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Nigerian Letters 

I assume you have heard of the Negerian Letters scam. They come in several varieties, and I have collected a large number of samples of "Nigerian" letters, separated into categories:

enjoy

If you know of other scams that need to be told, please email me at yuenchungkwong@yahoo.com

a recent one, a bit different - wonder if the guy even had an accomplice in Japan if someone actually calls Telephone: +8821652072682; the website www.stmei.com exists

Virus Scams

I am not collecting information about viruses as such, since this would be too technical, only about business scams involving viruses.

Several years ago I noticed a message button on my office machine warning me that my machine was not protected against viruses; clicking on it generated a browser page for buying a supposed anti-virus software. Since our IT people always installed anti-virus software, the message was clearly a scam, but since there were no other activities and it looked harmless, I simply ignored it.

Recently I had a much worse infection on my home desktop: First the Internet Explorer home page was changed to a "virus defender" buy page; then a number of different message buttons, one linked to a "security software" button on the task bar, two others in their own windows, kept popping up; if I simply ignored them, they eventually generate their own browser windows with different versions of the software buy page; finally, the desktop picture got changed to an advertisement page (which actually had sub-frames with messages and icons - some kind of distributed process and storage). The virus appears to be embedded in some component used by the Windows Explorer - I noticed that when it was working to generate its browser page, the Explorer process would use up almost 100% of the CPU time.

Running several virus scan software did not solve the problem: some bits were found but not the main virus itself. I was also unable to do a system restore - somehow the virus anticipated it and destroyed something needed to carry this out.

Eventually I suppressed it by installing a new 15 day trial copy of Norton Security System, which did not find the virus nor stop its operations but probably built a new firewall that prevented the virus from accessing the network and other needed items. Then I did a disk defragmentation, during which the virus ceased to operate and the previous desktop returned - somehow the virus's file embedding was disrupted.

The Norton software has since anounced it blocked several attempted entries of Trojan.Maliframe!html which I believe is the "antivirus" virus.

Count

Besides Nigeria 

Two other scams were often heard of in Taiwan

1. Fake kidnap: first you kept spamming the mobile phone of someone, till he/she gets fed up and turns the phone off; then you call a family member to say that the person has been kidnaped and a ransom need to be paid; when calls to that person's phone do not get through, the family member gets frightened and believes the kidnap story, electronically transfers money before contact was resumed.

2. Fake audit: you phone someone to tell him/her that his/her identity has been stolen, or his/her tax return/bank account has some problems; some kind of auditing/investigation is being carried out, and he/she is required to temporarily move his/her money into a new secure account

Below is an attempt at identity theft:

When clicked, it goes to a website hosted in Shanghai.

I sent the email to Amazon feedback, but their automated system did not know what to do with it; I guess it's not my problem to worry about. 

I heard this about doing business in China

An overseas Chinese from Taiwan, Hongkong, Malaysia, Singapore, etc, starts a business, importing some technology and machinery from overseas and marketing through some channels of his own and others his partners/employees are familiar with. Initially things go well and after a while he thinks the operation is settled enough without him having to be present all the time. He starts to spend more time in his home country or elsewhere looking after other matters, and maintains control via phone, email, documents, etc.

For a while things go normally, but gradually, unnoticed at first, communication becomes less frequent, and one day goes completely quiet. After making futile efforts to resume contact, he goes back to the factory/business premise, and find it all but empty. Confused and surprised, he might make some enquiries, and might eventually discover that some- where in the city, perhaps just down the street, there is a new enterprise operated by his previous partners/employees, producing the same products and selling to the same customers. Legal recourse to recover the business is virtually impossible, and often dangerous since the other parties usually arranged some backing among the local authorities. The previous owner could find himself arrested for having broken laws in the past operations of the business - it is all but impossible to do business without having broken some law or other - and gets released only if he signs documents giving up any claims. Even worse outcomes are possible.