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Thursday 9 August 2007

Email "dating scams"


Sometimes scammers will try to lure you with a "dating scam" - usually a trick to gain money or possibly a visa. The basic setup is described here at Hoax-Slayer.com.

Often, these scams will use a throwaway email address at Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail for responses, however these are often shut down so the latest trick is to register domains that look like genuine webmail addresses but aren't. Here's an example:

Hello! I am bored this afternoon. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at mcmm@mailmessagecenter.info only, because I am writing not from my personal email. Don't miss some of my naughty pictures.
(Note the phrase "I am writing not from my personal email", because this comes from a spoofed address to make it harder to block.)

Now, mailmessagecenter.info looks like the sort of domain name you'd associate with a webmail account. In fact, it's hosted on a Chinese server at 124.254.2.226 along with a number of other domains. It appears that all of these domain names have been created to pursue this scam, so if you receive and email from any of them then just delete it.

  • Freemailwap.info
  • Imailmessage.info
  • Imailvision.info
  • Jumpcutpost.info
  • Jumpemail.info
  • Latinmailemail.info
  • Lonelyheartwaiting.com
  • Lovegalaxys.com
  • Loveisspecial.com
  • Loveonlylove.com
  • Mailmessagecenter.info
  • Mailmessageonline.info
  • Mailownemail.info
  • Mailvisionworld.info
  • Outmaildirect.info
  • Penmailpro.info
  • Postionvision.info
  • Presummermail.info
  • Romanticloveforever.com
  • Simpleitislove.com
  • Thaibestmail.info
  • Theamericanmail.info
  • Thefriendlymail.info
  • Thelovingplace.net
  • Tonsofloves.com
  • Worldmeetlove.com
Some of these sites are fake mail sites, others are fake dating sites. Unlike many scams, there's a fair level of sophistication to this one so it's quite possible to see that it might drag in some unsuspecting victims.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Just got a txt message on my phone that looked funny. I did a google search and found this. Thanks for the info and possibly saving me some headaches. All I ever needed to learn I learned in kindergarden. Cant trust strangers.