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If you’ve had an email account for longer than twenty-four hours, you’re probably familiar with “419” (or Nigerian, since that’s usually the country of origin) scams and phishing in general. For those of you that aren’t, here’s an example of what I’m referring to, taken from my own email account over the last week:

“THE PRESIDENCY OFFICE OF THE CHIEF AUDITOR TO THE PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL CREDIT SETTLEMENT DEPT CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA AND THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE Our Ref: FGN /SNT/STB ATTENTION BENEFICIARY: THIS IS TO OFFICIALLY INFORM YOU THAT WE HAVE VERIFY ON YOUR CONTRACT /INHERITANCE FILE AND FOUND OUT THAT WHY YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOT FULFILL THE OBLIGATIONS GIVING TO YOU IN RESPECT TO YOUR CONTRACT / INHERITANCE PAYMENT. SECONDLY …”

These are known as “419 scams” because that’s the section of the Nigerian penal code that covers this type of fraud.

And now, they’re coming after bloggers.

Here’s how it works:

● As a blog (or website) owner, you receive an email out of the blue, usually with a subject line along the lines of “partnership enquiry” or “website partnership enquiry”, requesting the opportunity to purchase ads on your website.
● If you respond, they will negotiate a price in the thousands of dollars, whether your site’s advertising is worth this amount or not. (It’s usually not.)
● If you agree, they will send you a check (no PayPal, etc) for the amount agreed on plus a few thousand dollars.
● Before the check arrives, they will notify you of an “accounting oversight,” and request that you return the overpayment to them as soon as you receive the check.
● The check you receive from them, needless to say, is worthless. However, it may take some time for that to become apparent. If you deposit or cash the check and send them the difference, sooner or later your account will have the original check amount deducted, possibly resulting in a negative balance for you, and however many thousands of dollars you “returned” to them being gone forever.

This is a particularly insidious version of the classic email scams, because instead of relying on the gullibility of the recipient, it actually seems to be offering something that most bloggers are actively working and hoping for.

Remember Dave’s Golden Rule of the Internet…if it’s too good to be true, you can’t hit the “delete” button fast enough. The only way to get advertising deals worth thousands of dollars is to put in the work on your blog or online business to make it worth that.

There are no suckers in the online advertising world…unless you allow yourself to become one.

For more information on this scam (and a screenshot of an actual email) head to this page at F-Secure.com.

Posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am in Blogging | rss feed for comments| Leave a response, or trackback