Every now and then a 419 scammer dredges up an old scam mail, gives it a bit of spit and polish then sends it back out into the wild.
The “International Reconciliation and Logistics Vault” has been a subject for 419 attempts for a number of years now, though the typical format of these missives tends to be more like this one. Indeed, here it comes again:
FROM INTERNATIONAL RECONCILIATION AND LOGISTICS VAULTINTERNATIONAL RECONCILIATION AND LOGISTICS VAULT UNITED NATIONS OFFICE (UN) COMPENSATION SETTLEMENT OF ESCROW ACCOUNTS.
Attn:
It is a pleasure to write you that we have reconciled with our logistic department on the reimbursement of some fund spent by you during the cause of your inadequate dealings with some imposers who claim to be staff in banks and other regional payment centers. Our reconciliation teams with the prospectus instrument of the United Nations after freezing suspected imposers account. This support was fully effective with the help of World Bank after a summit meeting in London, on the financial analysis and financial stability issues fluctuating the economy with the international global standard.
After gathering of this sum, our logistic department gave us a list of beneficiaries to be paid a sum of $6.700,000.00 United States Dollars who fell victims to these imposers due to unawareness. And mode of payment was as well specified for proper conducts and financial regulations to kick against criminality during process of payment. We have arranged your payment through our swift card centers, with the latest instruction from United Nations Office And International Monetary Fund Reconciliation Office.
The card center will send you an Atm Master Card which you will use to withdraw your money in any Atm Center, Banks and Union Pay Credit outlets in the world; You are hereby selected as an honor for this payment approval worth $6.700,000.00 United States Dollars, which you are to acknowledge the receipt of this mail in returning the required below to the Logistic Department by email listed below for immediately release of your above stated compensated funds so that there will be not mistake while delivering your funds to your home.
Some things to note between this and another version from 2013:
1) We have “imposers” instead of “imposters”. Presumably something went wrong with the CTRL+C / CTRL+V process.
2) They now mention a sum of $6.700,000.00, because “Here’s a gigantic pile of cash” is always going to sound more appealing than mentioning no figure at all.
3) They’re now touting a supposed “ATM Master Card” instead of a plain old ATM debit card.
4) “…on the financial analysis and financial stability issues fluctuating the economy with the international global standard” is still present, and makes no sense in this or any other version of reality.
5) They’ve removed Barry White as the “Contact Manager”, replacing him with someone a little less likely to set “Their name is WHAT?!” alarm bells ringing (Helen Malter).
6) They now want name, address, sex, phone number, age, occupation, country and passport “and ID card, if any”. The other version of this mail didn’t drill down quite so much.
7) They mention that there will be an $85 dollar delivery fee for the “donation parcel” – again, the older email didn’t cite any figures.
8) The older mail is from “Robert Ferguson”, but this time around the sender is “Mr. Thomas Stanley”.
Should you receive this one, feel free to send it right to the trash. I’m not sure if the Reconciliation and Logistics Vault is a real thing, but if it is, it probably isn’t jammed to the rafters with fake emails and comedy Contact Manager names…
Christopher Boyd
