The sad passing of a long-lost relative

I received this in my email today. Apparently one of my relatives died in a plane crash ten years ago, but I do not know their name. Heck, I didn’t even know I had a relative who had ever been to Africa, coming from a long line of poor white trash as I do.Now, if this were real, and if I really did have a relative who died leaving millions, what makes this idiot think I’d give him 60% of the loot while I would only get 40%? Astonishing. Yet, if I were dumb enough to take it seriously, he’d explain that it’s because he is taking all the risk.

See, he knows as well as I that I do not have a long-lost relative in Africa, because he knows that none of what he is saying is true. He’s just taking advantage of the endless greed of Americans. Every single year, Americans send BILLIONS to these scammers. Some do it because they are greedy. Some do it because they are desperate. Yet in every case, their money is gone forever.

For anyone gullible enough to believe that I might actually have a long-lost relative and am passing up the chance of a lifetime, notice several things. They don’t know my name, and even if they did know my name, they would not have any way of associating it with my email account. They don’t give the name of my allegedly deceased relative, either. In fact, they don’t give any information at all, except to say that I could walk away with millions just by cooperating with them.

Oh yes, they also ask that I keep their correspondence confidential. That’s mostly just because they are committing a crime, though.

Of course, I don’t really have a dead relative who left behind millions, and somebody in Africa is sitting in an internet cafe, forwarding this to a zillion people at once then occasionally checking the account, hoping to find a sucker.

If I went along with it he’d ask me for proof of my identity (drivers’ license, passport), fees to pay this and that, take me for thousands in “fees” which seem to drag on forever; and if I’m really lucky, he won’t insist I come there with a big lump sum to collect my “inheritance”, because if he does, chances are he plans to kill me and take my money. That has happened before, and it is always a possibility when dealing with scams of this nature.

Don’t ever, ever think that a real person at a real bank would contact you by email about millions of dollars, even if everything else he/she/it says is true. It just won’t happen in the real world.

FROM DR SALIF RASAKI
FOREIGN REMITTANCE MANAGER.
BANK OF AFRICA (B.O.A)
OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO.

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Friend,

I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise as we never met before. I am the FOREIGN REMITTANCE MANAGER of B.O.A Bank of African, I Hoped that you will not expose or betray this trust and confident that I am about to repose onyou for the mutual benefit of our both families.

I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of ($18.5 million) Eighteen Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars immediately to your account. The money has been dormant (in-active) for 10 years in our Bank here without any body coming for it.

I want to release the money to you as the nearest person to our deceased customer (the owner of the account) who died a long with his supposed next of kin in air crash since August 1997.

I don’t want the money to go into our Bank treasury as an abandoned fund, so this is the reason why I contacted you, so that my Bank will release the money to you as the nearest person to the deceased cutomer. Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete it if you are not interested.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send you full details on how the business will be executed and also note that you will have 40% of the above mentioned amount if you agree to help me execute this business.

Thanks and waiting for your urgent response,

Best Regards
DR SALIF RASAKI
FOREIGN REMITTANCE MANAGER
B.O.A BANK OF AFRICA,

After you catch your breath from laughing at this idiot, hop on over to Quatloos and check out The Brad Christensen Exhibit. Brad is quite an expert at stringing these types of scammers along, forcing them to spend lots of their own money trying to get his money, and leaving an absolutely hilarious record behind for the enjoyment of everyone else. While you’re at Quatloos, take a good look around. There is a wealth of information there about scams, scammers, and related topics.

Though it sure seems like loads of fun to do what Brad does (and it is, believe me, LOL), I very strongly suggest that you not try it at home unless you talk to me (or one of the experienced contributors at Quatloos; you can easily tell who they are, because they have thousands of post counts, spanning years) about how to protect yourself when scamming the scammers. Scammers are not always as dumb as they seem, and people have indeed been killed when dealing with Nigerian scammers.  For that reason, you must always proceed with extreme caution if you decide to have a little fun at their expense.