Mary was solicited by this realistic story;
Hello,
Thank you for responding to my email. I apologize to encroach into your privacy in this manner, I got your contact from a directory on the Internet here in Afghanistan. I find it pleasurable to offer you my partnership in business and i pray at this time that, your e-mail contact address is still valid. I know you don’t know me but i meant no harm sending you this note, just that I don’t have anyone out there to talk to, as I lost my parents in a car Accident, when I was 11 year old, I was raise up by my adopted parents, but they died years ago, the relatives of my adopted Parents throw me out of the house saying that I was not their real daughter. I know you can handle this money for me on till I come over to meet with you, we can also build friendship with this transaction. I lived in Lake Jackson, Texas before joining the Force.You may be wondering why I choose to trust a delicate matter like this in the care of a stranger, but this is the best I can do in my present situation and I would have trusted this kind of project in the hands of my Husband who was my closest confidant, but I lost him to cancer on 22nd April, 2006 5 months after we got married, and my only brother has ruined his life with hard drugs, hence my decision to work with a neutral person if we can establish some trust between ourselves instead of confiding in my buddies back home so that this little secret can be preserved.
Let me start by introducing my self. My names are Sgt. XXXXXXX L. Brown, I am assigned to 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division[3]. I am seeking your assistance to evacuate the sum of $10,500,000.00 (Ten Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) as far as I can be assured that it will be safe in your care until I complete my service here.
SOURCE OF MONEY:
I and some other high ranking Officers made some deal on oil business over there in Afghanistan before my exit to Iraq. The deal worth $132 Million United States Dollars and after we have all share the money I later realize $10.5 Million US DOLLARS which is my personal share of the deal, due to my status as a US Sergeant, I can not be able to move this huge funds to my account in United States to avoid further interrogation or face any kind of probation by the U.S government and I packaged my own share in a briefcase and have sent it to the Red-Cross society, because there is no other way out to keep it with me here, so with the help of a German contact working with the UN here (his office enjoys some immunity) I was able to get the package out to a safe location entirely out of trouble spot. He does not know the real contents of the package, as I have deposited the consignment as a family treasure. Your acceptance to this would encourage me to send further information for us to proceed.
Furthermore, If my offer is of no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever contacted you. Do not destroy my career because you do not approve of my proposal. I believe that such opportunities only come ones way once in a lifetime. I cannot let this chance pass me by. For once I find myself in total control of my destiny. This chance won’t pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life but do not destroy me. If you give me positive signals, I will give you the relevant details and initiate this process towards a conclusion. I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. Do not betray my confidence.
If you wish to proceed with this, please get back to me.
Regards,
Sgt. XXXXXX L. Brown
If you guys want a part of her $10 million cut of the $132 million, I left her email address in there. Bobo found four soldiers with her name, so I changed the email to protect any real soldiers. But none of them were Sergeant OF3s or in the Afghanistan Special Forces.
Get these all the time.. It’s a phishing scheme. They send out 1,000’s of them and hopefully one will write back and believe it.. Just delete them and be done.
Here is a site that helps people with all military scams.
https://www.facebook.com/MilitaryRomances?fref=ts
I remember when these advanced fee scams used to arrive by fax. They always fail the sniff test, but I can’t believe that in this day and age people still are suckered into them.
Microsoft wrote an article about it. Yep, they actually did the math.
You can find it here:
http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/WhyFromNigeria.pdf
For those who are not into mind numbing math, the scammers apparenly make them so hokey as to weed out anyone who might fall for something better crafted. The idea is that somebody who “wises up” to an approach is time wasted on the part of the scammer. By making the pitch so bad (errors in grammer, spelling, etc), they weed out these potential “false positives,” allowing them to spend their effort on the most gullible. Imagine sending out a million e-mails with a 90% response rate, only to have most of those later fall by the wayside. Better to have a 0.001% response rate from somebody who is likely to actually send you their bank info–or better yet, cash.
It’s called greed.
I wonder if any of the emails get rerouted back through Merritt Island, FL?
Times are tough at All-Points Logistics.
WTF!? This is the most insane scam letter I’ve seen. The picture in the ID card might be a real soldier though.
Yes, the picture is a real soldier. Scammers glean through facebook account and other internet sources to copy images. They often change the names around just a bit.
Some of them are a lot better than others. Often they target people who aren’t from the US and dont speak English very well.
I help run a site that answers questions about scammers. The worst case I had is a lady from Malaysia who is a university professor who was conned out of 100,000 bucks.
Generally a lot of victims will wise up after losing a few hundred, but it a damn shame.
There are accomplices in the US that help them. They will answer phone calls posing as a relative, send texts and cards etc.
Where IS THE BITCHES EMAIL ADDRESS. I WANNA PLAY….
What are you talking about? “Play’ with whom? This is just a scammer. The soldier in the picture is not the scammer. It is a stolen image. We do not know the gender of the scammer and it is probably a team of them.
I hope you were not referring to this soldier as a “bitch”. Right?
griffinmerry1975@gmail.com
How did Mary get so lucky? Do you think that she’d be willing to at least throw a party for all of us TAHers with the new found wealth?
She needs to be VERY CAREFUL. Now that she’s been featured on TAH, she’s wide open for one of Daniel A. Bernath’s lawsuits, I wonder if he’ll sue HER for causing his shingles and catheter escapades?
Maybe she drained the gas out of his airplane after he forgot to fill it up.
You have it wrong. Bernath told his lapdogs to fill up the gas tank. They did as told. They ate cans of beans and farted in the gas tank. It ran out because after each fart, they forgot to put the gas cap back on so the gas leaked out. I am a great investigator
“Do not betray my confidence.’ Golly, why would I? I would never dream of betraying your confidence. In fact, I trust you without reservation. I will safe keep your confidence. I prize the trust you have vested in me. I will not let you down! I cannot speak for the other 62 million recipients of your email, but your secret is safe with me!
I think what e-mail’s author really meant was, “Do not betray my confidence scheme.”
(Hey, it’s easy when typing that long of a document in what is obviously not the author’s first language to omit a word or two. [smile])
Nice to have you back. I have been typing my ass off with useless blather just to fill the pages around here.
2/17 has gone on several rants but I dont think he hurt anyone. Infidel has tried to pick up some of the slack with his descriptive narratives. OD has been manning his post with vigor. GT has been keeping an eye on the DRG.
I was called a tool, bored the shit out of a cat gagging on a hairball, Jonn keeps posting his ulta right wing slant for the gun nutz, and some PH2 keeps posting erotic stories, Pinto has not been supervising her very well, and you have been exposed again.
The place goes to shit when you are not around.
That’s a picture of Donna Johnson. She was killed in Afghanistan in 2012.
Well, that’s just despicable. Par for the course, totally expected, and despicable.
The sad thing is, people wouldn’t send out these scam emails if they didn’t get a fish to bite every now and then.
From a site that I’m sure will be enjoyed by most: http://www.advocate.com/politics/military/2012/10/05/married-lesbian-soldier-killed-afghanistan
Even if in some miracle of magical fantasy this was true, would not depositing 10.5 million into a bank account trigger an immediate IRS or FBI investigation?
DEFINITELY MAYBE, especially if you haven’t bribed the right politicians and bureaucrats!
Only if you’re a Republican.
If you voted for Obama and have a hope n’ change sticker on your car, you can deposit how much ever you want.
In fact, you don’t really have to pay your taxes if you don’t want to and will even get visits to the white house.
True dat.
Try $5k. Had an interesting phone call when that amount was put in my bank a few years back.
Wow, just wow…the stupid in that letter is so frighteningly obvious as to boggle the mind.
I was unaware of the idea that the US Military had no issue with soldiers starting their own businesses to develop oil fields while actively serving in a combat zone. Is this some new initiative to increase post separation income for those affected by the RIF?
Did you also notice the American rank of SGT is now considered a ‘high-ranking officer’?
As it should be.
Ha the Oil fields,, totally legit…
Come and listen to a story ’bout a soldier named Jed.
Poor PFC barely kept his section fed.
Then one day he was shootin’ at a Dude,
And up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude
Oil that is…
Hadji Gold..
ISIS Tea
Well the next thing you know ol’ Jed’s a Millionaire.
His section all said Jed get away from here!!
Said you can keep the Oil money for yourself,’
Just send out an E-mail just and Asking for some help.
Now that is funny!
That is truly a masterpiece of parody. Well done!
Well, by golly, if it ain’t whatsername! Does she know Nate Wylie? He wanted me to take delivery of two trunk boxes that held a quantity of unknown and undisclosed goodees (his words), which I was just dying to find out about. He’s over in Afgenistan, too.
Should we get them together?
RJ wrote, “That’s a picture of Donna Johnson. She was killed in Afghanistan in 2012.” Indeed, it is. I just checked. And now that we know that, this is no longer the funny topic I regraded it as being. I regret commenting above.
I should have read farther down the coments.
Ah yes, the oil fields of Afghanistan. Located right next to the jungles of Afghanistan which are just a stone’s throw away from the ocean-front beaches of Afghanistan.
Actually, “Afghan oil fields” aren’t exactly a joking matter. The nation is thought to have substantial untapped and economically exploitable oil and natural gas reserves.
https://www2.aapg.org/explorer/2006/07jul/afghanistan.cfm
The nation has vast mineral wealth, as well as absolutely drop-dead gorgeous scenery in places. Give it peace and a tolerant culture (necessary for tourism), and it could indeed be a wonderfully rich land.
I agree about the scenery, Hondo. I was at Bagram and thought it was gorgeous. Especially compared to my next tour which was in Kuwait, which is one of the ugliest places I’ve ever been (and I’ve been to Haiti!)
Agreed. In spite of the added the risk, I thank my lucky stars my time in the CENTCOM AOR was overwhelmingly spent in Afghanistan and Iraq (I ended up doing a small amount of time in Kuwait and Qatar, including some TDY after I’d returned to CONUS). I’d have gone absolutely completely batsh!t crazy if I’d have had to spend much time in Kuwait.
“The Grand Wazoo” doesn’t even begin to describe how bad IMO Kuwait sucked. And Qatar wasn’t much better.
The only “deal in some oil business over there in Afghanistan” that I can think of that would net $132 millon would be charging the DOD for jingle truck loads of fuel that never arrived…. but that could never happen. Nah…
Yes Scammers use KIAs frequently. Their photos, in uniform are usually posted in the stories reporting their death.
A large portion of these scumbags are Nigerian. There are entire gangs of them that get student visas to other countries and work there scams from there.
I must say, that is the lightest skinned Nigerian that I have ever seen. She could pass for white in Alabama.
I think you need to work on your reading comprehension. The soldier photographed was KIA, her image was hijacked from her death announcement.
I can’t believe they’re using the same “Afghanistan Special Forces” ID Card. lol
Between this, that Nigerian prince I was related to, and the IRS money that I didn’t claim… I’ll be as rich as Donald Trump!
They took the picture of Donna Johnson off of the ARMY Times article: http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20140518/NEWS/305180025/Wife-female-soldier-killed-Afghanistan-receive-death-benefits
That is sick for sure, regardless of ones opinion on the ghey marriage issue, taking advange of a dead Soldier and the spouse is the lowest of the low in my book!
A SGT is now a high ranking officer?
What?
She is not real?
She had me at “Iraqi oil deal”!
We all know how that whole Iraqi oil thingy worked out …
Or do we …?
This sounds even better than the Iraqi Dinar scam.
[GULP]
It was a scam?????
An old saying comes to mind. “You can’t cheat an honest man.” It’s the greedy that usually fall for this crap. As well as, unfortunately, the many who are so desperate they’ll give anything that even sounds hopeful a try.
Third paragraph down….”seeking to evacuate”. Would that not mean seeking to shit a big ol’ turd worth millions? If so, I’d like to buy some of the laxatives this fool is using.
I’m thinking that this all started with the Nigerian letters maybe 15 years ago. Does anyone remember a scam like this earlier than the Nigerian letters?
The scams have been going on for decades, if not centuries. The means of transmission changes, the scams adapt, but the principles remain the same.
I used to have stuff to sell over the interwebz, and would get all kinds of obviously phony scams about overpaying, and returning the difference.
I would string them along, have them send me the “payments”, and then play them like trout on a 5 lb line. Lots of fun, and I still have the trophies.
That ID card is so legit, good old Afghanistan Special Force. They are like Special Forces but they only need to show their force one time and it’s end of mission, hence the name Special Force.
We get these weekly and we play with them via FBI Internet fraud and scams. We have a address and phone number for the scanner to communicate with. They’ve been sent Cashier Checks through Federal Express. They fingerprint the envelope and check. It looks real except for the banks real account numbers. One fella I played with before I thought this might bite me in the ass, I sent my real address and phone number. I emailed him back and said I sent $2,500 to each address through Western Union, but said I cashed it at a check cashing place. Then I emailed him and said they didn’t give me a confirmation number at Western Union, did he get the money? No! I emailed him and said I went back to WU and got the money back since it wasn’t picked up and put it in my bank. He called me at 4:00 in the morning yelling where’s my money. It shows his phone number and I told him the FBI came to my house, collected the envelope and the check from my bank. He hung up. I didn’t do crap with the check, but went to the nearest FBI and told the agent what I did. No no, don’t give them teal information. He asked how many times I get these. We all get them and move them to a separate folder. He printed out all the fake emails and gave me the email address and phone number to give to the scammers and tell them that I don’t want my husband to know I’m getting money. Now I can’t play anymore.
The agent said they use real people who have money and lost their family members in a accident or the new Prince in hiding from relatives who want to kill him. Stories are the same thing, but different countries.
CONGRATULATIONS MARY ON YOUR WONDERFUL GIFT LOL
I want to see the briefcase that can hold $10.5M
Please don’t tell me this is a scam.