"toyotaadvantageprogram.com" scam

[joewein]

Here's a scam email that landed in my filter today. You may find it interesting:

Dear Mr/Ms.

Prius Hybrid OFFERS!

Toyota announced today that global cumulative sales of Toyota hybrid vehicles have topped the one million mark, with approximately 1,047,000 units sold worldwide as of 31 May 2007.
Due to the recent global financial crises, Toyota stuck in stock with 1224 Prius HYBRID cars, because in this stock are cars unsold for over 6 months, TOYOTA launch the Advantage Program where is 30% discount for 1200 Prius HYBRID cars.

The Advantage Program have 5 steps, the first one it is the application form to accept your request.
The second step: An agreement between seller & buyer.
The third step: After the agreement, the buyer need to deposit $5,000 to TOYOTA Dealer Bank Account, necessary for delivery, completion all documents, and submission of a balance of $2,500.
The fourth step: Annexation receipts of the two parties (Buyer: proof payment & Seller: receipt of payment), and completion all contractual documents.
The fifth step : Delivery & buyer signature of delivery.

Prices have 30% discount:

PRIUS II - 1.8L 4-Cyl. Hybrid
PRICE: $16,400
AVailable: 341 cars

Prius III - 1.8L 4-Cyl. Hybrid
PRICE: $17,100
Available: 184 cars

Prius IV - 1.8L 4-Cyl. Hybrid
PRICE: $18,500
Available: 218 cars

Prius V - 1.8L 4-Cyl. Hybrid
PRICE: $19,800
Available: 481 cars

We offer you the opportunity to purchase a very good Auto with 30% discount.
The payment shall be made in installments through the bank at 1 month after signing the contract.
If you are interested in this offer please fill out the application contact form, A representative will contact you about this vehicle within five business day if your application will be approve.

Application Contact Form:

Fullname: ...........................
Billing Address: ...........................
Mobile Phone Number: .......................
E-mail: ......................
Your Age: ....

The application contact form will be sent to: info@toyotaadvantageprogram.com

Best Regards,
TOYOTA ASSISTANCE
info@toyotaadvantageprogram.com
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
19001 South Western Ave.
Dept. WC11
Torrance, CA 90501

Received: from unknown (HELO User) (mike@82.107.192.65)
by eztechinternet.com with ESMTPA; 16 May 2009 23:19:29 -0000
Reply-To: <no-reply@toyotaadvantageprogram.com>
From: "Toyota Advantage Program"<no-reply@toyotaadvantageprogram.com>
Subject: Prius Hybrid OFFERS!
Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 01.18.06 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Windows-1251"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

IP address 82.107.192.65 is in Italy, not North America or Japan. Character set Windows-1251 is Russian.

Domain toyotaadvantageprogram.com is hosted with Yahoo (whose web hosting services is frequently abused by Russian and Romanian phishing gangs, but also by Nigerian lads) using a fake identity, possibly the owner of a stolen credit card used for the domain registration.

It's always amazing how popular trends are quickly reflected in online scams.

[djasonw]

Originally Posted by joewein

Here's a scam email that landed in my filter today. You may find it interesting:

IP address 82.107.192.65 is in Italy, not North America or Japan. Character set Windows-1251 is Russian.

Domain toyotaadvantageprogram.com is hosted with Yahoo (whose web hosting services is frequently abused by Russian and Romanian phishing gangs, but also by Nigerian lads) using a fake identity, possibly the owner of a stolen credit card used for the domain registration.

It's always amazing how popular trends are quickly reflected in online scams.

I always like to reply with completely erroneous information just to make them waste their time.

[patsparks]

From the way the whole thing is written I would suspect right off the bat that this was written by either children or someone for whom English is not a first language. I doubt Toyota would suddenly have chosen to use people with poor english in their marketing arm.

[CharlesJ]

Originally Posted by djasonw

I always like to reply with completely erroneous information just to make them waste their time.

With the above info, it may be fun to play with them, ask why they are in Italy with Russian characters and tell them, you'd like to participate with full payment with vehicle in hand

[cwerdna]

I read about a similar scam going around for Ford Fusion Hybrids. Here's one of many stories on it: Ford Examiner: $15,500 offer on 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid is a fake.

[hobbit]

If "eztechinternet" is your provider, you might want to ask them
why they're not filtering this stuff up front...
.
_H*

[mandrei83]

Originally Posted by joewein

Here's a scam email that landed in my filter today. You may find it interesting:

IP address 82.107.192.65 is in Italy, not North America or Japan. Character set Windows-1251 is Russian.

Domain toyotaadvantageprogram.com is hosted with Yahoo (whose web hosting services is frequently abused by Russian and Romanian phishing gangs, but also by Nigerian lads) using a fake identity, possibly the owner of a stolen credit card used for the domain registration.

It's always amazing how popular trends are quickly reflected in online scams.

It's a fake advertise.. do not trust in those kind of sites. Nobody asks for deposit.. and if would be so, why you don't make a trip until there and sign personally the papers?

Nobody asks the moneys in advance for a car, especially the producer or importer. This is happening just in case that you buy the car with reservation, but also, sign some papers in advance to have the prove of the payment.

Some moneys should be pay if you have an invoice, company name and so on.. and those can be verified. DO NOT transfer in private accounts or unverified traders.

I'm Romanian, I'm not hacker, but I know what my 'friends' from my country are doing.. All Europe heard about Romanians..

[hill]

Soooo . . . . I won't be getting my car OR my money back?




.

[PriusRos]

I guess I missed my chance! I was too busy trying to figure out which model year they are talking about and when I got to step 3, it said I had to deposit $5,000 and then pay the balance of $2,500. I don't see which model is being offered for only $7,500.

Do you think that anybody has actually fallen for this scam? Aside from the apalling grammar (one can sort of figure out what they are trying to say), it makes no sense.

[daniel]

Presumably these kinds of scams work, since we continue to see them. But what kind of person believes an email written like that? And why don't these scammers hire a native English-speaker to write a coherent scam letter?

By the way, if you do decide to reply to one of these just for fun, use a disposable email address, because if it's a network of scammers, they'll trade your email address and you may be deluged with even more spam.