What Scam is This?
 

A friend of mine got an e-mail with this in the body:

Hi,this is kind of random...my son found a phone when he was over at his dads house on Darwin Ave. this weekend and I believe it may be your phone! If you have lost a phone recently please reply back to this e-mail. He of course wanted to keep the phone, but I encouraged him to try to find the owner first and let the owner decide what they would like to do with the phone. We hope to hear from you soon!
Thank you,
Melissa

We figured it might be some kind of scam (because she has no ideo who "Melissa" is, now where "Darwin Ave." is). But for the life of us, we can't figure out what this scam gets? ..or leads to? Any ideas? ..or is this a legit claim?

TIA

Phishing for someone to ransom their cell phone back to? Of course, the person doing the ransoming is probably in Nigeria...

If they found your phone, how would they have your email address? Any time I've ever heard of someone finding a phone, inevitably the owner calls it once they discover it's missing.

You'd know if you lost your phone, right?

Reply, say it is yours, and ask how you can get it back. That might give a bit more information to figuring out the scam.

If you say yes, they'll arrange to meet to give it back to you, then kill you and eat your heart. It's the new thing.

I'd like to see a picture of Melissa.

Nude, with a copy of todays paper... Y'know, so you can be sure she's real................

And holding a cantaloupe in the other hand, just because.

This Melissa sounds hot!!!

I know! Because she's a Bad Girl!

my son found a phone when he was at DADs house, she is looking for DADs girlfriend.

You would probably be better off with pictures of DADs girlfriend, not the mom he dumped.

This is why I keep a novelty email account - donthavemaps@hotmail.com.

If it's a scam, they can load up that account with thier spam. I check it every week or so and empty it out to trash.

NO!. If you reply they will know it's a valid email address, and the spam floodgate will open wide!

Garbage bin, move on.

That's what I figured. Maybe a hook to try to get more info from you as well? Regardless...garbage bin for sure.

Boy, it's a shame you guys don't have a sense of humor around here... :p

The last time i found a phone, I looked up the most likely # in the address book and called it from my own phone. I talked to the person saying I found their phone. They said to trash it since they already replaced it.

We live in a disposable society. Lose your phone, get another. Get an email you find suspicious, trash it.

Yes, a VERY bad girl. And I'd like to smack her bottom for being sooooo bad.

hehehe, I saw similar, not exact same, and I responded. The next email was kindda hot message such as "I am waiting for you. If you are a real man, show up such and such...". I stopped. Try it out if you are curious. They maybe send you a 900 number and ask you to call.