…for me at any rate.
Okay, what’s up with THIS CRAP?
I have to assume that the fax line is just an expensive call that sends money back to the person who ownsthe line (like those sex lines that say "only an international charge " when it’s really the international equivilent to a 900 number), but really, this is totally new for me.
Anyone have any information on this one?
I exed out the Fax numbers above because I certainly don’t want to spread this any further than it already is.
I seem to recall a classic con involving someone with a ficticious large sum of money that they want to transfer into the country. Can’t remember how it worked tho. IMO the illegal aspect of this transaction kinda points at a scam, since in a classic scam the ‘mark’ can’t go to the authorities afterwards.
BTW, try reading paragraph 3 in a Mojo-Jojo voice 
It could also be a variation on the classic “Pigeon Drop” scam. I’d be willing to bet that if you played along sooner or later you’d be asked to put up some of your own money as a guarantee of your trustworthiness.
Check out the Nigerian Funds Fraud described at http://prairielaw.com/articles/article.asp?channelId=8&subId=81&articleId=1387
Gee, I don’t know. He sounds like a nice enough guy. It is probably your day job as ruler of the netherworld that makes you doubt his story.
My connection is too slow, today, to check out the link, but isn’t this the one where, in order to put the money into your account, you have to provide so much account information that they use that knowledge to withdraw all the money from your account?
Well, it’s definitely either a scam or a crank, but you should see if you can get that massage mentioned in paragraph 3.
Yes, it’s a complete and utter scam. Go do a search on Yahoo or Google with “Nigeria” and “scam” and you’ll see what I mean. They will eventually ask you to front some cash, and if you go that far, they’ll finally invite you to Nigeria to oversee the transfer, where you will be murdered and robbed of whatever you bring with you. Stay far far away.
This actually circulated a few years back by fax! The place where I worked in the early 90s got a fax that was very similar, if not exactly the same, as the email message.
I called the local RCMP detachment, and the officer asked me to send him the fax to add to his file, which he described as “very thick”.
Apparently the gimick was as someone described above - get banking information and empty the account.
What was that about greed being good? Sometimes it’s just stupid!
D18
**tomndeb ** got it right - in order to facilitate the transfew of funds, you have to provide your own account info, which would allow them to make withdrawls, perhaps establish credit in your name etc. etc.
Read all about it: The 419 Coalition Website
The English syntax and grammar is what clued me in. I seem to recall this diction in something like…“all your base belong to us.”
is found here.
I used to be a general manager of a Westinghouse Electric Corp. division (may she rest in peace) and I used to get one of these emails about once a month. The Wall Street Journal wrote a long article on the many small businessmen who lost big bucks biting on this one.
Unless you’re a manager of a large corporation or the owner of a small business you can’t even begin to imagine the number of scams you’ve got to watch out for. Luckily most of them are so inane they’re easily spotted.
I should have mentioned that the Secret Service would like you to forward that e-mail to them as they are maintaining a database on the Nigerian scam. I’ve received and forwarded manny over the years, mostly letters, but a few e-mails as well, some from the Ivory Coast and Senegal. Some students of the phenomenon suspect the complicity of the Nigerian government. I can’t remember if I saw this at the 419 site or elsewhere, but I’ve read that at some point or another fully 25% of all telephone numbers in Nigeria have been associated with the scam.
It’s hard to feel much sympathy for those taken in because every approach I’ve seen indicates right up front that the bajillion bucks to be divvied up are ill-gotten.
What, nobody’s pointed out the Snopes link yet? I’m ashamed of you’uns.
Perhaps you’ve already checked, but here is the URL for the United Bank of Africa:
Might be worth dropping them a line.
A nice fella in Nigeria sent me a similar offer by e-mail recently. Or at least to my e-mail address, since he didn’t address me by name. I was requested to forward a bunch of information, including phone and fax numbers, bank account numbers etc. to facilitate the scheme. I was only offered 30% of the take (guess they’re upping the ante now).
I did respond with a local phone number to call and a demand for 40%. If they tried the number they got the local office of the F.B.I. - here’s hoping it cost them a little in long distance charges.
As mentioned that is a clone of the nigerian scam. I used to get those letters every couple of months.
Congratulations, Satan, on being one of the last people in America to have been hit with the Nigeria Scam. 
I received several versions of that letter in the early 90s.
Before there was an Internet. Before there was email I seem to recall hard letters like that going out…and it was the subject of a 60 minutes story. All this at least 20 years ago. No wonder this is such a significant part of the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product.
That part Hokienautic mentioned about going to the country and getting murdered may be a different skam that is going on in Columbia (you’re supposed to be meeting a soul mate).