Saturday, August 2, 2008

Your Next Web Advertisement Request May Come From Nigeria!

Your Next Partnership Enquiry Might Come From Here (Lagos, Nigeria)
According to a post on F-Secure site regarding email messages circulating requesting for advertisements and bearing subject lines are Partnership Enquiry and Website Partnership Enquiry. The names of the senders include Richard Thompson, Edward Johnson, Daniel Lee, Jason Miller, George Nelson, et cetera.
The content of the messages are as such:

To: *deleted*.com
Subject: Partnership Enquiry

Hello,

My name is Jason Miller and I am contacting you to discuss the option of purchasing a text link
or banner on your website (*deleted*.com ).

Could you please tell me what is the price of one text link:

1) on your homepage only
2) all your pages
3) banner ad 120x60, 125x125 on homepage
4) banner ad 120x60, 125x125 on all pages

Thank you in advance!
Jason Miller

There are other examples at F-Secure site and also explanation as how these people manage to scam unsuspecting people, just as in
a form of Advance fee fraud alias Nigerian 419 fraud. So Follow this link and educate yourself. You will save some money and grief.
Also another blogger had these suggestions and an active discussion at his site.

So the next time you get an email solicitation for display ads or text link ads (paid links) on your website, be cautious and do a little bit of due diligence:

1. Investigate your buyer thoroughly: do they leave an appropriate name, place of business, and phone number? Do they have an actual website that they want to advertise? Do the owners of the website *know* the alleged buyer of the advertising?

2. Wait for that check to clear: the scam only works if you don’t realize that the check doesn’t clear / it does bounce. This is a non-issue if you’re being paid via Paypal, but if you’re being mailed anything it always helps to be cautious.

3. You can always ask to send the correct amount! ;)


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No Nigerians were harmed in this post. It is the fact that this type of scams are called "Nigerian 419 fraud" and need to use that in order to explain the matter in proper manner.