Idiots with Internet Access

Here's a scam beaut from one of my e-mail accounts:

Dear Friend, I am Mr. Alex Smith a personal accountant to one Dr. Jonathan Mann, who died with his family in Swissair accident in 1998. The CNN webpage below will tells you more about my client; http://www.cnn.com/health/9809/03/dr.mann.profile [blogger note: Notice that the reference link is correct!] My purpose of contacting you is to ask for your aid in partnership to repatriate the sum of us$30 million that belongs to my client in a domiciliary bank account here in United Kingdom. As soon as i heard from you, i will give you the details/ operational method on how to repatriate the said THIRTY MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS into your bank account for our mutual benefit. While replying, include your phone number and fax for voice communications. I really need this money for my wife kidney transplanting operation which involved huge amount of monet. Please help me to to get the money out from Braclys [sic[ bank. Truly yours, Alex Smith.

Then, from another account, another variation on the same idiocy:

From: Tom Benson Monrovia, Liberia Email: tom50ben@hotmail.com Dear Beloved, This letter might come to you as a surprise since we have not had any previous correspondence nor met. This is as a result of the helpless situation I found myself into. I got your contact during my surf search on the web for a reliable, capable and trustworthy person that can assist me in this darkest moment of my life. I am a native of Liberia. I lost my father, mother and two sisters with our family assets/house during the recent war raging in Liberia. I am alive writing you now from Nigeria where other lucky victims and I who escaped alive from the rebel attack are like refugees. No house, no good food, no good job. I am just getting assistance from well meaning individuals and a couple of Nigerians who came back from Liberia too. Before my father's sudden death, he deposited a consignment labeled as GOLD & DIAMOND but concealed in it is the sum of US$27,000,000.00 (Twenty Seven Million US Dollars) in cash with a Private Security Company in Monrovia but the consignment was later moved to their affiliate office Overseas, for safety of the consignment (funds), via diplomatic means. He intended to use the funds for Politics. While my father was alive he explained to me that he had such fund and had to keep it in a security company abroad due to the unstable polity in Liberia and considering that he is a politician, he would not want the Government to seize the money if deposited into the banks in Liberia. Now that he is late and am the only surviving son, I am writing you to assist me receive this consignment in your country, invest it in a profitable business and help relocate me to join you immediately. As a result of insecurity of life and property here, I do not want to stay in Africa any longer. You have my permission /authority to have/collect 30% of the funds on receiving it, for your timely assistance. Please indicate your readiness to assist me immediately so that all the information about this fund will be passed to you immediately. Send to me immediately the following information: 1. Your full legal names including contact address 2. Your mobile telephone and fax numbers for easy communication 3. Date of birth, sex and marital status for documentation purposes. As soon as I receive your reply mail I shall forward your information to the Security/Finance firm overseas to contact you for the delivery of the consignment to you as my proxy. Thereafter you shall help me relocate to your country, as I am sick and tired of the unrest in Africa. I shall send you the Power of Attorney to present to the Finance/security Firm as we proceed, as demanded by them. With the help of sympathizer I was able to secure a phone, which is very important for me at this stage to enable, me transact this important business for which I am contacting you. Please help me and reply me immediately you receive this mail via my email: Email: tom50ben@hotmail.com Your friend in need, Tom Benson Email: tom50ben@hotmail.com

These all started out as classic 'Nigerian Scams,' which are continuations of a scam that was practiced, town by town, in the Midwest in the 1850s! Now these are carried out anywhere in the World outside the US, anywhere where they'll have time to run after pocketing even one or two ill-gotten gains from idiots with more Internet access than common sense. And these scams are easy to guard against. Nigeria, a country entirely corrupt with oil, diamonds and other riches purely ravaged from this poor country, is home to, and the parent of, the '419 Nigerian scam,' named after the part of the Nigerian Penal Code that appies to such frauds.

I have ranted in the past as to how unbelievably unintelligent some of the staff in my local school district are. I shudder to think of them getting this e-mail. This scam, in its innumerable variations, is costing US taxpayers mllions of dollars in moments!

A brief word to the wise: if you don't know who it is, delete the e-mail. If the deal sounds too good to be true, delete the e-mail. If it sounds even vaguely illegal, delete the e-mail! (Get the trend?) Don't wait until you're paid into this idiocy before reporting them!

I know. You think that if you're reading this, you'll not fall for something stupid like this. But read the blogs, see who's blogging and what they're saying. Caveat Emptor, dudes and dudettes!