I recently received the following e-mail from santoshiando@yahoo.com:
– Dear Friend, I am Ando Satoshi, Japanese national, an attorney at Law, and the official receiver in charge of administering the funds from the sale of the assets of the bankruptcy estate of Sphere Energy Japan. This is the real deal. By virtue of my position as the trustee of the bankruptcy estate, I have processed the claims of all the creditors and also issued out cheques for their claims. However, a certain surplus amounting to about Four Million Seven Hundred Thousand British Pounds Sterling (4,750,000.00) is yet to be disbursed out. To this end, I am seeking your assistance to transfer about Four Million Seven Hundred And Fifty Thousand British Pounds Sterling. I want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatch it to charity organizations. Please kindly note that upon the receipt of these funds from the financial institution, you shall invest it in your line of business and dispatch the profit to charitable home. As soon as i receive your response, I shall communicate with you, and let you know the details of the transfer. Whatever your actions and your decision are, I thank you for taking the time to read this email. Please note that this is not a scam as it does not require upfront payment but escrow payment.Regards, Ando Satoshi
Anti-Fraud International turns up in a google search for Mr. Ando (searching for Satoshi, not Santoshi). 安藤è¡å² turns up a boy that lost in a Gifu prefecture tennis tournament five years ago (page 2, number 39) and a boy that won a runner’s up prize in an essay competition. But even without that, think about it:
– Why is the letter written without any of the typical Janglish that results from trying to map Japanese humble-speak to English?
– Why does Sphere Energy exist only in Canada, and without any hint of a Japanese branch?
– Why would a Japanese attorney want to disburse the remaining assets of a bankrupt Japanese company in British pounds?
– Why would I want British pounds, considering its current performance?
– Why not pick a Japanese charitable organisation?
– Why does a bankrupt company have four million pounds left over after settling all its debts?
I thought about writing “Mr. Ando” a brief note in Japanese, but figured that would only confirm my address as a genuine address worth sending scam-spam to.
Add to that the fact that no attorney I know would use the phrase “this is the real deal,” at least not in official correspondence.
It may not be Janglish, but it’s very poor English, which is typical of such fraud spam. If the spammers ever really learn the language, we may be in trouble, but for now that’s always a dead giveaway to me.
Note the Yahoo address. Yahoo doesn’t seem to be doing much to stop scammers, as you can see from Jon’s story.
My SIL had her yahoo email address “stolen” and people she knew or, I think in one case, that my parents knew, were receiving emails from that address saying that she was in a bind and needed money. I forget exactly what the situation was. Needless to say, she changed her email address, but just to another yahoo one.