Money laundering or worse

June 22, 2003 1:09 PM

So I get some spam offering a 'perspective job in Australia', which I thought was funny, so I clicked. I got sent to a webpage that seemed to be running a variant of the Nigerian email scam. But this sounds more like money laundering. The webpage claims that I have received a personal missive from Andrew Colobanoff, the advertising manager of the A.I.C company, which has a website whose whois record indictaes was registered only a couple of weeks ago, and that seems to be busted but presumably has a working email address... Anyway, this all seems so suspect that I feel like I have to report it to the authorities. Which is where I'm stumped. Who do you report suspicious spam scams to anyway?
posted by chrisgregory (9 comments total)

*sounds the air raid siren*

here they come, captain, brace for impact.
posted by angry modem at 1:15 PM on June 22, 2003

the anti-spammer in me sez this.

but the mefilistine in me sez: erm, wtf? your questions are better asked on news.admin.net-abuse.email

(also, the mx and webhost for advic is verio, um, good luck with that...)
posted by dorian at 1:27 PM on June 22, 2003

I would also let the Federal Trade Commission know about the email. The FTC has been working with Congress to get a broader authorization to go after some of these international fraud networks. They have more information posted on the top email scams and the Nigerian scam in particular, among a pretty significant index of information for consumers on internet fraud. You can email the FTC regarding spam and fraud at [e-mail], or file a complaint online.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:40 PM on June 22, 2003

Thanks for the advice. The only thing is that I'm in Australia, and this particular scam is aimed at Australian citizens....

And there doesn't seem to be any similar organisation in Australia.

Then again, the whois records seem to indicate that this particular spam has originated in the US with a certain John Springstead of 744 Asbury St in New Milford New Jersey and with the phone number (201)6340550 (this is all straight from the whois registration database).

I'm not about to make an international call to chase this up. Anyone in New Jersey? The site does claim that this is a Russian company...
posted by chrisgregory at 1:48 PM on June 22, 2003

I reported a scam email to the FTC once... felt a bit like shouting down a well.

One thing I got a few days ago was a fake PayPal message, very expertly forged, that requested you to go to a page to verify your identity. The url was cleverly obfuscated but was not in fact a PayPal address. I can only suppose it was for purposes of plundering accounts and/or identity theft. I wonder how many people got sucked into that one? I can find nothing about it on the web.
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:19 PM on June 22, 2003

George_Spiggott, I got that same PayPal e-mail...as you indicated, it was indeed a *very* good-looking forgery...sad to think that there are surely many who did, in fact, fall for it.

chrisgregory, this might not work, but it's certainly worth a phone call: your local police department. If they can't assist (likely), they *should* be able to give you a good source to report such scams.
posted by davidmsc at 2:24 PM on June 22, 2003

Looks like a consumer law issue:

You could try the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, I guess. They have a 'dob-in-a-cyber-scam' form here.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:42 PM on June 22, 2003

The best way to deal with this is simply highlight the message in your mail program and press the delete key once.

The police will not help you, nor will they know what to do about it. Unless you wish to start a personal crusade, there is little you can do. I am not trying to be defeatist, but your comment that "I'm not about to make an international call to chase this up" shows that it is not a big enough deal for you to spend $5 on a phone call.

prays fervently to the internet gods that we are not going to see a post here every time someone gets a spam message.
posted by dg at 3:45 PM on June 22, 2003

dg, chrisgregory did say that it appeared more like money laundering to him than the normal 419 scam. If I were to receive such an e-mail (and actually read it closely enough to suspect money laundering, I'd contact my national police (FBI) or Treasury agents (Secret Service.)
posted by Vidiot at 5:01 PM on June 22, 2003