What kind of scam is this?

[hazel]

I've had a lot of unsolicited emails lately offering me online work. Here's a typical example:

Respective Sir! (sic!)

We are here to promote the newest system available on the market for making money online. We are talking about the Craigslist Kit, which is now available at your region and it is Now FREE, but for a limited time, and the offer will be soon expired, as the supplies of the Free-Trials Kits are also limited.

With this Free Trial Craigslist Kit you can make $3,000 in your first week, after you start, and it is very easy. Millions of people make thousands on Craigslist, why aren't you? May be you haven't heard of that so far? Well, now you have the unique opportunity to do it too!

Order now and be one of the first to have the free kit available! Send us an email back to email address removed if you want to go further with our proposal! But hurry, as we cannot keep the light on this great offer forever!

I'm sure this is a scam - it has the feel of one - but can anyone explain to me how it works?

[GNU-Fan]

I'm sure this is a scam - it has the feel of one - but can anyone explain to me how it works?

Some sufficiently greedy persons will ultimately answer this email and be so smart as to give their real name and contact data, maybe even spiced with some information about their hobbies, interests etc.

And even in the case their profile isn't sold: That "craigslist kit" might be free, putting ads into it most certainly won't.

[questio verum]

Hazel,
It sounds like some kind of crude phishing or social engineering scheme. Or maybe it's some kind of weak angle on the classic 'bait & switch' scam. Ex: "Sorry Prospective Sir, but we are all out of the free kit's, but if you would like, we do have a small store of discount kit's for $10 each." There is no need for a "kit" in order to use Craig's List, so I can't conceive of anything other than a scam being attempted here.

qv

[elija]

It could also be a "genuine email address" harvesting thing, you reply to this, they reply to you and you reply to that.

You're on the "real email with a gullible user on the other end" list. A very valuable commodity

[L4Linux]

It could be a pyramid scam. You make a small investment to get in and take some of their products to sell. They tell you that you can make tons of money if you get your friends, then your friends' friends, etc... to work with them and sell their products. The single point of failure in such a scam (apart from being a scam...) is that in the end someone has to buy the actual product... And which company worldwide has hundreds of employees making tons of money?? None I guess.

[pmcoleman]

All of the previous replies accounted for and agreed with. My take -- Any "get rich quick" scheme should be suspect from the start. Unfortunately I fell for one many years back....

paul

[bigtomrodney]

I've removed the email address from the first post. I don't want it appearing on search results or worse, have someone actually reply to it.

[Freston]

I think it's advance fee fraud of some kind.

Respective Sir! (sic!)

Hey, doesn't 'respective' mean ... ehm ... 'separate?' or 'distinguishable?' as in: "the items where returned to their respective owners" or "I and Bob fell down the stairs and into the well respectively" (meaning I fell down the stairs and Bob fell in the well, rather than me and Bob both falling down the stairs and into the well)?

[hazel]

I didn't know you could do so many naughty things with an email. I must be very innocent!

Yes, I know "respective" is a real word but not in this context; I'm sure he meant "respected". In my experience, a common sign of scam emails is that they tend to be written in bad English or at any rate with bad punctuation: it's instead of its, that kind of thing. I've had some "Nigerian" emails whose English was so hilariously wrong that I wished I had someone to share them with. The modern "Nigerian" is usually not from a corrupt politician who wants to launder money but from a devout millionaire dying of cancer, who wants to give all his money to charity. Through my bank account of course, with a million pounds odd as my reward.

I often wonder if anyone responds. Someone must do or they wouldn't keep sending them.