Surely though it has to be said that in this (as with the Nigerian scams) that they wouldn't work if there wasn't some sort of greed on the part of the person being scammed. Not that I'm condoning this sort of thing but surely alarm bells must ring if a total stranger in another country is telling you that you've won a lottery you've never entered or they want you to be the recipient of an oil baron's legacy?
You would think so, but this is sadly not the case. I personally know two people who have been involved in a Nigerian scam.
The first was the owner of a local "Redneck" bar I frequent. He's a nice chap, owns a computer for email and downloading porn and runs a rather scruffy looking establishment but with a friendly atmosphere (at least it is once they've got to know you). Anyway, he got an email from a guy "needing help" in Nigeria, but he didn't think it was a scam because what he had to do sounded like it had no risk. He was asked to provide his mailing address to receive a cheque for $10,000. All he had to do was pay it into his bank account, withdraw $8,000 of it and mail it to an address in Miami. For his kind assistance, he could keep the remaining $2,000. As he wasn't being asked for money upfront or for any bank details, social security numbers, etc, he agreed. Well, the business cheque arrived, he paid it in and sure enough, $10,000 appeared in his account. He withdrew the $8000 in cash, but was getting a bit concerned because his online friend kept badgering him with emails "has it arrived?", "Have you sent the money yet?", etc. As you can guess, the cheque turned out to be forged and the cheque number had already been used before. The $10,000 was deducted from his account (with bank charges for a NSF cheque), but fortunately he still had the $8000 cash. Anyway, my bar-owning friend being the cheapskate guy he is, refused to give the money to the bank and kept it. The bank has closed his account because he's overdrawn by about $7,0000+ and keep sending him letters asking for the balance. The guy in Nigeria was promptly tood to **** himself and then threatened to send some "underworld" types around unless the money was mailed to Miami. My mate simply invited him to send his friends around and assured him that he was an excellent shot and looked forward to killing them.
Second case was a buddy with my company that works in Houston. He made friends with a rather sexy looking (in the photos) Nigerian woman who wanted him to help her get some clothes and goods mailed to Nigeria for her because she couldn't get any quality stuff in the country. My friend agreed to act as a mailing address for her and all sorts of designer clothes and shoes started to appear at his appartment. In return, he was asked to pick out some goods that he wanted and he chose a DVD-VCR combo player and sure enough it arrived. Now, all he had to do was box it up and Fed-ex it too her along with a customs slip that claimed the goods were cheap samples. Again, my friend dragged his feet a bit and discovered that he had been in receipt of goods ordered using stolen credit cards.
