Conversation with an Email Scammer (No Sleep Till The Netherlands)

We get a lot of spam here. Nigerian prince thisses, you-have-won thats, and the occasional your-wing-wong’s-scant. This deluge of junk email would infuriate most, but we don’t mind it, ’cause we just forward them all on to our pal Babe Sheckler, who thinks they’re real. Dude’s had his PayPal account cleaned out eleven times and still keeps going back to the well.

The most recent SMTP sonnet must have tickled him raw. And with a Dutch lottery jackpot being dangled, it’s not hard to see why. Perhaps deeming email communication too impersonal, Babe broke out the calling card and dialed up one “Felix Henk” to root out the deal. What follows is his wiretapped copy of the conversation. (He records everything; guy is like Nixon. Someday they’re gonna get leaked, and there’s gonna be a whole lot of him trashing a guy who sold him a broken Barcalounger.) Listen up!

That was nothing if not informative – who knew the Netherlands was the Land of Chips? Rouse the kids, play it again for them, and tell them they’ll never need geography class again.

Here’s the original email from Henk and company. How could one not be swayed by all those asterisks? Or the Batch No.? Today, Felix, you’ve taught a man to phish.

Subject: Email winner
From: “2009 LOTTO NL”
Date: Wed, April 22, 2009 9:25 am
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

AWARD WINNING NOTICE
Ref No.17/324/113
Batch No.448/1803734
Ticket/Series No.RJ975489
Amount Won: $2,500,000.00 USD

Attn: Email Bearer,

This is to formally inform and congratulate you on the result of the online cyber lotto which was conducted from an exclusive list of 1,000.000 email addresses of individual and corporate bodies selected by an advanced automated random computer ballot system from the internet.

Your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category “A” with the following information enclosed.

You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $2,500,000.00. (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).

To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category “A” winners with the information below:
*************************************
Name: Felix Henk
Email:felixhenk@aol.nl
Phone:+31 614 902 159
Fax: +31 847 375 060
*************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information and a copy of your international passport or driver’s license via email attachment or by fax for vetting process which is a standard practice just to ensure that we are dealing with the right individual.

Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:
Winning Email:

NOTE: Ensure to quote your Reference Numbers in all your communication with your claims agent. All winnings must be claimed not later than seven working days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake.

Sincerely Yours,
Mrs. Yvonne Zwanette
Lottery Coordinator.
www.lotto.nl