Spam - you wonder why these idiots bother...

[BEagle]

This piece of $hit is currently doing the rounds - do they really think that anyone will reply?

Season Greetings,
I am Mrs., Zianab Abiola, a God fearing person in sorrow, one of the widows of late M.K.O Abiola, from Nigeria's foremost Politician, businessman and philanthropist who died as a result of fighting for the presidential election he won but was denied his presidential sit (JUNE 12).
I sincerely need your assistance, but I want you to bear in mind that this has to be strictly confidential, I sincerely need your assistance to take custodian of the sum of Thirty million, United States Dollars (U.S$30m).
This money was given to me by my late husband [Chief M.K.O.Abiola] for safekeeping as the money was meant for bringing down investors to Nigeria when he finally becomes the president after the Presidential Election campaign. After his death in 1998, there was confusion in the entire Abiola family as regards sharing of the family assets and more so, there is envy and jealousy as it was obvious that I was my husband's favorites wife, while he was alive.
As soon as he passed away, coupled with the fact that, what I has and what is due to me might be taking away from me by greedy family relations whose reasons would be bothering on family tradition and ethics, I decided to deposit the money with a finance house with the help of my late husband's friend (Col.Adamu Bello rtd.) who was a member of the government in power then.
The funds are presently lodged with a financial institution.
We have to be very careful due to the junk emails,
The above warning is very vital to avoid both of us getting into
The problems of the authority of the internet thiefs and watch dogs.
Any unsolicited emails you receive should be reported to me immediately.
I am prepared to compensate you with 15% of the total sum after the successful completion of the transaction. And you will also have to invest my family share in a very good business venture with you as our front manager alongside my son.
My son, M.Abimbola Abiola, will be working along with you,
He stays far away in London but could not do it all alone base on the fact that our family members eyes may be on him. He will be giving you more information as regards this transaction. He is my only son and we share secrets.
Please respond to mrs_ab1 (at) yahoo (dot) com (dot) au as soon as you get this mail and please it is important that you send your private phone and fax numbers to me so that I can forward them to the finance house after my attorney must have change and legalize all the papers to your name if you are willing to assist me.
I intends investing a larger percentage of this funds into
profitable business venture, in your country but you can advice me on this area.
I wouldn't want you to disappoint me please for God's sake.
Please reply only to my personal email address which is mrs_ab1 (at) yahoo (dot) com (dot) au
Thanks and God Bless.
Mrs.Zainab Abiola.

[aiglon]

do they really think that anyone will reply?

Yes! Given the number of emails they send out, it only needs a very small response rate - and there are more than one or two greedy (gullible) people in the world.

Aiglon

[Gonzo]

I remember reading about a guy who called their bluff, pretending to be very keen on 'helping out' and even getting the criminals to pay him quite a bit in an effort to prove they were legit and to get him on board, then he pulled out at the last minute.

[126,7]

I find it sad that people actually fall for this sort of thing.

But then you get folks like these (http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/) that make for very amusing reading.

[Engineer]

BEagle your naivity surpasses you

It is amazing how greed or desparateness can over come common sense. But that is what scams rely on.

The list looks like this

Property Investment:
Would-be investors are persuaded to invest thousands of pounds in non-existent building or buy-to-let schemes, often in other countries.

Non-Existent Credit:
Those searching for credit are promised loans regardless of their credit history in return for a one-off 'insurance' fee. Adverts typically appear in local newpapers. Invariably, the loan doesn't appear in these advance-fee scams.

Investment Schemes:
Shares or commodity-related investments such as gold or fine wine are promoted, in most cases through unsolicited phone calls. The investments may exist but are worth less than you pay for them and are virtually unsellable.

Telephone Lotteries:
Consumers are told they have won a lottery prize, usually via unsolicited mail or a telephone call, but they must first send money to cover 'taxes' and 'processing' fees.

Premium Rate Telephone Numbers:
Callers give victims instructions to dial a number (premium rate and usually prefixed 090) to claim a non-existent prize.

Advance Fee Fraud:
A letter, email or fax is received, ostensibly from a foreign country such as Nigeria, offering a share of a large sum of money if the recipient's bank details are provided. The idea is that the fraudster will use your account to transfer the money out of his/her country.

Pyramid Schemes:
One of the oldest scams, which promises rewards dependent on the number of new people the victim can recruit to the scheme.

Matrix Schemes:
High-tech gadgets are offered as 'free' gifts if the consumer spends a smaller sum, say £20, on a low-value item. The purchaser is told that they will receive a higher-value gadget after a certain number of others join the scheme, too. Most receive nothing.

Business Opportunity Scams:
Communicated by newspaper adverts and requiring upfront investment in a business that has little, or no chance of success. The chance to work from home in return for the purchase of required materials is a common factor.

As one can see not all scams orginate in West Africa :{

Remember if it is if it is too good to be true it is dishonest :ok:

[Tuba Mirum]

126,7 , there's an additional site here (http://www.scamorama.com/) which has lots of stories of taking the p!ss out of the "419" scammers.
Edited for early-morning spelling problems, and for not having read previous posts properly .:{

[Blacksheep]

A poor chap I know in Malaysia still believes - against all the odds - that Saddam Hussein's people will be arriving soon with a large bag of US Dollar banknotes that they need to get out of Iraq. All he has to do is collect it in Bangkok, carry it to Kuala Lumpur and deposit it a particular HSBC account. He gets to keep 10% for his trouble.

It would be funny, except that he's not too bright and was never very prosperous. Just a simple working man, trying hard to feed his family and make ends meet. He's gone broke sending them cash to bribe officials and paying for air fares and hotel bills for the two 'Iraqis' that came over to Bangkok for discussions. His wife left him and took the kids back to her father's when the bank foreclosed on their housing loan and they were evicted. It was a sad day when he decided that using the local internet cafe to learn how to use a computer would be good for his future employment prospects.

Not everyone can help being gullible; its time we had the death penalty for Spammers. :mad:

[Genghis the Engineer]

When I need cheering up, I'm particularly fond of this website (http://www.419eater.com/) ; somebody who has made a real fine art out of dealing with these crooks.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/shiver.419/images/patrick.jpg

G

[seacue]

The story goes that before WW2, when the US dollar could buy 15 times what it can today, someone put an advert in a major newspaper "Send $1 to <address>". He made no promise of anything in return. He collected a fair amount of money until shut down by authorities on some pretext.

[Daysleeper]

http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert23661780050214.gif