A few weeks ago, I received the following scammy e-mail:

Received: from real.edu.ee ([195.250.188.110] [195.250.188.110])
Received: from localhost (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by real.edu.ee (Postfix)
Received: from real.edu.ee ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (server [127.0.0.1])
Received: by real.edu.ee (Postfix, from userid 30)
Reply-to: peg.morrison@yahoo.dk
From: Peggy Morrison <peg.morrison@yahoo.dk>
Subject: Hello
Sender: wwwrun@real.edu.ee
To: alecm

From: Lady Peggy Morrison,
4 Old Church Street,
Chelsea, SW3, England.

Here writes Lady Peggy Morrison, suffering from cancerous ailment. I am married to Engineer Richard Morrison an Englishman who is dead. He was into private practice all his life before his death. Before his death, he deposited the sum of 20Million ( 20Mil lion Great Britain Pounds Sterling) which was derived from his vast estates and investment in capital market with his bank here in UK. I have decided to donate this fund to you and want you to use this gift which comes from my husbands effort to fund the u pkeep of widows, widowers, rphans, destitute etc. Awaits your reply.

Lady Peggy Morrison.
peg.morrison@yahoo.dk
4 Old Church Street,
Chelsea, SW3, England.

…I just love the grammar of these things (Here writes Lady Peggy Morrison, suffering from cancerous ailment, vast estates, etc) reflecting perhaps a post-colonial grammar combined with poor education, nor the badly forged headers (from Denmark via Estonia?) but the thing which caught my eye about this was the address. A 419-scam in Chelsea, dahling?

That an address was given at all was unusual, and that it cited a truncated postcode (“SW3”) to lend credibility was even more amusing — in case you don’t know, British zip/postcodes are in two parts of the form “SW3 1XX” or similar, the first part designating a large region, the latter part narrows the area to within a few houses, perhaps only a dozen. To cite a partial postcode in your own address is sloppy, ignorant or poseurish, depending on your intent.

I was due to have dinner with a friend who lives in that area, that very evening. A quick GoogleMap showed the address to be 200m from the restaurant we were dining, so after a lovely dinner at Cheyne Walk Brasserie (try the salmon tartare) – we wandered over to take a look.

intrepid co-investigator

I’d forgotten the exact address by the time we got to Old Church Street, but as soon as we saw the house I knew we’d found it…

the address

…a house out of action, under renovationwhere letters can be delivered and stockpiled by builders, perhaps innocently or perhaps in association with the scammers who will pick up the mail once a week in exchange for a small stipend, perhaps.

the doorway (detail)

Curiously (amusingly?) there is a security camera:-

camera?

…but given the state of the interior I strongly doubt that it is working and/or would be able to record anything.

interior undecor

So that’s how it works, folks – a classic Dead Drop with amateur funding and intent to rip-off the ignorant, trusting masses. I’d speculated upon turning up with fake creds, pretending to be a tax inspector insisting Lady Peggy must submit to a tax assessment for death duties, but alas…

Oh – and walking further up the street, we worked out the reason for the truncated postcode:

They couldn’t even be bothered to use the postcode finder.

Not merely scammers, but lazy gits, too.