The Next Big Scam

The Nigerian Scam gets even better. I received an invitation to attend the "2nd International NGO/CBO Workshop". Sounded great, all expenses paid trip to New York for up to 4 members of my organisation. Funded by the real Jacobson Foundation, and in part by the Bill Gates Foundation, and the invite was a 'glossy' PDF brochure. Only catch was, to attend you had to Western Union $300 per person to a post office in West Africa....

If they'd have had you wire the money to the US it would have been perfect. I know of a case locally where a whole group were invited to West Africa only to get there to find it was a scam. Our Government even contributed air fares. At least the group got to see Africa.

But like I did with this scam, Google the event. If there's not a whiff of the event, take a closer look. Especially given it was supposed to be the 2nd of its kind, why nothing online about the 1st?!

ALERT: watch out also for the 'Forum on Human and Community Development Financing'!

Comments

Anonymous said…
This may amuse you - I just got (1 May 2008) the same invitation but its for the *3rd* International NGO/CBO Workshop. You'll be happy to know the 'registration fee' for this one is a bit cheaper - only $210.

Some of these scams are getting pretty good and a lot more carefully targeted.
12:26 AM
Anonymous said…
I am from the Diabetes Association in St. Lucia West Indies. Last week I got this same invitation to the 2nd NGO/CBO workshop from June 16th - 20th,in the US. The fee was US$200.00 per participant, Up to four participants from my organization could attend, but one person had to send the money for all.

Too good to be true! I thought, so I started my own investigation. When I googled jacobsonfoundation, there was an invitation to the same workshop but in April 2008. Only the coast was then US$300.00. I requested more information which came back with the only difference beibg date for registration which was changed from May 20th - 15th 2008.

These scamers are looking out for us people, let us be on our guards, they are even more convincing now.
3:02 PM
Steve said…
They do seem to target our small islands!
5:01 PM
Steve said…
Another very similar scam is circulating: See http://steves-dominica.blogspot.com/2008/06/scan-alert-forum-on-human-community.html
7:50 PM
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