Feedback Sandwich Redux

I have written earlier about online scams. The previous story involved a tripartite scam.  Scammer 1 posts a Craigslist ad for a skid steer.  They promise to ship it to me, once I give payment to a third-party freight forwarder.  The harsh light of common sense shows that the seller and the shipper are the same party, that the address in Kansas is a parking lot, and that the people creating the online content probably sit in Russia.  I was impressed because it didn’t look like a scam at first.  The product to be sold was used heavy machinery, advertised in the Craigslist market of Binghamton, NY, for Christ’s sake.  The price was good, but not unbelievable.  I associate scammers with used car salesmen and Nigerian princes.  This one caught me off guard for a minute or two.

I was recently a target of a much clumsier scam targeted specifically at people in the manufactured housing industry.  But first – a word from our sponsor.

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Now, back to our usual programming.

This morning, I received the following email from Streamlines Consulting (streamlinesconsulting[at]gmail[dot]com).  Streamlines had sent the email to themselves, and sent me a bcc:

Dear sir

We received your contacts from Cameroon chambers of commerce and industry Yaounde , republic of Cameroon in Central Africa.

We are consulting firm from Cameroon central Africa and we were contracted by a government official who is the chairman incharge of the tender and contract award for the building and supply of mobile homes for government projects in Cameroon.  The chairman contracted us to recommend foreign firm who can manage a tender and handle a contract to build and supply quantity and quality mobile homes to cameroon. 

If your company is able to handle the above contract , kindly send to us by email attachment your  recommended BOAT GA,SPECIFICATION and we will recommend your  company and your homes for this tender and your company to the tender chairman and he will contact you for further details.

Thanks

Mrs Babara jones

Business Dev manager

CONSULT STREAMLINES CAMEROON

+236 549585

www[dot].streamlinesconsulting[dot]org

Unlike the skid steer scam, this email is an insult to the recipient’s intelligence. It screams “Nigerian Scammer”, even though the address is in Cameroon.  I will leave it to the mobile home manufacturers in the audience to respond to this one.  I am not really the best mark here because I don’t make homes – I just fill them.  Surely someone at Clayton or Champion can handle this.  I am not going to dignify it with a response or with more copy, but readers are encouraged to contact Mrs Barbara jones to have their on-line fun with her.