419 Scammers using Google search to find new victims?
419 Fraudsters are beginning to use technology more frequently to defraud unsuspecting victims. I see slick, professionally designed emails and websites, clever social engineering skills, and scam emails targeted at specific people on a daily basis. That was likely the goal of the scammer who used Google Search to find Yahoo! and AOL email addresses of people in the US who desperately needed funds. Yes, the scammer did a Google search for the search string: “email address of people in the US who need funds @yahoo or AOL mail“. Among the search results was a link to my lottery scams page where I explain the methods used by lottery scammers to scam unsuspecting victims. The scammer was foolish enough to click on the link, effectively revealing your IP address and the exact search string you used.
A couple of things immediately jumped out at me when I looked at the visitor statistics data. The visitor was from Nigeria, with the IP address 196.1.179.153, one that is often involved in email scams and spam. His Internet service provider was Nitel, the main telecommunications company in Nigeria. What caught my attention the most was the search string used by this visitor. Did the scammer really think that he would find the email address of a US citizen, searching for funds on the Internet, using a Yahoo! or AOL’s email address and also, leave it on the web for anyone to use? It’s like going to Amazon, hoping to find special deals on 419 Scam Victims, or having a victim delivered to you on a silver platter. But is a search like this really that far-fetched?
A couple of interesting theories occurred to me when I analyzed the search string.
- 419 scammers target people living in the United States. Why? Perhaps they have a better success rate with the Americans;
- They prefer people who use Yahoo! and AOL. Why? Yahoo!’s spam filter and AOL isn’t as effective as Gmail and it’s probably easier for scammers to communicate with people who use these email services. Also note that the scammer did not look up Hotmail email addresses. According to 419eater.com, some scammers don’t like to chat with Hotmail users; Y
- They specifically target people who need financial assistance. Why? People with serious financial problems are often desperate and will do anything to improve their financial situation. 419 scammers exploit this desperation, making it easier to convince these victims.
I understand that it’s hard to base solid theories on a single incident, so these are just a couple of possibilities from a personal standpoint. 419 scammers send email to many countries, not just the United States, they send email to Gmail and other email accounts, not just Yahoo! and AOL and send email in bulk, like a spammer with a shotgun approach, they often have no idea who the recipients would be.
What can we learn through this behavior? Do not post your personal email address in any public area of the web and do not reveal your financial status on the web. Scammers will use this to their advantage. If they have your email address in their possession and at the same time know about your financial problems, then they can send you a very specific and compelling email, putting them in the right place at the right time. I still think it was wishful thinking on the part of the scammer to do such a limited search, hoping to find a victim that fits this profile. However, this scammer inadvertently revealed one of their collection methods, so let’s take the necessary precautions and make it difficult for scammers to find new victims.