{"id":4079,"date":"2007-11-27T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-27T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/11\/how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france\/"},"modified":"2007-11-27T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-27T11:30:00","slug":"how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/11\/how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france.html","title":{"rendered":"How To Spot A Scam: Fondation de France"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I continue to have visitors reach my blog because they have been contacted by <a href=\"http:\/\/exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\/2007\/11\/sterling-whos-who.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sterling Who\u2019s Who<\/a> and invited to sign up with them. I am sure one reason my complaint was resolved so quickly was the fact that my blog features so prominently on search engines, and thus the post on my blog was being found by many of the company\u2019s would-be customers.<\/p>\n<p>Let me, as a public service of sorts, share another e-mail I just received, purporting to be from an organization called FOUNDATION DE FRANCE.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>THE FOUNDATION DE FRANCE(FDF)<br>http:\/\/www.fdf.org<\/p>\n<p>The Fondation De France(FDF) would like to<br>notify you that you have been chosen by the<br>board of trustees as one of the final recipients<br>of a cash Grant\/Donation for your own personal,<br>educational, and business development.<\/p>\n<p>The FDF, established 1977 by the Multi-Million<br>groups and now supported by the Economic<br>Community for West African States (ECOWAS),<br>United Nations Organization (UNO) and the<br>European Union (EU) was conceived with the<br>objective of human growth, educational, and<br>community development.<\/p>\n<p>In conjunction with the ECOWAS, UNO and the<br>EU, We are giving out a yearly donation of<br>US$1,350,000.00 (One Million, Three Hundred<br>And Fifty Thousand United States Dollars)each<br>to 100 lucky recipients.These specific<br>Donations\/Grants will be awarded to 100 lucky<br>international recipients worldwide; in different<br>categories for their personal business<br>development and enhancement of their<br>educational plans. This is a yearly program,<br>which is a measure of universal development<br>strategy.<\/p>\n<p>You are required to contact the Executive Secretary<br>below, for qualification documentation<br>and processing of your claims. After contacting<br>our office,you will be given your donation pin<br>number, which you will use in collecting the<br>funds. Please endeavor to quote your<br>Qualification numbers (FDF-444-6647-9163)in<br>all discussions. You are also required to contact<br>the executive sec.with the following requirements<\/p>\n<p>DONATION REQURIEMENTS:<\/p>\n<p>1. Full names:<br>2. Residential<br>address:<br>3. Phone number:<br>4. Fax number:<br>5. Occupation:<br>6. Sex:<br>7. Age:<br>8. Nationality:<br>9. Present Country:<br>10.Next of kin<br>name\/address<\/p>\n<p>Executive Sec. Mr.Desmond Richards.<br>Email: <a href=\"mailto:desmondrichard101@hotmail.com\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">desmondrichard101@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You are by all means hereby advised to keep<br>this whole information confidential until you<br>have been able to collect your donation, as<br>there have been many cases of double and<br>unqualified claim, due to beneficiaries informing<br>third parties about his\/her donation.<\/p>\n<p>Regards.<br>Maria Riccardo<br>(Foundation officer)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What are the clear signs that this is a phishing scheme? First, the person who is supposedly the director has a <em>Hotmail<\/em> address \u2013 a sure sign in and of itself. Second, if you go to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fdf.org\/jsp\/site\/Portal.jsp\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">organization\u2019s web page<\/a> and are fortunate enough to know French, they in fact warn about fraudulent e-mails circulating in their name. Third, the English spelling of \u2018foundation\u2019 is used at several points in the e-mail, instead of the French one. Fourth, no one will e-mail you out of the blue to give you money, much less a large sum of money. Fifth, there is the statement that you should not tell anyone about this until you\u2019ve sent in your information.<\/p>\n<p>This is a scam, and I\u2019m posting this in the hope that people who might fall for it will do a search first and find this. Hopefully this one is obvious enough that only the ridiculously gullible will fall for it \u2013 and if they read this, perhaps not even them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-4611301502780833274?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I continue to have visitors reach my blog because they have been contacted by Sterling Who\u2019s Who and invited to sign up with them. I am sure one reason my complaint was resolved so quickly was the fact that my blog features so prominently on search engines, and thus the post on my blog was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How To Spot A Scam: Fondation de France<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I continue to have visitors reach my blog because they have been contacted by Sterling Who&#039;s Who and invited to sign up with them. I am sure one reason my\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/11\/how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How To Spot A Scam: Fondation de France\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I continue to have visitors reach my blog because they have been contacted by Sterling Who&#039;s Who and invited to sign up with them. I am sure one reason my\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/11\/how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/11\/how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/11\/how-to-spot-a-scam-fondation-de-france.html\",\"name\":\"How To Spot A Scam: Fondation de France\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-11-27T11:30:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-11-27T11:30:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"I continue to have visitors reach my blog because they have been contacted by Sterling Who's Who and invited to sign up with them. 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