Got this letter in my email inbox today. This is a scam. If you receive these emails just delete them. What these guys do is request your bank account details on the pretense that they are going to transfer millions of dollars into your account. The truth is, once they have your account details, they will instruct your bank to transfer all your money out. Don’t fall for this scam!
Gotten two separate ones this last week. On the Secret Service site, they ask to be faxed instances of the scam, so I did. I don’t imagine much will become of them; I’m sure they have plenty of better things to follow up on.
That link mentioned earlier (http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal) has good info, but they begin with the statement that the scam has taken in $5 billion. Sorry, but I’d bet my left nut against that. In fact the whole page comes off awefully UL-ish. True scam though.
I think Bill H may be right and as explained on the link provided by Violet, how can you arrest the scamers when they appear to be protected by the Nigerian government.
I would think that the Spanish crooks as shown on the link by don’t ask would be arrested eventually.
Oh and in my previous post I wrote Doppers. That should of course read Dopers.
Interesting. My dad’s a petroleum geophysicist, and gets these letters on an average about about 3 or 4 times a year (he gets them in the mail, though…didn’t know that this scam had moved to email, although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.) He’s been getting them for the past 10 (I think) years or so. I had no idea these were so common.
Yeah, I posted a thread on this a while back: “An urgent massage to the manager”. Info on the scam can also be found on Snopes. It has spread to several other West African countries besides Nigeria.
I just received another one of these last week. I’m thinking of replying to it just for laughs, to see what they ask me to do.
This scam has been going on here in the UK for several years. In fact the Serious Fraud Office (a branch of the police) have set up a special department to deal with this fraud which originates in Nigeria. It has also been the subject of several TV undercover programmes with these fraudsters being caught on camera when they have ventured to the UK to entrap their victims.
Actually, that’s not the nature of the scam. I could figure out your bank account number and phone number without running a scam. The problem is that it’s pretty tough for me to withdraw money with just that info. And after I do it the cops are all over me.
A scam usually works in such a way that when it’s all said and done, the mark doesn’t go to the authorities because they are embarrased. And that’s the nature of this scam. You are trying to help someone take money from someone else in Nigeria. It’s just that you’re only incidentally helping them, so it eases your conscience to know you aren’t the one holding the gun. But it’s greed that drives the mark ultimately.
Here’s how the scam works:
a) They send you the initial letter (like the one in the OP)
b) You send them the info.
c) They call/write you and say the moneys on the way.
d) Then they contact you and say there’s a problem. There’s some minor tax that needs to be paid or some official who needs to be bribed. They say they need $5k or $10k or whatever.
e) The mark (you) thinks greedily of the supposed $5m to be made and sends the $10k.
f) goto #c