Advance Fee Fraud ( Musicians Beware)

Scams are constantly getting more innovative...this one targeting musicians is one that I have never seen before until I received this e-mail a few days ago. You'd think with all this trouble that people go to that they would learn to spell. (alright downtown, no comments from the penis gallery...) I thought that I would e-mail the chick back even though I thought it had to be some kind of scam...I mean when the e-mail is from Deborah Jones, starts out with "Good Day", is full of mistakes and bad grammar, and is signed Lateefah....light bulbs should be going off... right?

The emails:

On 5/9/05, Deborah Jones
wrote:

Good day,

I read all your , discovery with past events and I
was pleased with it.Love your muziq very well.There
will be a Get Together @ Helotes Lions Club, 14690
State Hwy 16 N, Helotes, Texas 78023-0424 in the month
of JUNE which we have'nt really choosen a date.To
plan ahead and print our IV , i want to know which day
and date you will be free to play on the event so we
can talk about duration,charges & deposit needed.

Your urgent responce is needed.
Lateefah.

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--- Lobelia Sabo wrote:

Hi Lateefah,

I thank you for your mail and the kind words on my music. You do know that I am located in Montreal, Quebec? My out of the country fees for shows must include airfare and accommodation. Please let me know if you are still interested.

Warm regards,

Lobelia

From: Deborah Jones
Date: May 10, 2005 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: booking
To: Lobelia Sabo


Thanks for the responce which was higly appreciated
when recieved.I and fellow organisers voted and you
stand a great chance to perform at the Get Together
coming up on Saturday 25th June which is 11days after
Flag Day [USA].

The sum of $6,000 will be issued and sent by one of
our volunteers who also happens to me one of our guest
of honor at the occasion.Payment will be in cashier's
cheque and immediately you recieve the cheque and you
acknowledge the reciept,i will give you information &
instructions on how the excess money can be sent over
to a traveling agency in UK who will be in charge of
getting tickets for our MC & few guests who are
students.

To send the money,i will forward to you the
information and instructions on how the money can be
sent over to the travelling agent through western
union money transfer.

Kindly send me your full name and address so the
payment can be issued and sent to you asap while IV
arrangements commence immediately.

Lastly,let me know how much you will be deducting from
the $6,000 so i can have my collegues know the balance

Lateefah.

So what I did was log in to my spamcop account (sign up it's free) and searched for only the email address. I was then provided with the abuse addresses to whom forwarded the correspondence with "Advance Fee Fraud" in the subject. This should get "Debbie Jones" shut down at that address pretty quickly. It's important to do this because she has probably sent a lot of other people the same mail. They emailed me back almost immediately to tell me that they are investigating the matter and to give me the tracking number. It's so great that they are so on the ball!

But I just couldn't resist and had to send Lateefah another e-mail...

Hi Lateefah,

Thank you for your response. I visited the Lions Club of Helotes'
website today but did not find your name in the list of club
officers/contacts. The address was listed as 14690 Bandera Rd....has
that changed since you sent me the email?

My fee for US shows is indeed $6000. This leaves nothing for the
travel agents in the UK I afraid. Can you tell me the theme of your
get together at the Lions Club? I could find nothing about it on the
web.

Thanks,

Lobelia

I'll keep you posted!
XOXOX