NIGERIA MASTERWEB DAILY NEWS

*How To Outsmart Internet Scammers (419)

By Ikechukwu Enyiagu (ike.enyiagu@gmail.com)

Scamming has formed a formidable traffic on the cyberspace over the years and the certainty of coming across them, be it in your emails, websites or even your social networks, is matchless; they are simply unavoidable. However, instead of trying to device means of avoiding these network of scammers, there are actually simple steps towards making them realize that they are not as wise as they pretend to be after all and, maybe even have a greater opportunity of trailing them. ( Continues below..... )

Photo Above: American displays a 419 forged cashier's check

There are two reasons one could be prone to scams:

1. You may be the soft-hearted type that you can’t resist the thought of being “your brother’s keeper.”

2. You may be the over-imagining type, who dreams of a world of chess-you seek riches at no expense.

Whichever category you fit in, I will like to help you in “looking before leaping.” One important point I would like to stress on here is that no field, as long as the worldwideweb is concerned, is left out; This scamming network covers the government, religious, organization, and business circles.

So, these are the things you could do to get the real scammers running when you happen to face them in a net combat:

1. Never use you official email in communicating with them-create a new email address.

2. If you are using a Gmail account, use your Gmail inbuilt IP finder to track the source by doing these:

a. Log into your Gmail account with your username and password.

b. Open the mail.

c. Click on the inverted triangle beside “Reply” and select “Show Original”.

d. Look for “Received: from” followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ].

e. If you find more than one Received: from patterns, select the last one.

f. Copy the IP address enclosed in a bracket like this [10.142.250.5]

3. If you are using a Yahoo! mail account, use your inbuilt IP finder to track the source by doing these:

a. Log into your Yahoo! mail with your username and password.

b. Click on Inbox or whichever mail you you want to track its source.

c. Click on the inverted triangle beside “Action” and select “View Full Headers”.

d. Look for “Received: from” followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ]. That should most likely be the IP address of the sender. However, if there are many instances of “Received: from” with the IP address, select the IP address in the last pattern. If not, select the first IP address in X-Originating-IP.

e. Copy the IP address enclosed in a bracket like this [10.142.250.5]

4. If you are using Windows Hotmail, you should probably:

a. Log into your Hotmail/Windows Live account with your username and password.

b. Click on the Inbox link on the left.

c. Open the email you want to track and click on the inverted triangle beside “Reply” and select “view message source”.

d. If you find a header with X-Originating-IP: followed by an IP address, that is the sender's IP address. If that doesn't work, look for “Received: from” followed by IP address within brackets[]. If you have multiple “Received: from” headers, eliminate the ones that have proxy. anyknownserver.com.

5. If you are using AOL, then:

a. Follow the same procedure as in Hotmail/Windows Live account and

b. Click on Inbox or whichever mail you want to track its source.

c. Click on the inverted triangle beside “Action” and select “View Message Source”.

d. Once you have the headers, look for the IP address that follows X-AOL-IP. That should be the IP address of the sender.

e. Copy the IP address enclosed in a bracket like this [10.142.250.5] Once you have copied out the IP address, go to any of these free IP address locator or tracer to check its course(in the case which the sender is not using “Hide IP” software): http://www.myiptest.com/staticpages/index.php/IP-Lookup or http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/, or any of the free IP address locators on the net.

6. If you negotiate the person in a Yahoo! chat( with a new Yahoo! messenger, and not your official one), you can also get his IP address by doing this:

a. Simply send the person a big file (Not less than 3 megabytes) via Yahoo Messenger File Transfer. Once he/she accepts the file, his/her computer makes a direct connection with your computer for the file

b. Go to “Start" button and type CMD and hit Enter

c. Now type “netstat -n” in the command prompt. You can notice two columns as Local Address and Foreign Address there. Local address is your address while foreign address is the IP of the recipient with whom you are sharing the file.

d. You will get an output. Suppose the following is the output:"TCP 129.11.25.10:5181 174. 26.20.64:1645 ESTABLISHED”, then 174.26.20.64 is the IP address of that person and 1645 is the port number where the file transfer is taking place. You are through with this place.

e. Copy it into any of the given IP address trackers and find out where the person is truly chatting with you from.

7. In the event that you engage in a chat with the person and he/she has seen you via webcam, insist on viewing the person too in other to ascertain that he/she is not imposing.

8. When the person calls, insist that he/she calls and sends you sms with the same phone with which he/she calls-no land phone and no “private number, anonymous call, or 4 and 5 digits numbers generated from call cards). This will enable you beat the ones who use online UK free numbers and numbers like that. Whenever you call, let him/her speak first and call your name so as to make sure that your names appears in his/her phone. In most cases where they use free online UK numbers, incoming calls to that UK numbers often appear as “private calls.”

9. When you are given any government’s site, use your google search engine and type, for example, “the name of a school, government, bank, church, or company’s websites”. This will take you automatically to the official site of the website they gave you. In this place, you can check the email address and the phone/fax number they have given you to find out their authenticity. If it’s a scam, you will find the deceiving coinage in the phone/fax numbers and the email address or the websites given.

10. Do not, for any reason, give out the expiration date and the last 4 or 5 digit numbers in you credit cards unless you have made official and concretized contacts with him/her.

11. Confirm every document with the local and relevant authorities (from the countries where the deal is said to be originating from-be it marriage documents, the involvement of a solicitor or courier service companies) to ascertain their authenticity before indulging. ( Continues below..... )

Photo Above: Nigeria Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officers and police prepare to bust a Cyber Cafe in Lagos, Nigeria.

Finally, if you are already caught in such conversation and wish to find out their authenticity and, if they are scammers, how easily you can thwart their plans, simply follow these steps to the later and you can be sure to outsmart them. At the slightest idea that you may have uncovered their traps, most of them will bolt and leave you alone while others will linger and be trapped. With these methods, and your instincts, you will never be scammed by an untraceable individual or organization.

View @ http://www.nigeriamasterweb.com/Disclaimer.html

*Tags: Nigerians, World, Internet, 419, Scammers, Africa, Masterweb