Venditoris: Beware of Sellers & Scams

Listed below are excerpts from selected pages, with links, around the Web that have reported on Trilegiant, its “Services” and the organizations that cooperate with them to promote those services on the Web.

Of particular interest are the reports of legal actions and the reports of individual who believe they have been scammed or ripped off by these services.

At the bottom of the article is a short listing from the Trilegiant wesite listing their services and contact telephone numbers in case anyone wishes to learn more about them

http://groups.msn.com/USBankComplaints/ usbankprivacyguardandtrilegiant.msnw

US Bank, PrivacyGuard and Trilegiant

Consumer complaints about Trilegiant unauthorized charges - PrivacyGuard is a product of Trilegiant and apparently sold through U.S. Bancorp Insurance

U.S. Bank Bolsters Consumer Identity Theft Protection Offering with Ad

Many consumers have been charged by Trilegiant for reports and services they say they did not order. Trilegiant has a history of complaints concerning deceptive marketing and selling strategies, unauthorized charges on consumers’ credit cards, and non-cancellation of memberships following cancellation requests Class Counsel

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(YANL=Yet Another Nigerian Letter. There are many more here with seeming infinite variation in sales pitch or appeal that it is phenomenon of the Web!)

Note the lack of an addressee, the fractured spelling of words in English and the preposterous message.

It is what we call a spam hook to catch a fish. The “fish” being someone either too immature or innocent to realize that it not only signals its own intent to catch them, but that there are people either evil or desperate enough do these sorts of things on the Web or in the mail (post).

There are and they do. This is but one of countless examples as you can see by clicking on some of the related links to the right side of the page and clicking on our Category: YANL.

(We have seen estimates that they are raking in Billions of US Dollars per year with such scams; that’s why they continue and vary so much.)

Be wary and extra suspicious of any letter of this type wherever it originates or how you receive it, even if the English is impeccable.

The main key to a scam of any kind is the appeal to your greed and an offer of a benefit just too good to believe. Almost all the time it is, everywhere.

From: “DR TUNDE LEMO”
Subject: IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF YOUR OVERDUE FUNDS…
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008
To:

Our Ref: CBN/IRD/CGX/NNPC/000/000
FROM THE DESK OF:DR TUNDE LEMO THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN)
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Tel: nnn-n-nnnnnnn
Fax : nnn-nnn-nnnn

RE: IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF YOUR OVERDUE FUNDS

After a joint meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the Senate Committee on Foreign Debts Reconciliation and the Presidential Payment and Implementation Panel on Contract/inheritance funds under Category?? which was addressed and headed by the New Elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’dua,it became imperative to contact you on the subject matter. This meeting was initiated as part of the recent image laundering scheme of the federal government of Nigeria.

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Here’s a tear-jerker letter, begging for our help. But she doesn’t know our name(s).

Could that be a clue that this is not what it purports to be and is instead one of those spam scam email letters like the nefarious Nigerian Letters (YANL)?

You bet it is.

Solution: Disbelieve everything from anyone you do not know in the World of Email. It has this kind of scam running wild just searching for a dumb bunny to fleece!

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008
From: “Mrs Asiyah Ahmed”
Subject: From Mrs Asiyah Ahmed Hassanal Bolkiah

From Mrs Asiyah Ahmed Hassanal Bolkiah
Royal Family of King Haji Omar Ali Sadul Khairi
of Brunei Darussalam.

GOOD DAY,My Dear,

Please read very carefully, It is with tears that I am writing this message to you from a hospital bed far away from my home where I have no mother,father, sister , brother or any relative, in the mist of strangers with a diffrent language that I don’t understand, imaging how painful it is being a cancer patient, Firstly let me introduce myself to you.

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Remember, they cannot scam you without the help and support of either unknowing or uncaring co-scammers, the organizations that pass along your credit card information on their Web sites. You could avoid doing business with them.

There are twelve organizations named below, more on the websites that are linked. We’ll dig out some of the latest updates on who they are.

(You would think the US Justice Department, the FBI or The FTC would have started investigations on the basis of possible criminal activity. The federal RICCO statute provides remedies for victims of conspiratorial intentional conduct, doesn’t it?

From what we’ve seen and heard on the Web there are thousands of very upset victims of their practices and this sure acts like a duck to us. You know the old adage: “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it probably…”)

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So you have inherited a zillion GBP from an unnamed person and your new “friend” Stephen Scott is sending you an email telling you that you can half of it. You are “entitle to 50%”.
Oh, Yes! The email is not addressed to you, it just says “THIS IS FOR YOUR ATTENTION”

How dumb do you have to be to answer?

It should have been more aptly addressed: “DEAR DUMB EMAIL RECIPIENT”.

Regardless of where it is from it is a YANL spam email. Delete it asap!

Date: Fri, 27 June 2008
From: “Stephen Scott”
Subject: THIS IS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

THIS IS FOR YOUR ATTENTION.
We wish to notify you again that you were listed as a beneficiary to the total sum of £15,600,000.00GBP (Fifteen million Six hundred thousand britishpounds) in the codicil and last testament of the deceased. (Name now withheld since this is our second letter to you).

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