One Weekend’s Excellent Adventure: A Cautionary Tale

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Fashions and technology change with time, but swindles, it seems, go on forever. In the late 19th century, a favorite con game was the Spanish Prisoner swindle. In this scam, a victim would be singled out and fed a story about a wealthy nobleman languishing in a Spanish prison. If the prisoner could be sprung from durance vile, the person paying his modest ransom would be made rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Occasionally, it was hinted that the prisoner had a beautiful and marriageable daughter. Film buffs may recall that in 1997 David Mamet wrote and directed an intricate confidence-game movie titled, The Spanish Prisoner.

In today’s electronic world, the hoary Spanish Prisoner scam has given way to a new breed of confidence games on the Internet. One of these involves a hidden bequest totaling millions of dollars lying unclaimed in a faraway country, often somewhere in Africa. Another new swindle can best be described as the Stranded Traveler scam in which a friend or acquaintance claims to be traveling abroad and to have left a case containing money, credit cards and valuable documents in a taxi and asks for the loan of a large sum.

The Scam Begins
Few of us have not been exposed in one way or another to this new electronic crime wave of messages that depend on identity theft and the gullibility of its victims. My own brush with identity theft began one recent Friday afternoon when I discovered the following message in my incoming e-mail mailbox with the subject title “Very Urgent”: (NOTE: Original punctuation and spacing errors in messages have been preserved.)

I am writing you in a tensed mood, I had traveled to Spain to visit a new researchers complex (Imperial College, Gallery Section, Barcelona) and unfortunately for me the hotel i lodged got razed by fire. I am so confused right now, I don't know what to do or where to go. I didn't bring my phones here and the hotel telephone lines were disconnected during the incident. So I have access to only emails.

Please can you lend me 960.00 GBP = (1,402.15 USD)for me to relocate to another hotel and also get another flight ticket. As soon as I get home I would refund it immediately.Please I need you to get back to me as soon as possible.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks and Regards,
John Curran

At first glance, this might seem to be a reasonable request. I recognized the name and originating address (brainman2u@yahoo.com) as that of John Curran, the Peekskill City Historian. I have never met Mr. Curran. Although I once sent him an e-mail about historical errors I had found in the Peekskill Museum’s website, I cannot say that I knew him. In fact, our casual relationship would make me a rather unlikely candidate to be hit on for such a large emergency loan.

Moreover, there were several aspects of the message that did not ring true: For one, the initial amount was requested in British pounds and then converted to a dollar amount. But my research showed that the exchange rate between British pounds and US dollars of the message was not the current rate. The message’s pounds to dollars conversion rate of 1.4605729 was wrong. Someone had obviously taken the figure of 960 pounds and converted it to dollars using a rate no longer current. On June 25, the British pound had “soared,” and 960 British pounds would have been the equivalent of $1,446.29. The exchange rate quoted in the e-mail was several weeks out of date—a careless error on the part of the sender.

Research by me on the Internet revealed that the only area of scientific interest the Imperial College of London had in Barcelona was in symposia on blood chemistry. A local historian from Peekskill would hardly be attending such meetings. Also troubling to me was the unusual use of English words and phrases: “I am writing you in a tensed mood”; “the hotel I lodged got razed by fire”; and “flight ticket” for the more common “plane ticket.” Quite obviously, someone for whom English was not the first language had gotten hold of Mr. Curran’s e-mail address and, in effect, his identity.

Computer security experts advise ignoring and destroying all messages that ask for money, or that notify the recipient of a multimillion-dollar bequest or a huge lottery prize for which a nominal fee must be paid in order to collect the money. My own advice goes even further: It is to erase without reading all messages from senders whose names you do not recognize. Above all, recipients should never open any attachment or link to a strange message.

Because I could find no telephone number for Mr. Curran in Peekskill to alert him to the message, I decided to go along with what obviously was a scam. Responding to the message by sending a warning to Mr. Curran at the return e-mail address would have been futile. It was obvious that someone had obtained Mr. Curran’s password and mailing list, and had changed his password. In effect, Mr. Curran was now locked out of his own e-mail messages.

Accordingly, I decided to turn the tables on the identity thief and sent a return message telling “Mr. Curran” that I sympathized with him in his predicament, but added that few people had that much cash available, and the banks were now closed. I pointed out that if he had lost his passport, airline ticket and credit cards, my wife—who had worked for the State Department abroad--suggested that he go to the American consulate in Barcelona, and they would arrange to issue a new passport and help him in other ways. In the meantime, I would work on the problem of getting the money together for him.

In response, I received the following message under the subject heading of “My Hopes on you”:

Thanks, I would appreciate whatever you send to me. I am really elated. This is one experience I would not forget in a hurry, my bills are still piling up. Here are my details for western union transfer:

John Curran
Carrer Ribes, 71, Barcelona 08013

Please send me the full transfer details or attach the receipt when done. Thanks

I now had a street address in Barcelona--something to work on. Research on the Internet revealed that 71 Carrer de Ribes in Barcelona is the address of the Best Western Hotel del Teatro Auditori, near a well-known Barcelona concert hall. It is one of four Best Western hotels in that city, all popular with Americans.

In my response to this message on Sunday, I told “Mr. Curran” that he had many more friends than perhaps he realized. His “rescue fund” had been oversubscribed, and I would have $2,500 available to send to him the following day (Monday) after the banks opened, but he’d have to give me more specific delivery instructions.

I added that No. 71 Carrer de Ribes seemed to be the address of the Best Western Hotel del Teatro Auditori, so I guessed that meant he must have found lodging. I specifically asked him for the address of the nearest Western Union office to which to send the funds. I added, “We are anxious to get you home safely.”

I received the following response:

It is the Hotel and there is a western union outlet close by. If you send it I would be able to get the money from the western union outlet. Please send me a scanned copy of the receipt when done, it would facilitate an easy access to the funds. Please keep me in your prayers.

It was obvious that “Mr. Curran” was not about to designate a specific Western Union address to which the money should be sent. Although I doubt that Barcelona police would even bother, it was obvious that our “Mr. Curran” was not anxious to be confronted by a police detective when he called to pick up his remittance. In my response to this message, I again asked him to specify delivery details and to specify the amount needed. The following was his response late Sunday evening:

Thanks for your efforts. Please send the amount as it would cover all costs over here. Please send me the scanned receipt after sending it this morning as it would go a long way in ensuring I get the money without any problem. Thanks again.

The Trap Is Sprung
By Monday morning I knew the time was drawing near to bring this little charade to a close. Still unable to reach the real John Curran, I did a bit of Internet sleuthing and obtained detailed personal information about him that only an experienced Internet genealogical researcher could ferret out. I sent the phony “Mr. Curran” the following e-mail:

John: It took a little longer than I expected to get the money together. I have decided that $1,750.00 should be enough to cover all your expenses. This is $350.00 more than the amount you originally wrote that you needed. As you agreed, this money is to be repaid upon your return to the United States.

Before transmitting the money to you, however, I want to be sure that I am dealing with the real John Curran. Accordingly, I shall send you the sum of $1,750.00 via Western Union immediately in Barcelona if you will answer the following questions:

1. What is the name of the cross street nearest to the Museum?
2. What is your age?
3. What was your mother's maiden name?
4. What is the date of your father's death?
5. Where is your father buried?

These five simple questions involve information only you can know and should be easy for you to answer. They do not involve remembering credit card numbers or passport numbers or similar information you may have forgotten.

As they say in Chinese laundries, "No tickee, no shirtee."

Needless to say, all correspondence ceased with “John Curran,” supposedly a traveler from Peekskill stranded in Spain.

The real John Curran called me later that morning from the Peekskill Museum. “I understand you have been trying to reach me,” he said. He was already well aware of the commotion that had been stirred up in this part of Westchester by a flood of bogus e-mail messages from Spain.

It turned out that he had been moving to a new address that weekend, and could not be reached. Sheepishly, he admitted that he had caused the entire brouhaha by foolishly responding to a message purporting to be from his Internet service provider warning him that his service would be discontinued if he did not “re-register” his e-mail address and password immediately.

Of course, the moment he furnished his password, the scammer was able to change his password and thus deny him access to his own e-mail address. From that point on, all correspondence directed to Mr. Curran went right into the scammer’s hands.

I related the story of my “excellent adventure” to Mr. Curran. He was both pleased that the swindler had gotten his comeuppance and surprised that I had been able to uncover so much personal information about him and his family to trip up the scammer. I had to explain to him that there is more information on the Internet available to skilled researchers than most people realize.

He was also interested in what could be done about tracking down the culprit. I explained to him that trying to uncover the identity of the scammer would be difficult. The Spanish police would not expend much effort, especially since Mr. Curran had himself supplied his password to the scammer.

With unemployment in Spain hovering at 20%, I told Mr. Curran that the person he was seeking was probably an unemployed youth with a knowledge of English and familiarity with computers and the Internet. and a script and address list—one of thousands no out of a job.. At that very moment, he was probably pensively sitting at a café table somewhere in Barcelona, a cigarette dangling from his lips. From time to time, he would look up from the screen of his laptop and gaze toward the west, where lay a faraway country with streets paved with gold and where, for one brief moment, some easy money was almost in his grasp--or so he thought..

It turns out that Shakespeare was right. Even though the Internet and identity theft were five centuries in the future, in Othello, he has Iago say, “Who steals my purse steals trash,” and follows this with, “But he who filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.”