Stitching INGKA Foundation email scam

[JDJoyzey]

I received these emails in the last week..
Your first clue something isn't right are several misspellings...
I think these people have way too much time on their hands.....

From : Mrs.Susan Wallace <info_office111@bellsouth.net>
Reply- ingkafoundation_661@yahoo.no
Sent : Thursday, July 12, 2007 9:02 AM
To : <vangogh_lottery@yahoo.com.hk>
Subject : NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID.


Foundation's Officer,
Stichting INGKA Foundation,
The Netherlands.
http://www.ikea.nl/

NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID.
This is to notify you that you have been chosen By the
Board of trustees of the above International charity
organization based in the Netherlands as one of the
final recipients of a Cash Grant/Donation for your own
personal,education and business development
The Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation is
named after Kamprad, and owns INGKA Holding, the
parent company for all IKEA stores. The charitable
foundation was reported by the business newspaper, the
Economist in May 2006 to be technically the world's
wealthiest charity - with an estimated value of at
least US$36 billion in 2006 (larger than the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation) - but its primary purpose
is, by some, believed to be corporate tax-avoidance
and anti-takeover protection for IKEA.Kamprad is
chairman of the foundation.Having been rated as the
biggest charity foundation in Europe for the year
2007,the foundation has decided to randomly select
email addresses that would benefit from this year's
donation/award.

Stichting INGKA Foundation in conjunction with the
United Nations Organization (UNO) and the European
union, is giving out a yearly donation of One Hundred
Million United States Dollars as specific
Donations/Grants to 50 lucky international recipients
worldwide in different categories for their
educational pursuit,health care,personal Business
development and uplift of their enviroment.
Please kindly note that you are not the only
beneficiary in your country this year, and your
country is not the only country that is benefiting
from this donation, as beneficiaries have been chosen
from countries from all continents.

Based on the random selection exercise of internet
service providers(ISP) and millions of Super market
cash invoices worldwide, you were selected among the
lucky recipients to receive the award sum of
US$2,000,000.00(Two Million United States Dollars) as
charity donations/aid from the Stichting INGKA
Foundation and the UNO in accordance with the enabling
act of Parliament.Note that, your email was selected
from either the internet, or a Shop's cash invoice
around your area in which you might have purchased
something from.

You are required to expeditiously Contact the
Executive Secretary below for qualification
documentation and processing of your claims, from
Monday through Sunday.
On contact with this officer, you'll be given your
donation pin number which you will use in collecting
the funds.

Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers
(N-222-6747, E-900-56) in all discussions.

************************************************************ *
Executive Secretary,
Mr. Robert Bloom
Tel: +31-630-261-307
Fax: +31-847-291-150
EMAIL:ingkafoundation_661@yahoo.no

************************************************************
Finally, all funds should be claimed by their
respective beneficiaries, not later that 15 days after
notification, as failure to do so will be to that
particular beneficiary cancelled and its donation
reserved for next years receipients.

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Susan Wallace
(Foundation officer)
*********************************************************
2nd letter
From : Robert Bloom <ingkafoundation_661@yahoo.no>
Sent : Saturday, July 14, 2007To : jdjoyzey@hotmail.com
Subject : FILL THIS CLAIM FORM AND GET BACK TO US


(They actually took the time to create a bogus form)
Attachment : CLAIMS_FORM__2007..doc (0.03 MB)
(IKEA LOGO)
107 Waterloop1902AB, Amsterdam,
the Netherlands
TEL: ++31 626 415 837
CLAIMS APPLICATION FORM


Full Name of Beneficiary______________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________________ ___________

City/State_________________________Country:______________________ _______

Nationality________________________Sex:__________E-mail________________


Tel: _______________________________Fax:_________________________ __________

Next of Kin_______________________Age:______________________________ _____
AMOUNT WON
In Figures_______________________________

Qualification No____________________



Occupation _____________Marital Status______________

CLAIMANT'S SIGNATURE: DATE:
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Verified by: Confirmed by:

AGENT'S SIGNATURE.______________________________
____________________________________________________________ ____
Your application for the claim of your cash aid/donation will be duly process and settlement be made upon certification. Hence, carefully fill in the appropriate information in the space provided above to facilitate our immediate commencement of your claim processing.

Dear Beneficiary,

We wish to congratulate you and formally inform you that you have been selected to receive the sum of US$2,000,000.00 (Two Million United States Dollars) in this year's charity donation, organized by Stichting INGKA Foundation.

You should note that your email address in addition to millions of company and individual email addresses were extracted with a software and the addresses were scrutinized with a ballot system and after the process, 50 email addresses were selected and they were shared into 3 categories respectively and which you are a winner in the 2nd category of US$2,000,000.The said sum is now deposited in a suspense/escrow account with our security firm, in your favor waiting for the immediate remittance into your nominated bank account.
Be informed that your cash donation has a hardcover insurance policy that makes it impossible to make any deduction of any kind, until the sum is finally credited into your designated account.

However, Stichting INGKA Foundation has been notified of this development and the status of your claim.

Below is the legal and official procedure on how you will get your charity cash donation:

1. Fill the attached form in this email message, scan and send back to us along with a copy of your valid identification document(either driver's license or international passport)for identification and verification purpose.

2. You will activate an account with our accredited payment center.

Following the above, you are expected to furnish us with all your necessary details as requested of you above along with a copy of your international passport or driver's license via email attachment for vetting process which is a standard practice just to ensure that we are dealing with the right individual and account.

This process is vital and urgent following the instruction from our clients that all donations should be claimed not later than 15days from now otherwise your cash donation will be returned back to its original source which means you have lost your cash award.

Once again accept our congratulations and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,
Executive Secretary
Mr.Robert Bloom
Tel:+31-619-731-052
Fax:+31-847-131-027

Klaustrofobisk innboks? Få deg en Yahoo! Mail med 250 MB gratis lagringsplass http://no.mail.yahoo.com

[kathrynw13]

I also received this email. Is it real? They called me and had quite the story trying to convince me. I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish with such a scam. Any info about it out there?

[Kevin]

I just got an email. I am glad I checked on google to see why someone would donate a substantial sum of money. Email attached below:

Foundation's Officer,
Stitching INGKA Foundation,
The Netherlands.
http://www.ikea.nl/

Dear Sir/Madam,

NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID.

This is to notify you that you have been chosen By the Board of trustees of
the above International charity organization based in the Netherlands as one
of the final recipients of a Cash Grant/Donation for your own personal,
education and business development

The Dutch-registered Stitching INGKA Foundation is named after Kamprad, and
owns INGKA Holding, the parent company for all IKEA stores. The charitable
foundation was reported by the business newspaper, the Economist in May 2006
to be technically the world's wealthiest charity - with an estimated value
of at least US$36 billion in 2006 (larger than the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation) - but its primary purpose is, by some, believed to be corporate
tax-avoidance and anti-takeover protection for IKEA.Kamprad is chairman of
the foundation. Having been rated as the biggest charity foundation in
Europe for the year 2007, the foundation has decided to randomly select
email addresses that would benefit from this year's donation/award.

Stitching INGKA Foundation in conjunction with the United Nations
Organization (UNO) and the European Union is giving out a yearly donation of
One Hundred Million United States Dollars as specific Donations/Grants to 50
lucky international recipients worldwide in different categories for their
educational pursuit, health care, personal Business development and uplift
of their environment. These funds are freely given to you to use for your
business educational and personal development and at least 30% to be used by
you to develop a part of your environment, as this is a yearly program,
which is a measure of universal development strategy, and eradication of
poverty.

Please kindly note that you are not the only beneficiary in your country
this year and your country is not the only country that is benefiting from
this donation, as beneficiaries have been chosen from countries from all
continents.

The idea of this donation is that within ten years from now, there will be
notable richness among many unusual people around the world.

This will give many people the opportunity to get their lives to a stage
where they had always wanted. Kindly note that you will only be chosen to
receive the donation once. which means that, subsequent yearly donation will
not get to you again, so it's your choice to spend the donation wisely on
something that will last you a long time. And please do not bother following
up this email, if you have benefited from this donation in previous years.

Based on the random selection exercise of internet service providers(ISP)
and millions of Super market cash invoices worldwide, you were selected
among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of US$2,000,000.00(Two
Million United States Dollars) as charity donations/aid from the Stichting
INGKA Foundation and the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of
Parliament.Note that, your email was selected from either the internet, or a
Shop's cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased
something from.

You are required to expeditiously Contact the Executive Secretary below for
qualification documentation and processing of your claims, from Monday
through Sunday.

On contact with this officer, you'll be given your donation pin number
which you will use in collecting the funds.

Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (N-222-6747, E-900-56)
in all discussions.

Executive Secretary,
Mr.Gerald Flether
Tel:+316 264 39087
Fax:+318 474 54671.
Email: ingkafoundation678@yahoo.com.hk

Please note that these donations/Grants are strictly administered by
"European Union" under delegated powers from the UNO. you are by all means
hereby advised to keep this whole information confidential until you have
been able to collect your donation, as there have been many cases of double
and unqualified claim, due to beneficiaries informing third parties about
his/her donation.

Finally, all funds should be claimed by their respective beneficiaries, not
later that 15 days after notification, as failure to do so will be to that
particular beneficiary cancelled and its donation reserved for next years
receipients.

On behalf of the Board kindly accept our warmest congratulations

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Lissa M. Bauldry
(Foundation officer)

[ThatGrrl]

Kathryn, it's a definite scam. They'll ask you to pay "fees" etc to collect the fictitious grant. Once you pay one fee, they'll be after another...and another...and so on.

Some of the indications are:

- misspellings, as Kevin pointed out
- use of free email addresses (in this case yahoo)
- the Qualification numbers appear in many scam emails, as per this (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=N-222-6747&btnG=Google+Search&meta=) Google search.

Please just delete the email and any others like it you receive.

TG

[dmfarrow]

I too have one of these letters and had them send me the qualification letter. But when I went the next step and told them that I wanted to get clarification if this is real I never got a response from them. The other thing I found out was that email address was a yahoo.com.hk which is kinda odd as well especially when you put that part in on yahoo it comes back saying it Hong Kong origin the company is not based out of there. Beware!!!

Debbie

[joewein]

The "INGKA Foundation" scam is a type of fake lottery / fake grant scam, which is the most common type of Nigerian scam these days.

Fake grant scams like this one often abuse names of existing foundations or religious organisations. Here are some other scam formats that are extremely similar, that use the names of the following organisations:

- Fondazione di Vittorio (Italy)
- Alberto Giovanni Foundation (Italy)
- Fondation de France (France)
- Catholic Church Italy / CHIESA CATTOLICA ITALIANA
- Amnesty International Italy

None of these organsisation run any kind of email lottery as described in those scam emails. In fact, no legitimate organisation of any kind runs any email lottery or grant program involving randomly selected email addresses. Such notifications are always a scam and any organisations mentioned have no connection whatsoever to the scams perpetrated in their name.

[jarrod]

I also received this email. Is it real? They called me and had quite the story trying to convince me. I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish with such a scam. Any info about it out there?

They achiev 1500 euros. They ask you to send legal id's. you can only claim the prize with a swiss bank account. you need 1500 euros to open a swiss bank account. they must then use your id to withdraw it. I do wonder if recipients of this letter are also users of tagged or friendorama as it came at the same time as fraudulent friend interests?? any light?

[Joyce BUCHANAN]

I too have received these details this week and thought it so very strange that I came on internet to see what I could find out. Thank you so much for publishing the details.

[FW Admin]

<removed unnecessary post and response>

[diony]

RECIPIENTS COPY
Foundation's Officer,
Stitching INGKA Foundation,
The, Netherlands.
http://www.ikea.nl/

Dear Recepient,

NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID

Based on the random selection exercise of internet service providers
(ISP) and millions of Super market cash invoices worldwide, you were selected
among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of $1,500,000.00(One Million,
Five Hundred Thousand United States dollars). As charity donations/aid from
the Stitching INGKA Foundation and the UNO in accordance with the enabling
act of Parliament.

Having been rated as the biggest charity foundation in Europe for the year
2007, the foundation has decided to randomly select email addresses that would
benefit from this year's donation/award.

Stitching INGKA Foundation in conjunction with the United Nations Organization
(UNO) and the European Union is giving out a yearly donation of One
Hundred Million United States Dollars as specific Donations/Grants to 50 lucky
international recipients worldwide in different categories for their
educational pursuit, health care, personal Business development and
uplift of their environment,which is a measure of universal development strategy,
and eradication of poverty.

The idea of this donation is that within ten years from now, there will be
notable richness among many unusual people around the world.

You are required to expeditiously Contact the Executive Secretary below
for qualification documentation and processing of your claims, from Monday
through Sunday.

On contact with this officer, you'll be given your donation pin number
which you will use in collecting the funds.

Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (N-222-6747,E-900-56) in
all discussions.



***********************************
Executive Secretary,
KERI HANNIGAN
DIRECTLINE: 0031-616-725-622
TEL/FAX: 0031-847-592-103
Email: kerihannigan_ikea@yahoo.co.uk

[CANADA]

Dear Recepient,

FOUNDATION GRANT OFFER

You were selected among the lucky recipients
to receive the award sum of $1,500,000.00(One Million,
Five Hundred Thousand United States dollars).
As charity donations/aid from the Stitching INGKA Foundation and
the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament.

Having been rated as the biggest charity foundation in Europe for the
year
2007, the Stitching INGKA foundation has decided to randomly select
email addresses that wouldbenefit from this year's donation/award.


Note that, your email was selected from either the internet, or a
Shop's
cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased
something from.

You are required to expeditiously Contact the Executive Secretary
below
for qualification documentation and processing of your claims, from
Monday
through Sunday.

Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (N-222-6747,E-900-
56) in
all discussions.
***********************************
Executive Secretary,
DONALD ASBURY
Tel: +31-62-44-12-565
Fax: +31-84-737-0087
Email:donasbury_ikea@yahoo.com.hk
Foundation's Officer,
Stitching INGKA Foundation,
The, Netherlands.
http://www.ikea.nl/

[nakedswordsman]

Talk about tempting. I recieved an email off these people earlier on this week followed by details asking me to send them passport or driving licence copies. I thought it was too good to be true and judging from the messages below, it was!

Glad I typed the company name in Google.

Jason

[mas]

I just received the same e-mail and though it too strange. What made me realize something was off was the yahoo address. I clicked on the ikea link and was confused so I also googled this foundation and found this thread. This is a great site and at least we can warn people.

[Sarah]

Welcome! We're glad you found us. Feel free to pull up a chair and have a look around.

[ChubZ]

So this with IKEA stuff is a valid scam? What could they take from me?
And what happens if I've been stupid enough to return my information to them?

please answer this, thanks in advance

[FW Admin]

No scam is ever 'valid' - it's a scam, plain and simple.

If you have sent bank details, then contact your bank and explain the situation to them; they may have to assign new bank account details to you. Similarly with creedit card information - contact your CC provider and change your card number and security data.

If you have sent them copies of your passport or driving license, contact the relevant authority and get them suspended and replaced.

In any case, with your name, address, date of birth, SS (or National Insurance) number, keep a very close check on your credit reports for the next few months as these can be used for identity theft (i.e. opening a line of credit in your name).

The point of these scams is that the scammers demand a series of 'advance' fees or charges that must be payable before any winnings are handed over - of course there are no winnings, and the fees and/or charges are completely bogus, that become never-ending.

[ken757]

I also received the email from these guys. They used "The Board of Trustees of Yahoo, Int. " as my selection panel and LG Electronics as the foundation. There really is an LG Electronics and the scammers used the LG logo on the "Approved" form. Very crafty.

Thanks for the heads up. I looked up LG Electronics and was about to contact them to see if they had anything to do with this. But I then got the reply from Robert Bloom asking for money to open the account and knew it was a scam. But, I must admit, after seeing the LG web site, I was curious.

Be careful out there.

Ken757

[Jeanakins]

I understand that eventually you have to give them a copy of your drivers license ans personal information. I don't suggest you do this. Example of info requested:

Below is the legal and official procedure on how you will get your charity cash donation:

1. Fill the attached form in this email message, scan and send back to us along with a copy of your valid identification document(either driver's license or international passport)for identification and verification purpose.

2. You will activate an account with our accredited payment center.

Following the above, you are expected to furnish us with all your necessary details as requested of you above along with a copy of your international passport or driver's license via email attachment for vetting process which is a standard practice just to ensure that we are dealing with the right individual and account.



I also received this email. Is it real? They called me and had quite the story trying to convince me. I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish with such a scam. Any info about it out there?

[Margoâ„¢]

This is whats known as a 419 scam. 419 fraud started life in the mid-1980s when thousands of HANDWRITTEN (they must have been desperate) letters, supposedly written by doctors lawyers or accountants, but always in pidgin english, were sent asking for details of the recipitants bank details and a few sheets of company head paper to be sent back to the nigerian capitol, lagos. The reasons given were that a large sum of illicitly gained money needed to be transferred into a western bank account.
In reality this scam was pretty simple, the 419 fraudsters would fake a letter on the headed paper and request that the entire balance of someones bank be transferred into theres.
But now with the digital era fruadsters can send out 100's and 100's of these fake requests per day. there are a whole number of different claims. a few popular ones being that you have the name very similar to someone who has died and therefore can claim the money's, the fake lottery set-up and even a request just to take the money out of the bank for a family who cannot afford to do so themself.
Its normally not simply just a case of an e-mail trail with 419 fraudsters. Eventually then invite you out to a country to deliver the funds where they can use them to release then huge stash of money. of course the huge stash of money never appears.
There is one type of 419 scam, where you are visited in your hotel room, by the person whom you have been having an e-mail conversation about the funds (however, due to the fact that these are large gangs working this fruad, its doubtful that the person encountered is the person you were e-mailing.) and he comes in with a large trunk full of money. the trunk is opened and it is indeed full of money, but it all has big black oily stamps on. there is also a small bottle of solution that can be used to clean the notes, but there is a problem, the solution has all but solidified leaving just a tiny bit. this is used then by the fraudster to clean up one of the 100 dollar bills (the trunk is not actually full of cash, there is a few genuine notes on the top of stacks, but the rest is normally just cut paper). You are then told that you need to purchase some more of the solution to clean up the notes. and the solution normally costs thousands. there are other cases where the traveller is given the responsibility to look after the solution over night, but its rigged to explode, so the following day they are told they have to replace the solution. once again it costs thousands.
419 fraudsters have been known to resort to violence if they are not gettign money/getting money fast enough.
All in all, its not at all something anyone wants to get involved in by mistake. So dont be lead by false emails!

Margoâ„¢

[tukki]

The email I got was different than what many of you got, though I presume it is also a scam. (Damn!) Can they use an AOL (paid) email account and not get traced? Here's what mine said:

CERTIFIED INFORMATION
Foundation's Officer,
Stitching INGKA Foundation,
The, Netherlands.
http://www.ikea.nl/

Dear Recepient,

NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID

Having been rated as the biggest charity foundation in Europe for the year
2007, the Stitching INGKA foundation has decided to randomly select
email addresses that wouldbenefit from this year's donation/award.
You were selected among the lucky recipients
to receive the award sum of $1,500,000.00(One Million,
Five Hundred Thousand United States dollars). As charity donations/aid from
the Stitching INGKA Foundation and the UNO in accordance with the enabling
act of Parliament.

Note that, your email was selected from either the internet, or a Shop's
cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased
something from.

You are required to expeditiously Contact the Executive Secretary below
for qualification documentation and processing of your claims, from Monday
through Sunday.

Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (N-222-6747,E-900-56) in
all discussions.

Executive Secretary,
Internation Remtt. Dept.
BROWN VAN DER MARK

DIRECTLINE: 00 31-614-584-562
TEL/FAX:00 31-847-273-491
TEL/FAX:00 31-847-580-642
Email: writevandermark@aol.com
**********************************
Congratulations!!!
Best Regards
Susan Lu.

[Daneel]

Can they use an AOL (paid) email account and not get traced?

AOL does give out free email accounts, it's more likely one of those. Scammers do sometimes pay for email addresses with stolen credit cards, and then it can be anonymous for them. But in that case they would rather purchase their own domain rather than an AOL account.

[joewein]

They achiev 1500 euros. They ask you to send legal id's. you can only claim the prize with a swiss bank account. you need 1500 euros to open a swiss bank account. they must then use your id to withdraw it. I do wonder if recipients of this letter are also users of tagged or friendorama as it came at the same time as fraudulent friend interests?? any light?

No, the account they ask you to open is fake to start with. No real bank is ever involved in this.

When you're asked to open an account with some bank they give the contact details for, it's really the same scammers using another email account. When you make the "initial deposit" for opening the account (usually by Western Union), you're sending money directly to the fake lottery scammers.

[RedDYB]

Hi all
a few days ago I had got almost the same letter. Since I got married two weeks ago, I was in doubt, because of some financial issues. So I tried to aswer them.
First letter was from this e-mail "LG Electronics. <onlineaward@fuse.net>". They were asking to get in contact with:
"Executive Secretary,
Mr. Gerald Fletcher
Tel:+316 264 39087
Fax:+318 474 54671
Email:lg.electronic@yahoo.com.hk"

As I usually do, I sent message to proposed e-mail and Cc it to first address. In a few minutes got the following message:
"host mx2.fuse.net [216.68.8.212]: 550 Recipient onlineaward@fuse.net does
not exist here"

I wasn't surprised, but still had to wait for the second message. I got so called "Claim form" which is made like on LGE's offical headletter. Its quality is amazing =))
They are doing too many mistakes (in messages, forms, etc.). Sorry, but I'm not able to understand how people could believe in this.

Will try to post information on further negotiations. ;)

Have fun!


PS: mailto:reddemon@ukr.net Origin country: Ukraine

[Niels Christiansen]

EMAIL BALLOT DRAW
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN YOU HAVE WON MICRONET LOTTO!!!

REF NO: 9590 ES 9414
BATCH: 573881545-NL/2007


FROM DESK OF PROMOTION MANAGER{MICRO/STATES GLOBAL EMAIL LOTTERY} www.staatsloterij.nl

YOUR EMAIL ID HAS WON $1,500,000.00(ONE Million,Five Hundred Thousand
USD) in the first category
of our computer ballot email lottery.

No ticket was sold but it is to encourage internet users.

To claim your winning, contact the Paying Bank office:
Bank Name:PostBank.nl
Email:infopostbanknl001@yahoo.es
Tel:+31-62-44-12-565
Fax:+31-84-737-0087

Send the following to the claim departmen:Full names,Address,Age, Occupation,Phone/Fax no,Ref No,Batch No.


Name: Mrs Victoria Adams
For:Mr Donald Asbury

AMSTERDAM-NETHERLANDS.