time to start blogging now. Mostly, it's been used by hubby - he's been playing with it since and I have not have had a proper chance to explore it till today. Nothing much to explore I guess - it's pretty basic since I have not upgraded/added any extras.  I will have to sit down and compare my old computer to this one though and point out which applications I need to install and which ones are redundant.

This newbie is a breath of fresh air from my old laptop. Man......this is so much faster! Each click performs its task so quickly! Hubby's also used to my old laptop and when he started using MBP with the Internet, he said to me "we've been complaining about how slow the internet connection is but I think the problem lies with the computer, not the connection. It's so fast here!" :s

Anyway just to announce the arrival of my baby! :)

New Scam Method by Nigerians Part IV

So my last post was analyzing the whole "paypal" email. This post, I'll show you how you can determine from the email itself if it is from the true sender. It's back to basics without all the fancy stuff I just went through.


All the TOs, FROMs, who the address is registered to, his/her country of origin etc can be faked. But one thing is for sure - the codes embedded in the email itself, the message the emails takes with it so that it can communicate with the servers in the WWW can NEVER be faked. So if you're suspicious about any emails, open up the message header. There are a lot of information inside but there are only 1 or 2 which you should know. 


This is how an email message header looks like (I'm going to comment in RED what to look out for):

Delivered-To: 
Received: by 10.204.99.70 with SMTP id t6cs85196bkn;
        Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:11:06 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.224.63.219 with SMTP id c27mr5354621qai.168.1261584665242;
        Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:11:05 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path:  Return path means reply-to. So the owner of this fake onlinetrackpost@in.com is a Linda Cox
Received: from snt0-omc1-s24.snt0.hotmail.com (snt0-omc1-s24.snt0.hotmail.com [65.55.90.35]) This email was received from Hotmail's server.....what is paypal doing with a Hotmail server??
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 8si12162417qyk.56.2009.12.23.08.11.04;
        Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:11:05 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of lindacox1957@hotmail.com designates 65.55.90.35 as permitted sender) client-ip=65.55.90.35; 
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of lindacox1957@hotmail.com designates 65.55.90.35 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=lindacox1957@hotmail.com
Received: from SNT105-W47 ([65.55.90.8]) by snt0-omc1-s24.snt0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
  Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:10:48 -0800
Message-ID: 
Return-Path: lindacox1957@hotmail.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
 boundary="_a85adced-9f6e-43a3-bea7-96852d6a2f6a_"
X-Originating-IP: [82.128.68.207] Finally to know where this fella is sending his emails from, search for an IP tracker online and put in these numbers. I use www.trustedsource.org and this fella is actually sending me emails from Lagos, Nigeria. Hmmm...such a coincidence - just where the parcel is supposed to go! 
From: payPal Service 
Sender: 
To: 
Subject: =?windows-1256?Q?******Noti?= =?windows-1256?Q?fication_O?=
 =?windows-1256?Q?f_An_Insta?= =?windows-1256?Q?nt_Payment?=
 =?windows-1256?Q?_From_Loga?= =?windows-1256?Q?n_Smith_(l?=
 =?windows-1256?Q?ogansmith@?= =?windows-1256?Q?operamail.?=
 =?windows-1256?Q?com)=FE=FE=FE?=
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:10:47 +0000
Importance: Normal
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Dec 2009 16:10:48.0126 (UTC) FILETIME=[7D4CEDE0:01CA83EA]

--_a85adced-9f6e-43a3-bea7-96852d6a2f6a_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1256"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

The last few email correspondences between myself and Mr Smith:

okay..thanks ..i mailed paypal and they said your account will be credited in 7-8 day beacuse they are verifying the tracking number.. i have been scammed like this before i don't want to be scammed so i need to be careful..okay get back to me if thats is okay
Thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: Ann
To: "logan smith"
Subject: Re: very very urgent
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:38:53 +0300

Isn't UPS better and more secure? It is a courier company as is DHL. USPS once arrive in Nigeria will be in the care of local post office. I don't want it to go missing and then the trouble later. Mails to Nigeria do go missing you know.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 23, 2009, at 10:04 PM, "logan smith" <logansmith@operamail.com> wrote:

thanks for the mail... but i said USPS EXPRESS MAIL...why didnt you send it there let me know

----- Original Message -----
From: Ann
To: "logan smith"
Subject: Re: urgent
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:23:44 +0800

yes, it is insured and i have mention item as gift. however i need to ensure the money is in my paypal account before i will release the tracking number. i hope you'll understand.

thanks

Ann

On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 12:17 AM, logan smith<logansmith@operamail.com> wrote:

thanks but did you insure the item and please get back to me with the tracking number..
thanks

I actually did a check on logansmith@operamail.com - it is registered in California. This could again be either fake or maybe the real Logan Smith's email account has just been hacked. I do not know Opera so I can't say.


So people, be safe! There are too many of them out there! I just receive ANOTHER email today from a Mr Philip Chu (philipchu63@yahoo.com). Exactly the same message I received in my Facebook inbox BUT this time - it's damn funny. It's Christmas eve today and Mr Chu is looking for a Christmas gift for his step brother in Africa! Too many step brothers in Africa man. 

Hi, was guessing for a gift to buy for  stept brother of mine who is based in Africa i wiill like to buy a chrismas gift for him , and while browsing , i saw what you have for sale and found it quite nice as a Christmas Gift. Would like to know if its till for sale... hope to hear from you soon.. thanks Can you tell the similarities between Mr Chu and Mr Smith's email?? The subject of Mr Chu's email is electronics. He did not mention where he was browsing and what electronics. And I believe, after seeing this email, that Mr Smith and Mr Chu's email account has been compromised. That's all folks! Merry Christmas again! PS: I'm finally gonna see my MBP tomorrow! :)

New Scam Method by Nigerians Part III

So my last post ended with my telling Mr Smith that he should cancel his payment immediately. 


I told hubby everything and he told me to make it even more fun - tell him that I know how urgent and important it is to him that this gift will get to his brother on time. Tell him I have sent the laptop already. I did exactly that before getting his reply to my email about him cancelling his payment. Anyway, I received his reply:


thanks but did you insure the item and please get back to me with the tracking number..
thanks

And guess what came with his reply? 2 more emails from "paypal". I don't believe there's someone who can be soooo stupid! I have already told you the first time that I believe that the PayPal notification is a fake and yet you send me the SAME notification, only this time with words and paypal logo. I lost one because I reported it as phishing to Gmail and they deleted the email from my inbox. But anyway the one I'm going to attach is the baby. 


Ladies and gentlemen, I reveal to you the new generation of "paypal" LOL:

This is part one of the mail - too long gotta shorten into parts also :p So I'll point out the signs by pictures.
1) Same sender, same header - we've already discussed this in Part II so I will not repeat it here oh but I have to add that email address from PayPal will ALWAYS be paypal.com


2) This time with logo - Fuiyoh so real ah - but thing is, emails from PayPal will not have any logo unless it's advertisement or marketing emails. *Tsk tsk* 


3) Free money!! I'm $30 richer!! Where got people give free money one??? Our deal was for $800 and this payment is for $830! Christmas present for me? Extra bonus for me because I wrote him a lovely mail?? DUH!

What is wrong with this one then?
1) No purchased from


2) This payment notification looks more like an invoice! All these are wrong! Paypal's email is plain simple text. No fancy fancy stuff. This an HTML email. 


3) How the hell would PayPal know how I'm going to ship to the receiver? This is payment notification - not an invoice. And unless this is an invoice from MY business, there will not be Shipping Insurance printed. How the hell would PayPal know what this payment is for? So how the hell would PayPal know what to add??

1) The important note part is the biggest giveaway of all. There will not be such thing in ANY PayPal's emails. 


2) See onlinetrackpost@in.com? Why would PayPal need a 3rd party to do their job when they are covered globally? Too much money to spend is it?


3) Anybody has sent money/paid for any purchases using PayPal before? Is there any way you can control when the money is paid to seller?? Answer is NO! The best you can do is, pay, wait and if you don't receive your purchase, report seller to PayPal. They will then start their investigation. There is NO WAY you can buy something without paying. Fuck the "to secure buyer and seller" clause. By using PayPal, both parties are already secured.


4) PayPal never refer to themselves as the PayPal Team. Yea yea yea.....and they DO NOT  publish any sort of Registration Number. 


5) PayPal will never lighten the last part of the footer by that much. 


6) Address status confirmed. What status? Confirm what??


This is what a authentic PayPal footer will look like:

See the difference? 


It's pretty real right?? The fake one even has a PayPal Email ID!!! I forwarded both emails to PayPal and they have confirm that these are fakes.


Finally:

1) Again, we see hotmail here


2) There are too much space between the footer and this hotmail message. This will never happen in PayPal's emails. This could be intentional by the sender - it is really a long way down before you see this Hotmail message. You might not scroll all the way down from the end of the email - I guess if this is intentional, that is what they hope for that you know you've reached the end of the email so why continue scrolling and if you don't you won't see Hotmail at the end. 


I guess part IV will be the final part.....I'll show you what else he said and how else - if all else fails - you can trace if the email is what it says it is.

New Scam Method by Nigerians Part II

My last post ended with me replying to him with my PayPal ID. 


This might be the last part, maybe not - depending on how long this post is going to be. But with this post, I'll be showing you some of the tips & tricks that will point out a shammer (I bet most of you already know these stuff anyway)


I received a reply - very fast response - with the subject Payment Made. 


hello, how are you?
just want to inform you that i have send the money for the item into your paypal account so i will like you to ship out the item today and get back to me with the tracking number so this is where you are sending the item to.......
Name......... Ohai Gabriel
Address.......8,Ajana Street IjeshaTedo
City...........Surulere
Receivers Number....+2348038537546
State.....Lagos
Country........Nigeria
Zipcode......... 23401 so ship out the item and one more thing want you to write on the item as gift on the mail slip because i dont want the customs to place their attention on the item so post out the item out via USPS Express mail(EMS)..and make sure you place insurance on the item..
thanks get back to me with the tracking number..

Still very authentic right?? I know! But that is before you see the next attachment. When you pay via PayPal, both receiver and sender will receive a notification email from PayPal. I did too. Take a look and see if you can point out what is wrong with this:

OK can you find anything wrong with the email yet? No? Look again - very carefully this time. Yes? No? Fine, let me tell you what is wrong with this email.


1) Look at 'from'. It says payPal Service. Paypal is 2 capital Ps it should be PayPal. So that is the first thing I noticed when I saw this mail in my inbox.


2) Have you ever noticed that PayPal only has 1 email address for all their notifications? For non-US I mean. It is ALWAYS service@intl.paypal.comand they do not have a name. What do I mean? For example in the 'from' field you might have Will Smith . For PayPal, it is ALWAYS service@intl.paypal.com . Notice this email has payPal Service? 2nd sign.



3) There will NOT be **** before the start of the subject (I'm sorry I cannot remember the exact words PayPal will use). 


4) The body of the email is empty. 


5) At the bottom - the footer - the big giveaway. Hotmail???? WTH???? This is one HUGE giveaway which the shammer cannot change because it is imbedded in all hotmail's emails. You cannot change it from your email or your account. It's a way Hotmail advertises their services. 


6) I'm not sure if other mail providers have this option (I'm loyal to Gmail) but you see there's a mailed-by below the subject?? It says hotmail.com. Again WTH???


Getting exciting huh? So what did I do??? I replied - I played along. Immediately I knew this was not authentic. Of course I checked my PayPal account. But with the email body empty,  didn't have enough to contact PayPal to report a fraud. 


So replied to our friend Mr Smith saying that:
Hi Logan,

I have received a payPal Payment Notification. However, I can confirm that this notification is not authentic and I have not received any money in my PayPal account - there are tell-tale signs of it being a fake and have checked with PayPal also. I suggest that you cancel your payment immediately. 

I have sent you a payment request. You will just have to follow the link enclosed in the email to make payment. 

I will send out the laptop once the payment is received in my PayPal account.

I just wanted to play along and see what this guy has up his sleeves you know. And maybe, you can say, I was gathering evidence so that I can write a post like this on my blog. But then again, as I'm writing this post, do you think I have just educated these people?? Let me know!!! If most of you think I have made things worst by educating them where the loopholes are, I'll be more than happy to take the posts down.


Time to move on to Part III - oh yes, this ain't the end. It's only the start and it's getting more fun!

New Scam Method by Nigerians Part I

First of all, a very Merry Christmas to everybody out there!!


I'm going to break this post into several smaller posts for easy reading. This is going to be a loooooooong one. So bear with me but read it - it's a good to know and keep you on alert if you come across such scam. I'll be attaching all original emails from sender and myself.


Yeap, I'm a "victim" of a scam (in PayPal's terms spoof). Why "victim"? Coz I'm alert enough to see through the scam after only the 2nd mail I received from the sender. I am lucky enough to be a heavy user of PayPal due to my business needs and hence am able to tell the difference between an authentic PayPal email from a fake at first glance.


And yes, Nigerians AGAIN. Why why why? Why does it always have to be them? Don't they know that they have an extremely bad reputation for being cheats already? 


You might say I brought this unto myself - I published an advert to sell my laptop on Facebook's marketplace. After weeks of silence, I received a PM in my Facebook inbox from this guy name Logan Smith. Below is the message, word for word, which came into my inbox:


Hello, was guessing for a gift to buy step brother of mine who is based in Africa on his birthday next month, and while browsing facebook, i saw what you have for sale and found it quite nice as a birthday gift. Would like to know if its till for sale. I am willing to offer $800 for it, including shipping cost via Usps express mail. I will be paying through paypal, because its the safest means of online payment. Hope to hear from you as soon as possible. reply me at (logansmith@operamail.com)
thanks


You can imagine how happy I was when I saw the message right? I mean hell, RM2500 for my used laptop? Of course yours truly replied to his email. How the hell would I know he's a fake? But Nigeria - yeah....oh well. I was thinking man this is a good deal cause I'm in Africa already! If I'm living in USA or any other continent, this might not be that good a deal coz see, he says USD800 INCLUDING shipping. I told him that the laptop is still available and I need to know where his brother is exactly because he only mentioned Africa right. 


He came back with this:

how are you?thanks for the kind and lovely mail...
this is where you are sending the item to.......
Name.........  .Ohai Gabriel
Address.........8,Ajana  Street IjeshaTedo
City...........Surulere
Receivers Number...+2348038537546
State..Lagos
Country.......Nigeria
Zipcode......... 23401 so get back to me with your PayPal email ID so i can make the payment..
thanks

And I can promise you there was nothing lovely about my email. It was in fact very stone cold. I did not even commit to selling him. I just wanted to know where his brother is. Although I thought this is too good to be true, I believed him. So I replied with my PayPal ID. The next part of this saga is as shocking as it can be........to be continued........