This is another one of 419eater.com's victims. Scam the scammer.

I thought it would be fun see how far a scammer would go.  I was selling a laptop on Craigslist.com and as you can see from the email traffic below, Mr. Timmy David\Ms Deborah Johnson sent me a fake Paypal  invoice and continued to try and get me to ship it ASAP.  Then I told him that I had a son in the hospital and was selling this laptop to pay for the operation.  His response is golden.

Doodiepants.com  Vs.  Deborah Johnson From Nigeria – Email Traffic

How it all started:

Hello there,
I am much interested in Buying your item Placed here,I can see is in good condition.I want to Buy it for my Doctor in Our New Hospital in africa.Can you Pls findout how much the shipping charges will cost with the Item using(EMS)Corrier service.kindly Tell me your last desire price as am ready to make a Good offer now.kindly get back to me Asap.am Gotta Offer you $1200
Regard
Deborah Johnson.

Judging by the email, name, grammar, and the fact that they were offering my more than my listed price, I was 99% sure this was a Nigerian scam.   So I responded with a bit of cockiness.

From: *********** <******@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: HP Pavillion DV6812, 4gb Ram, 250gb HD,AMD 64 X2 Turion 2.0ghz, Nvidia $900
To: deborahmission77@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 3:43 PM

Well I find it funny that you offer me $1200 when my ad says $900.
But, Great……I love helping hospitals in Africa.
Let me guess…..you’ll be paying me with a money order?  You’re in Nigeria or Ghana?    I love money orders.

Hooray for the people of Africa.  The people with the purest honest hearts and deep respect for God.  You help the good name of your people all over the world.

Here is the paypal invoice that I received in email showing that I was supposedly paid.  Of course when i logged into my Paypal account the fund were not there.

If you have questions about the shipping and tracking of your purchased item or service,please contact ************ at **********@gmail.com Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

From: Paypal Service <paypalsavings@mail2savings.com>
Subject: Receipt for Your Payment to ************ (**********@gmail.com)
To: deborahmission77@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 6:49 PM

Get Verified Protect Your Account Info Make sure you never provide your password to fraudulent websites. To safely and securely access the PayPal website or your account, open a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in the PayPal URL to be sure you are on the real PayPal website.https://www.paypal.com/us/) to be sure you are on the real PayPal site. PayPal will never ask you to enter your password in an email. For more information on protecting yourself from fraud, please review our Security Tips at https://www.paypal.com/us/securitytips Get Verified! Protect Your Password You should never give your PayPal password to anyone, including PayPal employees. Dear Deborah Johnson, This email confirms that you have paid (**********@gmail.com) $1,270.00 USD using PayPal. Payment Details

Transaction ID:		7RA9644256323602A
Sales Tax:		$0.00 USD
Total:		$1,270.00 USD
Item/Product Name:		Craiglist Laptop
Item/Product Number:		1060905251
Invoice ID:		04758329236338689164
Buyer:		Deborah Johnson

---

Business Information

Business:	Zion,Hospital
Contact-Mail:	db@zion.com

---

---

Your monthly account statement is available anytime; just log in to your account at https://www..paypal.com/us/HISTORY… To correct any errors, please contact us through our Help Center at https://www.paypal.com/us/HELP.

To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences here.

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

I responded to the ridiculously fake Paypal invoice with this:

From: ******** <***********@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Receipt for Your Payment to ********** (*******@gmail.com)
To: deborahmission77@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 2:48 AM

You did not respond to my invoice and there are no funds in my account..  When fund actually appear in my account, I’ll ship.

Nigerian retardicon comes back:

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 3:19 AM, Deborah Johnson <deborahmission77@yahoo.com> wrote:

Good morning there,

I have sent you money from my paypal and the money is already deducted from my account the sum of $1,270.00 USD..I can’t believe how Paypal can deducted the sum of $1,270.00  usd from my account and you said it not yet appear..i will advice you to go and ship now..because the money may be in pending payment from paypal and will later appear in your account..Pls for God sake..this item is needed Urgently..Pls ship now as the money is in pending payment..it will be credited sooner or later..I am very sure sometime if Paypal are Upgrading their system it normaly happen like that.

whoever make payment During the time of Upgrading..the money will be in pending from paypal and may take sometime to appear after they Upgrade finish.pls once again go and ship now.i have talk to the Doctor and promised him that the item is on the way…for God sake pls

Thanks

Deborah

Yes yes of course!  Paypal is upgrading and that’s why the money isn’t in the account.  Haha  I’ll play along some more and tell them my shipper needs a phone number and that I’m using the money to pay for my son’s ear operation.

From: ********* <********@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Receipt for Your Payment to *********** (*********@gmail.com)
To: deborahmission77@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 12:55 PM

The shipper just notified me.  They said they need your phone number to confirm for the shipper.

I’ll go ahead and ship this off once I get a phone number.  I desperately need this money to pay for an operation on my son’s ears here in Costa Rica.  I hope this all works out.    

God Bless.

And this wonderfully nice NIgerian now says he\she will fly down to Costa Rica to help with the ear operation.   But first SHIP THAT LAPTOP FAST!   Disgusting………..

Oh My God..operation?

what kind of Operation is that so Serious..I may help you on That okay..i can do ear Oparation.what is the Problem in your son Hear.and how do i get to meet you in Costa rica?here is the phone for the shipper.(832-201-6327).But I will be in the Theatre room for many hours today..I will answer call after finish in the Theatre room.What Hospital do you plan to do the operation..is the hospital there in costa rica?Anyway you can Go and Ship now before the day runs out.(EMS shipping).I will do my best to help concerning the operation..give me your address in costa rica,I can fly down there to meet you on Saturday if you Gotta be available.Weekend i will be free..I am so sorry about that..beside the Reciever address is on payment confirmation of paypal..Here is it again.

Name:Dr,Timmy David

Add:Zion Hospital,No 25 J-allen Dugbe

City:Ibadan

State:Oyo

Zipcode 23402

Nigeria

Reciever Phone:23470324884

For making Nigerians everywhere proud

Mr. Timmy David or Deborah or whoever the heck you are.  I give you a 4 Brown Star rating.  For continuing to attempt to scam me out of my laptop with knowledge that there was a child’s ear operation on the line.

Important links to fight this type of fraud.

• Fighting Back at Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud Scammers
• Inboxer Rebellion/Nigerian Scam (Snopes.com)
• Internet Fraud Complaint Center.
• Nigerian 911 Fraud Letters, an indexed database of hundreds of current Nigerian fraud letters.
• Nigerian Scam Hitlist, a large collection of scam letters
• Nigerian Scam Letter Museum (Quatloos, Scams and Frauds Exposed): another large collection of letters
• Internet-Fraud.com (many examples, and interesting ideas on fighting back)
• West African Fraud / Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud in Internet Fraud and Email Scams (many details and examples)
• Urgent & Confidential Business Proposal (Urban Legends Archive)
• SCAM: The Nigerian Advance Fee Scheme (Internet Scambusters)

• U.S. Secret Service Financial Crimes Division (includes section on Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud)
• Nigerian Fraud Letter Scam (Loss Prevention Concepts)
• 419 Fraud, good general site with information, examples, contacts, and a bulletin board
• The 419 Coalition Website
• Nigerian Scam: Promise of Funds but Intent is to Rob
• Too Good to be True (ABC News report)
• Nigerian Fraudsters (from The Register)
• Nigerian 419 Scam (from Hoax Encyclopedia)
• Nigerian Frauds 419 Scam Central (from Freeman Institite)
• 419EATER.COM (the legendary)

I was a scammer. Now I'm just a punk with a loaf of bread on my head.

I’m sure everyone reading this has received an email some time or another from a Nigerian claiming to have access to millions of dollars or some wild business opportunity and “they need your help”.  I coincidentally received an email last week from a woman claimed to be Charles Taylor’s 2nd exwife from Liberia, Africa.  She wanted to buy my condo in Costa Rica and start a water treatment business.  Hilarious!  We didn’t do business as she wouldn’t send me a copy of her passport.   I had a little fun with her and she gave up after awhile.

Anyway, the creator of a little known website by the name of 419eater.com makes it his business to re-scam the scammers.  He calls it “scam baiting”  and it’s absolutely genius.   If you want to waste a day laughing, check this site out and read through his letter archive.

I just posted a bunch of stuff for sale on Craigslist.com so I’m sure I’ll be hit up by a few Nigerian yahoos soon.  I’ll post my email traffic.

No comment......wow.

Scammer baiting hints and tips.  Directly from the 419eater.com site.

Question.
How do I get a 419 scammer to contact me, I’d love to get stuck into this scam baiting sport?!

Answer.
Well, you are probably one of the lucky ones who haven’t received any contact from them yet! I find the best place to harvest scammers is Internet guest books. Open up a Search Engine, such as Google or Altavista and type in a search phrase like the following (not including the speech marks), “guestbook +guymen +mugu” this should bring up many sites containing guest books. Pop over to maybe 10 – 25 of the guestbooks and enter some brief details, of course not forgetting to enter your scam harvesting email address! Within a few days (sometimes a lot less) you should start receiving your invitations to share millions!

Note: I DO NOT advocate guestbook spamming. If you do decide to place your email address onto a guestbook to harvest scammers, please enter something like ‘nice site’, ‘great work’ or words to that effect. Remember that the guestbook belongs to a innocent party. I always take time to look through a site if I intend to leave anything in a guestbook.

Question.
How do I contact the scammers without using my real email address?

Answer.
Well, there are plenty of web based free email services you can use. Of course the first one the comes to mind is Hotmail, although I’ve noticed some scammers don’t like to converse with Hotmail account holders. Google Mail (Gmail) is another very good webmail service. Just do a search for “free email” or “free webmail” in Google and you’ll find plenty to satisfy you.

Question.
My friend got a 419 email in his Inbox, can I reply to a scammer even if the initial email was not sent to my email address?

Answer.
Yes! They really don’t care who you are, as long as they think they may be able to screw you out of a few grand! If you have a scammer email, just remember to remove the original addressees email address for the body text before you reply.

Question.
The scammer wants to send me (fake) documents via fax, but I don’t want to use my real fax. What can I do?

Answer.
You have two choices here. You can either bluff your way through it and tell them your fax is broken, or even better, sign up to a free fax service. Personally I use Efax.com. It’s free to sign up, and free to receive faxes, though you will have to pay to send a fax. You get your own unique fax number and when the scammer faxes you it arrives in your mailbox as a email attachment. To view the attachment you will have to install a small program (provided free by Efax). Double-click on the attachment to view the fax.

Question.
What if the scammer wants to talk on the telephone?

Answer.
Tell them that as a youngster your hearing was damaged after a serious illness. Tell them you’re deaf. Personally I use the deafness excuse, but follow it up with a line such as “I am able to use a TextPhone”. “If you have access to a TextPhone then I will be able to speak to you, otherwise communication will have to be via email only”. Of course it is extremely unlikely that the scammers have a TextPhone (A TextPhone basically lets people type messages to each other across a standard phone line) so that should get you off the hook. Even though they won’t have a TextPhone, your kind offer to speak to them via one will ease their mind that you are at least making an effort with them.

You can of course sign up for a voicemail account, though of course this would make the communication one way. This is good as for one , they won’t be able to talk to you in person, and two, it costs them money for the overseas call. Again, for voicemail services in your area, do a Internet search. Two recommended US based voicemail services are www.k7.net and www.J2.com both of which also combine a fax service, all totally free (as I write!). If you want a UK based set-up, then I recommend www.yac.co.uk which is a great free voicemail/fax service.

Another trick you can try is to have scammer calls anonymously forwarded to your mobile phone (or your landline if you are feeling brave). I use a service called FlexTel (www.flextel.com). You get provided with a new telephone number which you can pass onto your scammer. He dials the number and then this is anonymously forwarded to your real mobile/landline number. You get to make the scammer pay a small fortune on international calls, and the scammer gets even more convinced that he has found a real victim!

Question.
OK. I have the scammer on board, but now he’s asking me for my bank details. What do I do?!

Answer.
Don’t panic! Just send him any old rubbish. Make up a bank name of your own (my personal favourite is Plunder & Flee Incorporated, feel free to use it yourself and make P&F world famous!). Random account numbers and bank addresses are fine also. You could use a real address if you prefer (not your own of course). I did a scam posing as Dr. Frasier Crane, and the address I gave was the real address for the Seattle Tower in Washington! Remember to cross check the details you have sent if you have to send multiple forms. You don’t want a scammer coming back to you asking why your bank account number doesn’t match up on the forms you sent to him!

What usually happens is that your account and personal details will be used to make up phoney documents to send back to you. The usual procedure being that a gullible person would believe these documents to be the real thing, and then you would be so taken in that when the scammer asks you for money to help facilitate the release of the funds, you will part with your cash without too much hesitation.

Question.
I’ve sent them my bank details etc. and now they are asking me to make a payment to them. HELP!

Answer.
This is where you need to get some plans together. You could try some delaying tactics, or make some excuse or other why you cannot pay right now. This is the part of the scam where you really need to have planned out beforehand what hoops to make your victim jump through. Personally, I like to pretend to pay using false documents. Of course, as soon as they try to draw the funds they realise the documents are no good, but at least you’ve wasted some of their time. HERE is a fake Western Union Money Transfer document I sent off to a scammer.

Maybe you can convince your victim that you’ll be coming over to his country to complete the deal. Again, make up some false flight booking documents like THIS and let him think he’s meeting you at the airport. To get realistic looking flight details, just go to your local online booking site. Go through the booking procedure, do a screen capture, load into your favourite graphics editing program (I use Photoshop) and away you go!

Perhaps on your way to make your payment to the scammer you suffered a GHASTLY MOTOR ACCIDENT, which might have even been printed in a (fake) NEWSPAPER?!

Question.
The scammer is asking for some of my identification or a copy of my passport. Where do I find some fake ID to send to him?

Answer.
We now discourage people from sending fake identification to scammers. There is the possibility that the scammer may use the very ID you send to him, to fool a real victim, and although you may create what you think is a totally unbelievable ID featuring some well known celebrity or funny name, there is a possibility that a real victim may be totally unaware of that celebrity or perhaps comes from a country where because of the language differences does not recognise the amusing name as such.

You will find plenty of suggestion for sending garbage files instead of IDs to a scammer on our very busy FORUM. One favourite method is to select a random (and large!) .DLL file and rename it to something like “passport.jpg”. Of course the scammer will not be able to display it on his computer, but that’s not your fault is it?!

Question
Any other tips?

Answer.
The general rule is “MAKE THE SCAMMER DO ALL THE WORK!”.

Just use your common sense! I find another good way to wind a scammer up is to deliberately misinterpret their instructions to you. For instance, a scammer may tell you that in communicating with his “lawyer” you must not reveal what the main deal is about, or even mention the scammer’s name. Of course, sometimes it’s a good idea to mention everything to the lawyer!

If they send you documents to fill in and sign, do it wrong. Pretend you didn’t understand their instructions and ask them to repeat themselves. Have they sent you a fax or email attachments? Tell them you didn’t receive anything, and please would they send it all again.

I’ve also found that if things don’t seem to be going your way, tell them point blank that the deal is off “unless you agree to XXXX”. Be bold and brash and make out the YOU are dictating the terms here. YOU are the one with the cash (they think!) and YOU are the boss. They are your naughty little puppies! Many times the scammers have refused me things – such as providing me with a photograph – and I have told them,”OK, the deal is off, goodbye”. It’s quite surprising how some of them will buckle and do almost anything you ask if they think you are serious about ending ‘the deal’.

If you have your mark convinced you’re on your way to meet with him at the airport, a good idea is to ask him to hold up a sign with your name on it so that you will be “able to recognise” him at the airport. Hopefully before this you will have convinced him your name is something like Dina Mite, Barney Rubble, Eric Shun or something like that!

If you are about to ask your scammer for something, dangle a carrot before you do. If you want to hit him for a photograph, mention that you’d like to bring him some gifts (laptops and mobiles phones are favourites). Pretend to do him a favour before you ask him for anything. If they think they are going to get extra out of you they tend to buckle easier.

Another good tactic is to play completely dumb. Let them think you haven’t a clue what’s going on. Always ask questions every step of the way. This will annoy them.

If you are as certain as you can be that your scammer has fallen for your bait (and thinks you’re flying out to him), get him to book a hotel for you. Pick yourself a nice 4 star hotel that has online facilities to confirm a booking, like the Hilton, Sheraton or Sofitel hotels in Nigeria. Tell your victim that you WILL NOT fly out until he sends you a booking receipt for the hotel (which you can check online for validity). Most of the time your mark will make up a million excuses why he can’t do it. Simply tell him the deal is off, and eventually if you’re lucky he’ll buckle and do as you say.

In my scams I usually pretend I’m a rich businessman, so that they tend to try to hit me for a lot more cash. If a target really thinks you are arriving in his country with $100,000 in Dollar bills then you can get him to do almost anything for you. If you are only taking a few thousand, then it’s usually not worth the scammers time and effort to be at your command.

Question.
Are these people dangerous?

Answer.
Well, Africa – which for the most part is where most (but it is to be stressed, NOT all) these scams originate from – is a long, long way away. I suspect it would take a lot more than wasting their time over a few emails for them to go to the expense to fly over and give you a beating!

I imagine that they do get seriously annoyed at these time wasting letters, but not enough to warrant us a visit from overseas. I certainly wouldn’t want to meet up with one of them in a dark alley! Death threats are quite common, and are considered a trophy of sorts, especially the good ones. Scambaiters can expect to receive a lot of abuse from scammers, which is good, because at least you know you are doing your job right!

Lets for arguments sake say that you did tick off a scammer so much he decides he’s going to hop over on a plane to pay you a visit. Where’s he going to go? Assuming you were not so stupid as to divulge your real address, the scammer wouldn’t have a clue where to come looking for you. Are you a UK scam baiter? If so, pretend you live in the US and vice-versa.

One thing to remember throughout your dealing with these scammers; they are THIEVES, pure and simple. Some of them are even kidnappers and murderers. You may find that sometimes they resort to outright pure begging for help. Pleading with you that they are in a dire and life threatening situations. Sometimes they can be extremely convincing indeed. NEVER, repeat NEVER believe a single word they say. They really will tell you absolutely anything they think you need to hear in order to scam you.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give out personal information to these guys. I repeat, NEVER give out your personal information to these guys.

UPDATE: IF YOU SUSPECT YOU ARE A REAL VICTIM OR VICTIM-TO-BE!

Just a reminder that the information above relates mainly to us scambaiters. If you are a real victim who has inadvertently given personal information to a scammer DON’T PANIC, you are in no physical danger! The warnings above are aimed at scambaiters who go out of their way to deliberately waste as much of the scammer’s time and resources for as long as possible. The madder we get them, then the better we are doing our job!

As a real victim, you will most probably have done nothing deliberately to antagonise the scammer, so you should not worry that just because they have your address or telephone number that they are out to do you harm – they are not. All they want is money from you, and they will tell you anything you want to hear to get it.

If you suspect that you have been contacted by a scammer, and have inadvertently given out your real details, then the best course of action is to send the scammer a polite email back basically telling them that after taking advice you no longer wish to have any further dealing with them. Do not accuse them of being scammers, or give them any abuse. Let them know that you will be ignoring any future emails from them. It is important from then on to do exactly that – ignore their emails. Save yourself from any further worry by just immediately deleting any of their messages to you. For your peace of mind don’t even read them. The scammers will quickly get the message and move on. They cannot afford to waste time on people that they think won’t pay up.

If you have given the scammer personal identification, such as a scan of your passport, or your banking details, then to cover yourself you would be advised to alert your local law enforcement. Get some kind of proof you have contacted them (such as a case number) for future reference. Scammers will often use the IDs of real victims in order to fool future victims that they are you for instance. It isn’t unheard of that a real victim who has handed over a scan of their passport gets a call from the law a year or two down the line, to ask some embarrassing questions about why you have been trying to scam some little old lady in another country!

It is a common fallacy that scammers ask for victim’s banking details in order that they can drain a victims accounts. This is not the case 99% of the time. Such details as your account number and sort code are usually not enough; your signature would be required. Be aware of course that your signature can be forged, especially if you have sent the scammer any type of documentation that contains your real signature. In any case where you believe you have sent your banking details to a scammer it is best to play it safe and contact your bank to inform them immediately.

Usually scammers just ask for banking details to include on any forged documentation that they send to the victim. Seeing one’s details on an official looking document helps to create the illusion that the deal is real. Also the scammer mentality is that if a victim is gullible enough to hand over their banking details, then they are likely to be more easily scammed.

Thanks Grandma!

“A computer repair man said having this is like gold.  If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends.”

Thank you.  Now everyone will have a silly address entry called “AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA”  in their contact list.  I have no idea what this does, but I’m sure half the family and friends on the fwd list are are actively fighting viruses with this ridiculous technique.  Sweet……another false sense of security!

How to protect your e-mail address book

A computer repairman says this is like having gold.  This is a good thing.  I learned a computer trick today that’s really ingenious in its simplicity.

As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your email address book, and sends itself to everyone in there, thus infecting all your friends and associates.

This trick won’t keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system.

Here’s what you do:

First, open your address book and click on ‘new contact, just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list of email addresses.  In the window where you would type your friend’s first name, type in ‘ A’.

For the screen name or email address, type AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA

Now, here’s what you’ve done and why it works:
The ‘name ‘A’ will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1.

This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends.
When it tries to send itself to  AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered.  If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), the worm goes no further and none of your friends will be infected.

Here’s the second great advantage of this method:  If an email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of
this in your In Box almost immediately.  Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your
system.  You can then take steps to get rid of it!

Pretty slick huh?

If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends.
DO IT NOW and pass this on to all your friends.

Illegal Immigrants Get SSI and Medicare!

This is an insult and a kick in the butt to all of us…

Get mad and pass it on – I don’t know how, but maybe some good
will come of this travesty.
If the immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicare and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004. She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there’s a ‘catch 22′.
It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890. Each can also obtain an additional $580 in social assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month.
This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.

Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees!

Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the refugees cut back to $1,012 and the pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years.
Please forward to every American to expose what our elected politicians have been doing over the past 11 years – to the over-taxed American.

SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I don’t know if any of you have gotten this one but I found a post on Factcheck.org concerning this. It’s false.  Feel free to fact check the fact check, but this appears to be complete Doodie!

We’ll start with the most comical error. There is no monthly payment to refugees.

Also wrong – and by a wide margin – is the claim that a Social Security pensioner can get “a monthly maximum of $1,012 in old age pension.” The true figure is more than double that. A person retiring this year at the full retirement age of 66 could qualify for a monthly check of up to $2,323, depending on how much she earned and paid into the system over her working life, according to the Social Security Administration.

The example of the woman who retired in 2004 after 60 years of work is also absurd. For one thing, somebody born in 1924 normally would have retired no later than full retirement age – which then was 65 years and four months – rather than continuing to work until age 80.

It’s remotely possible that a relatively low-income worker would have received a monthly pension check of only $791 per month as claimed, but depending on her earnings over her working life she could have received up to $1,825 per month – which was the maximum pension benefit for persons retiring in 2004 at full retirement age. The average monthly benefit paid to all retirees in January 2004, including those who retired in earlier years, was $903. That was adjusted upward to $922 by the annual cost of living adjustment that year.

The reference to a “catch 22″ may be a garbled allusion to the “notch baby” controversy from an earlier decade. Some persons born between 1916 and 1921 felt unfairly treated by an adjustment Congress made in 1977, and they lobbied Congress for years to increase their benefits. Financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn called their grievance “a distortion” in a 1999 article explaining the background. But whatever side one takes in the dispute, it’s a simple fact that  somebody born in 1924 would not have been affected.

The message seeks to generate outrage about over-generous treatment of “immigrants,” but misleads the reader in several ways – mainly by failing to distinguish between illegal immigrants (who generally don’t qualify for any benefits) and naturalized U.S. citizens.

It begins by saying “If the immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid.” Note that SSI, the acronym for Supplemental Security Income, is a welfare system separate from Social Security retirement benefits. Medicaid is a state-federal program providing medical insurance for low-income persons and is separate from the federal Medicare system for any American who reaches age 65.

Generally, legal immigrants – those who have become citizens and some who have legal permission to be in the U.S – can qualify for these programs on the same basis as anybody else. (The rules allowing some non-citizens to get SSI are complicated, and explained here.) Many people see the word “immigrants” and automatically think “illegal,” and the plain fact is that illegal immigrants don’t qualify for either SSI or Social Security.

Illegal immigrants also don’t qualify for Medicaid, except in certain emergency conditions, and that amounts to relatively little. A 2007 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at 48,391 individuals who received services reimbursed under Emergency Medicaid during a 4-year period in North Carolina, a state with a rapidly growing immigrant population. The study found that nearly all the patients were in the U.S. illegally, but that spending for their emergency care (mostly childbirth and treating complications of pregancy) amounted to less than 1 percent of the state’s total Medicaid spending.

To sum up: This email’s claim that immigrants and refugees get more generous Social Security, SSI and Medicaid benefits than ordinary citizens is completely wrong.

-Brooks Jackson