Saturday, September 02, 2006

Today's Nigerian e-mail scam

I haven't gotten one of these things in years, so I just thought I'd share:

From:"MANUEL WOODGATE"
Subject: URGENT ASSISTANCE
Date:Sun, 03 Sep 2006 03:26:10 +0200

From: Mr. Manuel Woodgate
Private Email.Manuelwoodgate@yahoo.com
Subject: Next Of Kin To Late Mr. Thompson,

Dear Sir/Madam,

I apologize if the contents here under are contrary to your moral ethics, but please treat it with absolute secrecy and personal courtesy. I am Mr. Manuel Woodgate a senior account officer / auditor with one of the foreign banks here in Italy . I have a business, which I would like to introduce to you, and I think it would be of benefit to us. This is just an opportunity that came my way, and hence I thought it wise to utilize it.

In the process of auditing foreign accounts this quarter, I and one of my colleagues recently discovered that there is a dormant account valued at the sum $25,000,000.00 (Twenty five Million United States Dollars) and after due verification of this account we discovered that the account owner/holder (Mr Thompson ) passed on with his family couple of years back in a plane crash, and that is why the account has been d dormant and as such a close balance of $25,000,000.00 has been lying in the Bank unclaimed.

The idea of presenting somebody to stand as his next of kin to claim the funds in his dormant account came into our mind, that is how and why we have decided to contact you so as to present you as his Next of Kin, so that the $25,000,000.00 in his dormant account would be transferred to you as his Next of Kin, and we will compensate you for doing that. Upon your response we would discuss with you on the percentage we have decided to offer you.

In view of this, I am seeking for your co-operation and understanding to stand as the next of kin to our deceased customer to enable us claim the fund from my Bank, if not the $25,000,000.00 will be declared unclaimed by the Bank after this quarter and hence his account will be frozen and the money confiscated. Hence, if this proposal is OK by you , Please kindly get in touch with me immediately, strictly via my private email address only: Manuelwoodgate@yahoo.com enable me enlighten you on how we are to proceed.

On getting your response, we shall agree on the percentage we will give you as I stated before. Meanwhile, we intend to invest part of our own share in real estate or any lucrative business in your country, and we would appreciate if you can put us in the right part where we can invest when the time comes Considering your stand in this matter, I will not contact any person or companies until I hear from you, so as to enable me decide on what to do next.

Be rest assured that this business is 100% risk free and would be conducted on a legitimate ground, which will protect you and me from every breach of law. We wait for your prompt response.

Regards,
Mr. Manuel Woodgate

NB: PLEASE NOTE THAT IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU ARE NOT RELATED TO MY LATE CLIENT OR NOT: THE FUND WILL STILL BE PAID TO YOU,SINCE I AM PRESENTING YOU AS HIS NEXT OF KIN.

7 comments:

MissMuse said...

I love the ones that say they are looking or a handsome man to marry and split their fortune with, and I just may be the one to fit the bill! :/

dara said...

I wish they'd come up with something interesting already.

Stephen Tiano said...

You just reminded me of my friend in Oregon who pretty much hasn't had to work since he was a cabdriver 20-25 years ago in New York City. Now that he's retired his pursuit of writing individualized letters to baseball player and enclosing their baseball cards to be autographed, the thing that most occupies his time is seeking out Nigerian-type scam artists--i.e., what's called the Nigerian scam; not a racial slur--and he scams them. He ties them up for months via email, pretending he's rich and ready to bite. Almost cruelly, he's had some of them prove their good faith by sending foolish photos of themselves and making long-distance phone calls to numbers that turn out to be foreign police departments.

Stephen Tiano, Book Designer & Page Composition Specialist
email: stiano@optonline.net
iChat screen name: stephentiano@mac.com
blog: Book of Tiano
blog address: http://stevetiano.blogspot.com

nzdanboy said...

Even down here in New Zealand, there seems to have been a resurgence of 'hello are you a dumb farker' e-mails going around

EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima said...

I am Nigerian and I receive these 419 e-mails on Yahoo. And I wonder if Yahoo is a share holder?

Well, 419 is Monkey Business and monkeys love bananas and as we all know that because of poverty, millions of Nigerian monkeys have gone bananas.

Now the Russian Internet Romance scammers have joined the the party sending e-mails with "Jane Doe" photographs of their selected prostitutes posing as love sick women.

Just ignore them and anti-spam guard takes care of the rubbish.

God bless.

Ryane said...

But Dara! It's 100% RISK FREE?!! how can you turn down $25,000,000 (25 Million United States dollars) from such a stand-up guy??

=-)

haha. I haven't seen one of those in awhile, although I did get one from a supposed 'match' when on-line dating. He said he had a 'shoe company' he was starting in Nigeria, and could tell from my profile that I would be interested in such an endeavor.

Delete!

dara said...

Stephen: That sounds like a lot of work for very little satisfaction!

nzdanboy: I don't think it matters where in the world you are -- there are always scams. More surprisingly, however, is that there are a significant number of people who don't know better already.

orikinla: I'm surprised that the anti-spam software lets so many of these things through. But I agree with you that a lot of it is fueled by poverty.

And Ryane: I'm starting to think investing in a shoe company is not a bad idea!