Mr. John Paulson of Financial Loan Firm - We Offer Financial Services

John Paulson seems to be ubiquitous in my email lately and I’m sure he has a financial offer filled with services I cannot refuse.  However, I know he wants to get into my wallet.  Lets see how your identity can be stolen when you give into this form of scam.

I am including the poorly written letter to show you why protecting your identity is essential to your financial future and your omnipresent credit score.

Mr. John Paulson of Financial Loan Firm - We Offer Financial Services

LOAN FIRM SERVICE

Okay really what do you see wrong in the above headline.  Please tell me you smell an identity theft scam. No? Keep going.

We are a fully registered and certified loan agency that offers loan And other kind of financial services, at a very low interest rate, within A maximum of 3 working days, to all genuinely interested individuals And co-operate financier for real estate and any kinds of business
Financing across the globe.

Please read the sentence again.  It is screaming “unprofessional” and here are the tell-tale signs of identity theft fraud in progress:

• no proper period placement
• capital letters are misused (see the word “And”)
• the sentence does not make sense due to wrong use of words and placement of words
• the whole paragraph is a one sentence run-on

On we go to protect your from scams, hence the next paragraph

We offer Loans to individuals, Firms and co-operate bodies at 3% interest rate per annum, Loan terms determinant. The Minimum/Smallest amount you can borrow is $5,000.00 US Dollars to Maximum of $10.Million.

Why would we capitalize these words: Loans, Firms, Loan, Minimum, Smallest, Maximum, and Million? For no reason besides stealing your money and psychologically, or stupidly, showing you terms which are related to money in a prominent way.  Please read on…

Are you looking for funds to finance that project of yours, or you are Financially broke, Why not Come and get a very genuine loan, from a very Genuine and reliable source, and put a final stop to all your financial Needs. If interested in our financial services, contact our loan service,
At:
E-mail:johnpaulson_loanlender@yahoo.cn
Contact Name: Mr. John Paulson
Tel: +2347038884969
Tel: 0117038884969

Again notice the mistakes with the misuse of the Caps Lock key.  But more importantly see the psychological ques given off by the friendly way of writing. This is a very horrible way to get me to call you Mr. Paulson.

Important: the yahoo.cn domain in John Paulson’s email address for your use.  Professional agencies like a financial institution will more than likely use their website domain that says this is a professional email from a reputable institution.

joeshmoe@bankofamerica.com

janedoe@americanexpress.com

But even then scammers, phishers, and hackers can use cloaking tactics to make an email address seem authentic.

Why would you use a yahoo domain registered in another country (the “.cn” after “yahoo”) to commit fraud? Because, certain countries have lenient policies on online fraud; more precisely stated: they just cannot keep up with the identity theft crime wave.

Additionally, the overseas phone number which is quite easy to distinguish is another red flag that should pop up in your head before calling.

One great thing is that this particular email had no clickable links in it, so a chance for a trojan, virus, or spyware infection was close to nil.

You may not be gullible to fall for such a scam but if you are easily coerced you may go further than you wanted in an effort to get that $10.Million, Loan from generous Mr. John Paulson whose LOAN FIRM SERVICE is apparently the company name.

Protect yourself from identity theft scams like this one by installing a spam filter on your email program.  Microsoft Outlook comes with a Junk-Email Spam Filter which can drop emails like this one straight into the trash.  If you don’t use Outlook and have a web based e-mail system like Yahoo Mail or MSN Hotmail you should be pretty much covered on that end.  Just make sure to log-in and change the settings to set this up, if it already isn’t.

Ohh..and one more thing: use your common sense.  I didn’t expect this fraudulent offer in my email box, did you? That’s the point. You will usually get snail mail with such offers and requests, but even then use caution to avoid identity theft and the adverse consequences of being scammed.

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