The Homeland Security 419

I received the following junk mail the other day. I found it to be an interesting twist on the Nigerian 419. This one claims to be from the Department of Homeland Security and states that you have been speaking to imposters in your attempt to collect some money. They claim that all you have to do is fill in some personal information, and they’ll make sure you get your funds, payable in a debit-Visa card. It’s a service provided by them to protect you. Great! Do I even need to state that this is a scam? OK good – you already knew. But here is the full letter for your perusal:

From The Desk Of Mrs. Janet Napolitano
Secretary of US Department of Homeland Security Washington D.C.
Email: janetnapolii@att.net

Attention Beneficiary,

Records show that you are among one of the individuals and organizations who are yet to receive their overdue payment from overseas which includes those of Lottery/Gambling, Contract and Inheritance.

Through our Fraud Monitory Unit we have also noticed that over the past you have been transacting with some imposters and fraudsters and some imposters claiming to be The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Cyber Crime Division of the Homeland Security gathered information from the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) formerly known as the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) of how some people have lost outrageous sums of money to these Imposters. As a result of this we hereby advise you to stop communication with any one not referred to you by us.

We have negotiated with the Federal Ministry of Finance of Malaysia that your payment totaling $2,500,000.00 will be released to you via a custom pin based ATM card with a maximum withdrawal limit of $95,000 a day which is powered by Visa Card and can be used anywhere in the world for for withdraw or transaction.

We have advised that this should be the only way at which you are to receive your payment because it’s more guaranteed, since over $5 billion was lost on fake cheque last year 2011. We have perfected everything in regards to the release of your $2.5 million United States Dollars to be 100% risk free and free from any hitches as it’s our duty to protect citizens of the United States of America. (This is as a result of the mandate from US Government to make sure all debts owed to citizens of American which includes Inheritance, Contract, Gambling/Lottery etc are been cleared for the betterment of the current economic status of the nation and its citizens as he has always believed “Our Time for Change has come” because “Change can happen”).

To redeem your fund you are hereby advised to abide to the insutruction below to enable the shipment of the Premium Visa Credit card and it back up document and the charge fee required to to pay the shipping and security insurance fee which is $200 only nothing more and no hidden fees as everything else has been taken care of by the Federal Government including taxes, custom paper and clearance duty so all you will ever need to pay is $200 only which is for the shipping and security insurance fee.

Fill in below with your personal information.

Full Name…………..
Full Address…………..
Phone Number……………
Sex……….
Occupation………
Country……………
Age…….

Please get back to me with your personal information and also a confirmation email to know if you are sending down the fee which is $200 to me or not,so that i can send down the payment information in which you are to use in making the payment of $200 down to me. Once again i am so 100% sure of you receiving your payment at no any other cost as we have taking it upon our duty to monitor everything in other to cub cyber crime that is perpetrated by those impostors.

Thanks.
Mrs. Janet Napolitano
Secretary of US Department of Homeland Security
Address: 245 Murray Ln Sw # 14, Washington D.C.
About Me website: http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/gc_1232568253959.shtm

Obviously the letter itself is riddled with errors and strange grammar. Such things as spelling the word “cheque” using non-American English are telling. Such phrases as “To redeem your fund…” point to a non-English writer of this phony email. The problem is, some people still buy into this stuff. If they didn’t, the scammers wouldn’t keep sending them out. Fortunately, most spam filters catch this junk, and even then you’ll find people who look in their junk folder and still believe it. Is that greed or just plain stupidity?

Bottom line: You don’t have funds waiting for you overseas, nor can you help anyone collect on funds and expect a cut. Life just isn’t that easy people.