Scammers With A Side Of Egg Roll

They never do go away, do they? I refer of course to the vilest of the vile, the most despicable lot out there on the dark fringes of the Net. Yes, the scammers and spammers. They flood our junk mail with spam for crap we don't want, like knock off luggage, insurance, and dubious escort agencies. And they mass email to thousands of people the exact same message, hoping there's someone dumb enough to buy into their scam. I received a couple of these recently, and will be covering them over the next couple of posts. The first was this one, sent to my email and ending up in the junk email.

I hope this email finds you well. I want to establish a business and investment partnership with you if you are interested and capable. I am Zheng Changbo, Assistant President of CNOOC New Energy Investment Co., Ltd. Chairman and General manager of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, the largest offshore oil and gas producer in China and a mega government owned company. You may check my profile on the web. In a nutshell, I am willing to discuss the possibility of establishing a Joint investment cooperation in your country and under your commitment. I will be pleased to explain my investment ideas in detail on hearing from you. Most Importantly, I want our possible future business to be carried out legally and transparently. Best Regard ____________ Mr. Zheng Changbo Assistant President,Chairman and General Manager CNOOC New Energy Investment Co., Ltd. No.25 Chaoyangmenbei Dajie,Dongcheng District, Beijing 100010 P.R China.

Looking around, one can find out that there actually was a Zheng Changbo in that position with CNOOC. Only he's not in that position now, having had left earlier this year. So that's one big hint that this Zheng is a fake, seeing as how he's claiming he's still there. Another hint? His email address, an Outlook email, is suspicious. China has numerous email providers- Outlook doesn't even rate in the top five of them. Surely an actual executive would have an actual email address more or less fitting with his country's providers, right?

Whoever he is, our scammer tries to impress the reader with lots of titles for his fake facade, inviting us to check him out on the Web. Well, I did, and that very same message turns up in scam warning posts. You can see some of the hallmarks of the typical internet scammer too. Capitalizing words that don't need to be capitalized, like Joint, or not getting a capital M on the word manager. And of course "I want our possible future business to be carried out legally and transparently", a typical tactic by a scammer to assure that everything is on the up and up- even though it certainly is anything but.

Uh huh. Sure. Whatever you say. Even if you were real, which you are not, why on earth would I want to do business with anyone who cold-emails total strangers? And why on earth would I want to do business with a company representing a government I find repugnant?

Two events come to mind that provide all the reason I'd ever need to object to investing in China: Tiananmen Square and Tibet. 

And then there's that whole problem with the Chinese government thinking that respect means everyone else in the world has to defer to you. Rather arrogant, you know. And off putting. 

Nice try, Zheng, or whoever you really are. Maybe someone out there really is dumb enough to fall for your bull. For me, I'd just as soon rather see you get what's coming to you. Like seeing you tied up to fireworks and launched into the night sky at Chinese New Years.