A typical Phishing Mail would look like as below:
“I sincerely ask for forgiveness for I know this may seem like a complete intrusion to your privacy but right about now this is my option of communication. This mail might come to you as a surprise and the temptation to ignore it as unserious could come into your mind; but please consider it a divine wish and accept it with a deep sense of humility.
I am aware that this is certainly an unconventional approach to starting a relationship.
I am the personal account officer to the great late diseased who has an account in one of our banks here in Burkina Faso . The account was opened in 2001 and he died in 2004 without a written or oral WILL and since 2004 nobody has operated on this account again hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing and Government of Burkina Faso will confiscate the funds for their personal use which I personally don't want such incident to happen being that this is a great opportunity for me.
My contact is for you to please assist me to transfer the fund ($10.6000.00 USD) Ten Million Six Hundred Thousand United State Dollars from a Cooperate Bank here in Burkina Faso to an overseas account. First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential. I am sure and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude. I solicit your assistance to enable us transfer the said amount into your safe account for onward investment.
You can either provide us with an existing account or to set up a new Bank account immediately to receive this money, even an empty a/c can serve to receive this money, as long as you will remain honest to me till the end of this important business trusting in you and believing that you will never let me down either now or in future because this business is my life. The owner of this account is a foreigner and no other person knows about this account or anything concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and until his death he was the manager of the company. My investigation through the National immigration department & Ministries here proved to me as well that he was single as at the time of his entry into the Republic of Burkina Faso . As a matter of fact, I have decided to transfer this fund abroad for investment and also to use my own share of the fund to take my wife to abroad for liver damage treatment. Your assistance as a foreigner is necessary because the management of the bank will welcome any foreigner who has correct information to this account which I will give to you immediately, if you are interested to do this business with me. There is no risk in this business. With my position here in the bank the money can be transferred to any account you can provide with assurance that this money will be intact pending our physical arrival in your country for sharing. Upon successful transfer without any disappointment from your side, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money cannot be approved to a local person here, but can only be approved to any foreigner who has the correct information of the account, which I will provide for you. So you should provide me with your correct account details where you will like the fund to be transferred to, or you can set up a new account for the transfer even an empty account is ok. At the conclusion of the transfer you will take 40%, 10% will be for any expenses both parties incurred in the process of this business and the remaining 50% will be for me. As soon as I hear from you and upon your strong assurance that you will not let me down once the fund goes into your account I will then send you the Text of application form which you will fill with your banking information and send to my bank here for immediate transfer of the fund to your account. If you are interested, please forward the following information as below:
{1} Your Name/company's name and full address,
{2} Bank Name:............
{3} Bank Address...
{4} Account No:.........
{5} Swift Code...{if any}
{6} Account Holder's Name: ..........
{7} your telephone Num. both Home, Office & Cell/Mobile and fax
Numbers...
{8} Your Occupation
{9} Your Valid ID
Waiting for your urgent reply”
Well, this was a mail (infact one of hundreds of mails I receive every day) I got just day before yesterday. Isn’t the informations provided inside the mail ,enough to tempt any ordinary individual? When I opened my first gmail account some three years back, I felt I got a fortune when I received a mail stating I have won a lottery. No no, I didn’t put my name in any such easy money making game. The sender told me it was a randomly searched name and I was the lucky one. I was about to send my informations when suddenly my instincts told me some thing is wrong. I consulted with my banker sister, my criminologist husband and couple of my police friends. Almost all of our net experiences were similar and I decided to resist my temptation. The incidence motivated my sister to inquire and tell me it was a kind of fraud that helps the mischief monger to access the victim’s financial accounts. My husband who was already researching on these incidences immediately went for a deeper research with me as a “case study” and told me this was nothing but another type of cyber crime which India is not very familiar with.
