By John Lohr
If it’s worth having, it’s worth stealing. Snidley Whipsnade (W.C. Fields)
By now it seems hard to believe that there’s anyone left that hasn’t heard of the Nigerian e-mail scam, yet millions of dollars each year are still being lost to the fraudsters. You know the scam: some supposed governmental official had millions of dollars but was forced to leave Nigeria hastily and he needs YOUR help to get the millions out of the country and you get a boatload of cash for helping. The scam hits when you have to put up cash along the way to pay duties, bribe officials and so on. Millions have lost thousands each, but the scam must be getting old.
Demonstrating that there is no lack of creativity in crooks, three new variants of the Nigerian scam have popped up. One is an e-mail that says it’s from the Director of Finance of the Nigerian Central Bank. The Federal Government of Nigeria has decided to pay YOU $1.5 Million (USD) as compensation for the frauds perpetrated upon you by unscrupulous Nigerian e-mail fraudsters in the past. You are instructed to contact Reverend Stephen Osometh, the Chairman of the committee set up to give you money. The scam persists when you will have to put up a good faith payment or give them your credit information or somehow give them another way to rip you off (again)
The second new version is an e-mail from Peter Anderson who is supposed to be a Northern Irish drug dealer currently in prison in the US. He is afraid millions of his drug money in a bank in the UK will be lost and he’ll give you 20% to get it out for him. See, he wants to go straight when he gets out and wants YOUR help in finding some profitable venture you both can invest in.
The third version is an e-mail supposedly from somebody named Johnny Williams, son of the murdered national security advisor to Abidjan (Wherever that is). Johnny has his hands on about $5 Million (US) and needs YOUR help to transfer the money here for investment purposes, and may God bless you for helping him.
They’re all the same fraud. Only the words and the players have been changed.
If you haven’t gotten your e-mail scam yet, please don’t EVER respond to these things. I suggest you do what I did. Refer Johnny and Peter to the Nigerian Central Bank and the good Reverend Osmeth. Maybe they can all get together in Peter Anderson’s prison.