Several years ago (before 99% of emails were spam) I received an email that was addressed me by my actual real life first name. That (now defunct email address was lobeliaoverhill@ whatever it was)
The email was similar to the Nigerian scam ones, only this one was telling me that an uncle of mine had died in South America and bequeathed me a sum of money - or was it a ranch? Might have been both…
It didn’t ask for my bank account details or anything obviously scamming, and I debated as to whether or not I should do anything about it… In the end I deleted it.
I’ve never received another email on the subject, and I have had 12 different email addresses during my online existence, and I don’t know anyone who’s ever gotten an email telling them they’ve inherited something in South America.
I do not have an uncle with the name given in the email, but I’ve never met/heard off my godfather (I do have one, but I have no idea whom he is, or was)
Did I diddle myself out of a ranch and/or money?
I’ll cry if I did…
Three or four years ago I recieved an email from my cousin saying they had their wallet stolen while on vacation in England. I did happen to know that said cousin was infact in England on vacation and I lived in Europe so it kind of made sense that she would reach out to me.
Trouble was the email asked how my family was, and my family was non-existant so that was a bit of a red flag.
As it turns out it was just a well-crafted, or very lucky, scam.
I friend from another message board (she lives in Canada) married a Spaniard. As it turns out, he was named in the will of some relative back in Spain that he didn’t even know he had.
Said friend and her husband have had to sort through reams of paperwork and make multiple phone calls to the Spanish Consulate in … wherever (Toronto, I think). At one point they even had to call Madrid - and her husband’s Spanish is completely rusty, having left Spain as a small child.
They have no idea how much money they’re getting - it could be anywhere from a few Euros to millions. They have no idea what the endgame of this process is, or when it will happen. They could get a check tomorrow, or they could get one years from now, or they might never get one.
They found out about all this from a poorly-worded, broken-English e-mail.
I got one of those I am stuck in London after being mugged emails from myself … from what appeared to be an old email address of mine, that didn’t have my normal name to my email that I register that has a different form of my name. I found it amusing and was considering playing with the spammer. I have also started getting spam in french, and their grammer is much better in their native language.