[geeks] Fwd: URGENT ASSISTANCE

[Scott Howard]

On Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 11:47:12AM -0500, Michael Schiller wrote:
> Hi All.
> 
> I'm curious, how many of these BS emails claiming all sorts of money to 
> be smuggled out of South Africa do y'all get a week? I must get about 4 
> or 5 of these a week, and I'm wondering if I got on some 'sucker' email 
> list, or if they just spam everyone with this shit?
> 
> Does anyone really fall for their bs? I keep thinking that somebody has 
> to, otherwise they wouldn't still be doing it, but it's scary thinking 
> that anyone would be that dumb.

There was an article in one of the weekend papers here about a couple who
did fall for it, and reading through the article I can almost understand
how...  (All of this is from memory - I left the article itself at work)

The line used was the "inheritance" one. Apparently someone important had
left money to them. The husband (a doctor I think?) had spent a reasonable
amount of time in the area mentioned many years ago, and thus it apparently
came across as a believeable story (or so was the claim...)

The money outlays started at $7,500 to get a local lawyer (of course, one
way recommended by them!), then went to $15k to pay a fine which the
dead guy had apparently missed, then $40k in back-taxes (which cant come
out of his estate under Nigerian law), and then went up from there...

At some state during the process they got suspicious and called the US
embassy in Nigeria (or whereever it was - I forget if it was actually
Nigeria or not) and explained the situation.  The embassy person called
back shortly afterwards and confirmed it was all legit!! A little later
on they called a govt department in the US, and although they too were
sus, they stated that if the embassy has said it was OK, it must be
(apparently this part was confirmed by others, and this problem has
"now been resolved". They didnt say if it was an insider, tapped phone
lines, etc).

Eventually they realised what was going on, but they had already lost a
serious amount of money by then.


I'm not saying these people weren't lacking something in the intelligence
category, but they definitely weren't stupid.  The story told made sense,
and was quite believable.  Of course, how much of the story was true (and
how much was them covering up their stupidity) is a little hard to tell...

  Scott