ALKHOBAR: As people return to the Kingdom after a month or more of vacation, many find their inboxes packed with bizarre e-mail. I use aggressive filters to sift out junk e-mail so I don’t have the “opportunity” to see much SPAM. But readers send me e-mail all the time, asking for my opinion on whether they should respond to the unsolicited requests for assistance that they receive. In every case the answer from me is, “NO!”

Advance fee fraud — also called “419 fraud” after the specific section of Nigerian law describing this type of fraud — has changed considerably over the years. Initially, criminals in Nigeria committed this fraud by sending unsolicited letters thought the post. Now, advanced fee fraud involves criminals in countries the world over and e-mail is the preferred method of soliciting dupes.

Since we’ve been dealing with advance fee fraud online for nearly a decade, it seems that everybody should be getting the idea that if someone, somewhere, is offering to make available a million dollars for “just a little of your time and bank transfer fee,” it’s a scam.

Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the yearning to get rich quick too often overrides basic common sense. As hope springs eternally, the scammers are still collecting cash from fools.

All the letters featured in my column today have been received within the last month at e-mail addresses in the Saudi domain — that means the addresses end in .”sa.” Scammers are targeting the Kingdom heavily now, viewing Internet users here as less sophisticated than those in North America or Europe. To be fair though, some scammers just put out mass mailings to any address they can obtain, and databases of Saudi e-mail addresses are now bought or traded. The “delete” key is a good defense against these criminals. Anti-spam software is excellent protection as well. Never respond to scam e-mail as a response indicates that your e-mail is live and consequently more desirable to spammers of all types, plus e-mail often contains information such as an automatically generated signature which could aid criminals in stealing your identity.

The first mail to discuss comes from Dr. Gregory David, chairman, Policy Harmonization Committee, Accra, Ghana. This e-mail has all the trademarks of an advance fee fraud. Let’s review them:

1. A sense of urgency.

2. The transaction must be kept confidential.

3. The person lives in a relatively unknown, or dangerous county.

4. Contact information must be forwarded immediately.

5. An “official” organization is named.

6. A wire transfer or fund transfer is involved.

7. Big money is on offer.

Here’s a portion of the Policy Harmonization Committee e-mail:

“After several attempts to reach you I deemed it necessary and urgent to notify you finally about your outstanding settlement of your overdue transfer of your money. I resumed duty recently as Policy Harmonization Chairman on public debts (West African Monitoring Institution), a committee set up by the World Bank.

Based on the information we received, it is mandatory and compulsory that you forward your contact information to me for further advice and also for the programming of the information in the micro chip compartment of this committee.”

This is clearly a scam and not a very good one at that. So let’s check out a scheme that’s a little less obvious, but still filled with evil intent. This e-mail supposedly came from a fund manager, operating in a criminal manner in the UK.

“I am Mr. Matthew Wright, The Fund Manager of Fidelity Investment, UK. I handle all our Investors Capital Project Funds which enabled me to secretly divert 1.2 percent of Investors Excess Return Capital Funds to our Magellan Trust Funds Account where anyone can be presented to claim the funds. Total sum of £33,520,000,000 has been diverted. I am hereby looking for someone to trust who will stand as an Investor to receive the fund as Annual Investment Proceeds from Fidelity Marginal Capital.

Our sharing ratio is will be 70:30. Please get back to me for more details.”

I would suspect that nobody contacted Mr. Wright because he made a critical mistake in his scam e-mail. Instead of hiding all the addresses in the e-mail header, Mr. Wright left them all visible. His mail targeted local addresses at Saudi Aramco, Gentec, Al-Khaleej Computers and the Saudi Investment Bank, among others. Since everyone saw the “secret” offer it’s doubtful that anyone responded to Mr. Wright.

The next scam e-mail to consider is one that at least shows some creativity. It supposedly comes from Capt. Scott J. Wright, Engineering Unit, US Military in Ba’qubah, Iraq. The e-mail offers a 70-30 split of $10 million. How did Capt. Wright come by this money? He advises the e-mail recipient to click to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle-east/2988455.stm to understand the source of the funds. The e-mail states:

“My partners and I need a good partner out there, someone we can trust to receive the funds on our behalf. It is oil money and legal. We have made arrangements with a Diplomatic Courier Service that will move the funds out of Iraq as family treasures. Also we have made arrangement to transfer the said funds through the Bank of Baghdad depending on what you want. Once the funds get to you, simply take out 30 percent as your share and keep the remaining 70 percent for us. Your own part of this deal is to find a safe place where the funds can be sent to. Ours is sending it to you safely.”

Please believe me, $10 million is never going to appear. This scam could involve advance fee fraud, as well as a bit of money laundering - the sort of greed that can result in prison time.

Disturbingly, some scam e-mails now begin with the lovely phrase, Assalamu Alaikum — peace be upon you. Ahmed Farouk in Baghdad is waiting for an “urgent response” at his personal e-mail — [email protected].

He writes:

“Assalamu Alaikum. I am contacting you as I have a huge sum in my custody which I inherited from my late father, which is USD3.8 million, He was a major general in the Iraqi army in the immediate past regime. I want to invest most of the money abroad in real estate business to avoid losing the money, because it is not wise doing business in the atmosphere of fear here in Iraq. I will give you 25 percent. If you are interested please furnish me with your 1) Real Names 2) Phone/Fax numbers 3) Occupation 4) Residence address.”

Provide Ahmed Farouk with the personal information he requests, and most certainly he will do his best to defraud you any way he can.

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