So I was checking my e-mail this morning and saw one claiming to be from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I was tempted to simply report it as spam and move one but just for the heck of it decided to open it.
The first paragraph stated that through their intelligence monitoring network the FBI had determine I was eligible for a $7.5 million over-due inheritnce payment. Furthermore, the FBI and the Department of Homeland SEcurity had investigated and approved the transaction. Then the next paragraph launched into, you guessed it, the standard Nigerian inheritance scam. Then to top it off the letter was signed by NAME, SPecial Agent cc: Robert MEuller (FBI Director).
DO people still buy in to this scam? This one claimed that to receive my millions I just had to send $380 to them first. DO people still do this? But I must admit, it is rather ingenious to add the FBI name to the scam, gives it a bit more "credibility" (unless you realize that the FBI isn't remotely in this sort of business).
Gord:
ReplyDeleteI love to email them back, and offer to find the lost relatives (since I'm not one) if they will just send me $25,000 to an offshore account, and helpfully cc the attorney general of my state in order to facilitate the search. I don't get another scam letter for quite a few months after I do that.
However, I must be important and famous in Nigeria because I have pots of gold buried there, unclaimed bank accounts and numerous plantations that I have "inherited".
Sadly, a lady murdered her husband in Texas a year or so ago partly because he found out she had been duped in a similar scam that used check kiting, so I guess some people are that naive.