They say I won $20 millions.

[worldpease]

How stupid they think I am?
I got an e-mail today and goes like this:

De: "abdullah dangaji" <ab----angaji@perpignan Añadir a la Libreta de contactosAñadir a la Libreta de contactos
Fecha: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:09:21 +0200
Asunto: Urgent Reply

Dear Sir/Ma,
I am Barrister Abdullah dangaji Solicitor. I am the Personal Attorney
to
ENGR.T. Thomas, a national of United State of America, who used to work
with
shell/oil development company in Nigeria as the chief Engineer. On the
2nd of
may 1999, my client ,his wife And their three children were involved in
a
car accident along Sagbama Express Road.

All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since then
I have
made several enquiries to their embassy to locate any of my clients
extended
relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.After these several
unsuccessful
attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet, to locate
any
member of his family but of no avail, hence I contacted you to assist
in
repatriating the money that belong to my client before they get
confiscated or
declared unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were
lodged.

Particularly, the Bank where the late decease had an account valued at
about
20 million dollars has issued me a notice today to provide the next of
kin or
have the account confiscated within the next ten official working
days.since i
have been unsuccessful in locating the elatives for over 4 years now I
seek
your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased, so that
the
proceeds of this account valued at $20 million dollars can be paid to
your
account and then you and me can share the money. 55% to me and 40% to
you,
while 5% should be for expenses or tax as your government mayrequire,
As soon
as you indicate your interest by sending below.
information:
1. Your full name and address
2. Your telephone and fax number

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this dealt
through.
I have all the documents (DEATH CERTIFICATE AND DEPOSIT CERTIFICATE)
required
to this transaction I guarantee that this will be executed under a
legitimate
arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.if you are
willing to help mail me back as soon as posible to enable me to
give you all the necessary information.and the bank contact.

Barri. Abdullah. Dangaji

I've heard of people getting these kind of stuff,
but this seems really absurd.

[zaphodiv]

This is called a 419 scam. There are thousands of variations on the storys.
There are lots of people in Nigeria who's full time occupation is trying to scam people in the USA and Europe.

The nigerians have been sending messages like this on paper by post for decades. I saw the first one of these by email about five years ago. A couple of years ago I registered a domain name for myself and got a 419 scam by email to that domain about three days afterwards. I used to get about one a month. I havn't not recieved a 419 scam for months but thats probably because I changed to a hosting company with better spam filtering.

There are also people in Nigeria who spend all day trying to order goods from western companys in the hope that one out of hundreds will be stupid enough to dispatch the goods before making sure the funds have cleared and won't be recalled. Any sensible buisness who bothers to deal with nigerians at all doesn't take cheques or credit cards and dispatches goods at least 45 days after a bankers draft or transfer clears so there is time for the banks to figure out whatever scam they are trying.

RACIST COMMENT REMOVED

[lee551]

you just got your first yesterday? they come 'round fairly often for me.

[zaphodiv]

That comment was not racist. I was commenting on the country not the people.
It is a fact that nigerian society is corrupt just as it is a fact that it's hard to do
buisness in russia without either paying the mafia or getting shot.
The percentage of the population that is HIV positive is a well documented fact.

[zaphodiv]

One in fifty American's is morbidly obese.

Rossco, do you think that a racist statement?

If you don't it would be polite to put back my statement about Nigerians and apologise for calling me a racist.

[Chewie]

That comment was not racist. I was commenting on the country not the people.
It is a fact that nigerian society is corrupt just as it is a fact that it's hard to do buisness in russia without either paying the mafia or getting shot.

That's not exactly what you said though, was it?
Your remarks were derogatory at the least and what you said in your first sentence, in its entirety, was definitely not fact.
They also had no relation to the scams that come from Nigeria or any other African 'Third World' nations that are home to those smart enough to fleece slow witted people.

[Skiz]

There's also another Nigerian scam that my parents almost got nabbed by. Someone calls and asks for you by name. They say that a friend/family member of yours is in jail and called them by mistake, but they can't call again because that was their one phone call, so this guy agreed to make the call. He says to call the jail at insert phone number here.

My Dad was suspiscous at this point and called the phone company after hanging up. The lady at the phone had this to say:

When you call the number, it has a recording that sounds like a jailhouse and asks you to state your name after the beep and to please hold. If you do this, you're screwed:

1. The call you placed to the fake jailhouse was rerouted to a Nigerian number and you're paying who knows how much for that phone call while you're on hold.
2. When you stated your name, you just gave this bs company your person approval to change your long distance carrier to this Nigeria company.

[erRor67]

There's also another Nigerian scam that my parents almost got nabbed by. Someone calls and asks for you by name. They say that a friend/family member of yours is in jail and called them by mistake, but they can't call again because that was their one phone call, so this guy agreed to make the call. He says to call the jail at insert phone number here.

My Dad was suspiscous at this point and called the phone company after hanging up. The lady at the phone had this to say:

When you call the number, it has a recording that sounds like a jailhouse and asks you to state your name after the beep and to please hold. If you do this, you're screwed:

1. The call you placed to the fake jailhouse was rerouted to a Nigerian number and you're paying who knows how much for that phone call while you're on hold.
2. When you stated your name, you just gave this bs company your person approval to change your long distance carrier to this Nigeria company.

Damn, never gotten that but i bet a lot of people fall for that one..



For the email winning 20 million dollars, i got that a few times.. I just read it and laugh then delete em. I wish i got 20 million.

[worldpease]

Hey Skizo, there are varius variations of that 'telephone scam' here in Mexico,
and we've actually had like two or three calls like that, but none of those times we fell for it.
Damn people.

And I also remember that a few years ago,
a lady, like 50sh. went to my grandma's home posing as a friend of her daugter,
she actually turned out to be very well informed about family related information, the thing is, she wanted money cus her daugter(grandma's) was in trouble,
yeah right you *---.
So grandma called us, then we called her daugter, and it turned out she was alright.
The woman never went back.
A few days later a couple of police man made rounds on the street telling people to be carefull,
that there have been reports of a scamer on the zone.

[Cheese]

I had a Nigerian emailing me for ages about a mp3 player I put up for sale on Amazon (there was a thread in the Lounge about it). My landlady's daughter was taken in by a scammer who targeted her about a phone she put up for sale on Amazon, sent her an official looking email and she posted it off to him/her. Of course she never got the money for it.

Moral of the story: check your Amazon account has been credited before you send stuff off.