Kane vs Spam: Round 2

When we last left our hero, he had entered the lair of the evil SPAM organization, responding to an email with a fake identity (Garrison Kane) to find out more of their dastardly scheme. They responded with another email, this time directing him to contact a courier service in order to collect his fictional prize.

A significant point is that I responded to their first email from a different email address than the one they originally emailed. Their message said that the original email address was randomly selected to receive the 500,000 pounds. I emailed a response from an email address they didn’t have on file. Apparently they’re not very picky as to who receives this supposed prize.

---

From: CLAIMS OFFICE CLAIMS DEPT <ukclaims_dept116@hotmail.com>
To:
Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 1:51 AM
Subject: Contact I.C.S Courier Company For The Delivery Of Your Won Prize Of 500,000.00G.B.P!!

FREE LOTTO AWARD CLAIMS AND RELEASE DEPARTMENT.
GOVERNMENT ACCREDITED LICENSED!!!BRITISH(UK) NATIONAL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY IS REGISTERED UNDER THE DATA PROTECTION ACT OF;(Registration U971133B).

NOTE: The Courier do not accept any deduction or payment after delivery as it illegal and not accepted.

Congratulations once again, on behalf of the FREE LOTTO SWEEPSTAKES ONLINE LOTTERY COMPANY. I wish to inform You that Your won prize and some document has been forwarded to the I.C.S Express Courier Service for delivery.The courier has been our affiliated courier for years and has been helping Us to deliver won checks and document to Our lucky winners.

We do believe that your winnings will be put into good use for community, educational and business development. On Behalf of the Screening Committee of FREE LOTTO SWEEPSTAKES ONLINE LOTTERY COMPANY, I wish to formally announce to you that you have successfully passed the E-mail Screening and Verification Form Matching Test conducted for all online winners in your Category. Hence you are therefore cleared for payment.

All necessary documents that will facilitate the clearance of your cheque in your name has been processed. Your parcel contains the following Documents:

1.WINNING CHEQUE VALUED THE SUM OF (500,000.00G.B.P)
2.WINNING CERTIFICATE FROM THE FREE LOTTO SWEEPSTAKES ONLINE LOTTERY COMPANY.

You are to contact I.C.S Express Courier Service via e-mail for your won prize of (500,000.00G.B.P) with your ORDER NUMBER:TNX20748440 Your Telephone Number and also Your delivery address where you want your parcel to be delivered to. Your WINNING CHEQUE of (500,000.00G.B.P) and all legal document banking your winnings has been sent to our affiliate I.C.S Express Courier Service . You are required to contact the courier officer of I.C.S Express Courier Service for their courier cost of delivery.
***************************************************************

COURIER DELIVER OF YOUR WINNING FUNDS

Central Pk Est/Mosley Rd,
Trafford Park Manchester ,M17 1TT UK

Open 7days-24hrs-365days
Email address: ics.courier.uk@live.com

NAME:Mr. Alex Powell,
(Dispatch Officer)

====================
TEL:+447-035-946-092
TEL:+447-031-981-634
TEL:+447-031-928-676
FAX:+447-031-981-613
====================

May You need my help in any other way? Please, always be free to get back to me via email as our office is also open from Monday to Saturday to attend to Our Winners .

Best Regards,
Claims Agent Manager,
Payment and Release order Department,
FREE LOTTO SWEEPSTAKES ONLINE LOTTERY COMPANY.

---

The first suspicious thing I noticed, aside from the terrible grammar, was the mentioning that the courier does “not accept any deduction or payment after delivery as it illegal and not accepted.” So it sounds like previous victims winners have asked about this or else they just preemptively included it to deter people from asking why they have to pay upfront.

Just googling the keywords, “ICS courier scam” or “ICS courier scam” pulls up numerous hits where people document the scam emails they’ve received from this person/group. The strange thing however is how many people mention that they didn’t receive anything at their address after responding. I wouldn’t recommend anyone respond to these emails with any legitimate information.

Notice that they mentioned an order number they wanted me to include. If this were in fact a different person/organization from the one I had been contacting, you would think they might need that number to identify me. Granted that they theoretically could find my order by my name, it would be strange that they’re able to pull up the information that easily because other services tend to not be able to do that (especially if there might be someone else in the system with the same name).

So I responded:

---

From: Garrison Kane <[redacted]@gmail.com>
To: ics.courier.uk@live.com

Date: Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Subject: Prize Claim

Hello,

I was referred to you to collect my prize and was told I needed to give you my telephone number and delivery address.

NAME: Garrison Kane
ADDRESS: [redacted]
TELEPHONE NUMBER: [redacted]

I’m very excited to know I have won. Thank you.

Garrison

---

If you notice, I declined to include the order number. Let’s see if they notice in the next episode…