“Celebrating Stephen Hawking” With a 419 Scam | Email Quiz Scam

Stephen Hawking recently left us seems to be resurrected, and is now targeted by the scammers to extract money from the users who are unaware of an unclearly unreal 419 scam.

The entire thing starts with an email from, er, Stephen Hawking titled “Celebrating Stephen Hawking.”

The body text slightly appears like a rewritten article from NYTimes, clarifying Hawking's wellbeing condition, a trimmed life story, and a reference to his famous book, A Brief History of Time.

At this point, everyone would wonder what’s the reason behind this note —it appears to be some sort of unusual in Memoriam-style infodump, with nothing predominantly threatening going on.

But, it becomes a little more interesting with the next part of the content:

Celebrating Hawking of his late on age 76yrs.

Awarding the Person who answers these questions about Stephen Hawking will be Rewarded with a Sum of 8 Million Dollars.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

(A) Who is Stephen Hawking wife?
(B) Where is Stephen Hawking from?
(C) Who is Stephen Hawking?

That’s right. Answer few questions about Stephen Hawking, and get a cash prize—a huge amount, in fact, to the tune of a cool $8 million. If you’re thinking something along the lines of, "This is unrealistic," you most probably would be onto something.

The email linked to the end of the article says will provide the answers to the three questions. Amazingly, not only are the scammers ready to give the responses to this improvised test but at the same time, they're not providing the appropriate responses, because the article does no such thing. So a series of praise for our phony email companion for influencing us to peruse something unnecessarily.

It goes on:

Notice: These three questions will lead you to Eight Million Dollars Cash.

Answer………………….

(A)
(B)
(C)

To E-mail:

Be reminded $8m Awaiting to your winning answer of these question.

Yours Faithfully
Scientist Space

Thanks, “Scientist Space,” if that truly is your name (because Stephen Hawking unquestionably isn’t). They will, obviously, go ahead to call themselves "Scientist Space" somewhat later on via the email chain since precision and consistency don’t appear to be a concern for our Hawking-themed scammers.  Terrible for them, and bravo, as you now have a couple of more impossible to miss monikers to add to the heap of "This is without a doubt the fakest thing we have seen since last Wednesday."

Anyway, we purposely sent them a pile of inaccurate responses to check whether they really would decline to offer the fake $8 million, or if the inquiries were utterly meaningless. We were surprised to find that they really wanted us to jump through some research hoops, and were quite happy to send an answer to get us started:

Oops Accurate Answers Request…….

Your Answers is incorrect.

Example Number One
A) Stephen William Hawking wife, her Name is……… Jane Beryl Hawking

You still have a chance to win to an accurate answer
to the left of the (2) questions

Terms
Scientist Space

Yes, they’re just straight up giving me the answers, and now I had to do some digging of my own. I sent a reply answering 2 and 3, and…

…………You Just won $8 Million Dollars Portfolio,…..

Your Winning is ready to Claimed.
As it’s your readiness of Claiming your portfolio $8M
will need your following information to your Claimed

Your Name……………….
Address…………………..
Cell Phone………………
Age……………….
Height……..
Width……….
A copy of Gorv issue ID Card if any.

This is a huge money that will change your entirely life to your future generation.
Good-luck to your family will never surfer again bringing it to you by Late Dr. Stephen William Hawking.
to your answers Award winner.

Terms
Scientist Space

Just like that, I’ve won $8 million. Hooray!

Except, not really. What you have actually won is a chance to lose all your money, and possibly become a money mule in the bargain. (Also, who asks for “width”?!) we are afraid to say that neither Stephen Hawking nor anyone else claiming to represent him will be mailing you about cash prizes anytime soon.

This is just another poor attempt by scammers to make a quick buck off the name of a famous, recently deceased individual.

Utterly reprehensible, and entirely fraudulent. Should you receive a mail along the lines of the above, report it, then delete.

You won’t land a cool 8 million, but you will be doing your part to keep another person from falling for a similar scam.

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