Is this for real??

[Greg Smith]

I get some wierd junk e-mail sometimes, but this one takes the cake:

URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL
(RE: TRANSFER OF ($ 152,000.000.00 USD
]ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO MILLION DOLLARS

Dear sir,

We want to transfer to overseas ($ 152,000.000.00 USD)
One hundred and
Fifty two million United States Dollars) from a Prime
Bank in Africa, I want to ask you to quietly look
for a reliable and honest person who will be
capable and fit to provide either an existing bank
account or to set up a new Bank a/c immediately to
receive this money, even an empty a/c can serve to
receive this money, as long as you will remain honest
to me till the end for this important business
trusting in you and believing in God that you will
never let me down either now or in future.

I am MR,beringo okafor, the Auditor General of prime
banks in Africa, during the course of our auditing I
discovered a floating fund in an account opened in
the bank in 1990 and since 1993 nobody has operated
on this account again, after going through some old
files in the records I discovered that the owner of
the account died without a [heir] hence the money
is floating and if I do not
remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for
nothing. the owner of this account is Mr. Allan P.
Seaman, a foreigner, and an industrialist, and he
died, since 1993. and no
other person knows about this account or any thing
concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary
and my investigation proved to me as well that Allan
P. Seaman until his death was the manager Diamond
Safari [pty]. SA.

We will start the first transfer with fifty two
million [$52,000.000] upon successful transaction
without any disappoint from your side, we shall
re-apply for the payment of the remaining rest amount
to your account,

The amount involved is (USD 152M) One hundred and
Fifty two million United States Dollars, only I want
to first transfer $52,000.000 [fifty two million
United States Dollar from this money into a
safe foreigners account abroad before the rest, but I
don't know any foreigner, I am only contacting you as
a foreigner because this money can not be approved to
a local person here, without valid international
foreign passport, but can only be approved to any
foreigner with valid international passport or drivers
license and foreign a/c because the money is in us
dollars and
the former owner of the a/c Mr. Allan P. Seaman is
a foreigner too, [and the money can only be approved
into a foreign a/c

However, we will sign a binding agreement, to bind us
together I got your contact address from the Girl
who operates computer, I am revealing this to you
with believe in God that you will never let me down in
this business, you are the first and the only person
that I am contacting for this business, so please
reply urgently so that I will inform you the next step
to take
urgently. Send also your private telephone and fax
number including the full details of the account to be
used for the deposit.

I want us to meet face to face to build confidence and
to sign a binding
agreement that will bind us together before
transferring the money to any account of your choice
where the fund will be safe. Before we fly to your
country for withdrawal, sharing and investments.

I need your full co-operation to make
this work fine. because the management is ready to
approve this payment to any foreigner who has correct
information of this account, which I will give to you,
upon your positive response and once I am convinced
that you are capable and will meet up with
instruction of a key bank official who is deeply
involved with me in this business.
I need your strong assurance that you will never,
never let me down.

With my influence and the position of the bank
official we can transfer this
money to any foreigner's reliable account which you
can provide with assurance that this money will be
intact pending our physical arrival in your country
for
sharing. The bank official will destroy all documents
of transaction
immediately we receive this money leaving no trace to
any place and to build confidence you can come
immediately to discuss with me face to face after
which I will make this remittance in
your presence and three of us will fly to your country
at least two days ahead of the money going into the
account.

I will apply for annual leave to get visa immediately
I hear from you that you are ready to act and receive
this fund in your account. I will use my position and
influence to obtain all legal approvals for onward
transfer of this money to your account with
appropriate clearance from the relevant ministries
and
foreign exchange departments.

At the conclusion of this business, you will be given
35% of the total amount, 60% will be for me, while 5%
will be for expenses both parties might have incurred
during the process of transferring. I will send you my
all my phone
and fax
numbers as soon as you indicate interest in this
businesses

I look forward to your earliest reply through my email
address,

yours truly,

Mr beringo

So has anybody else been offered $18.2 million out of the blue this week?

[Sea Tyger]

This is a scam that has been growing in frequency in recent years, especially with the relative anonymity of email. People from overseas have been using this to bilk money out of Americans and other westerners.

The best thing you could do is take the entire email, with the complete header, and forward it to the FBI.

[Greg Smith]

So how does the scam work?

[Sea Tyger]

They key to the scam is to get the victim to provide his account information, and the perpetrator simply wires the cash to his own account and disappears.

It's extremely hard to trace, partly because addresses are foreign and often phony, and perpetrators drop off the radar very quickly.

I've always thought about opening a separate account with just $5 in it (I can do that at my credit union), just to see what happens.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Sea Tyger is right. This is a scam which has grown in recent years. Forward the whole e-mail to the FBI.

I'm no banker so I don't know how it works.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Y'know I've received that email about 3 times now in the last year. I just delete it every time. Maybe I should actually forward it to the police instead. I never thought of that.

[Calcoran]

Hey, wouldn't there be a nice scenario idea hiding behind all this?

[Sea Tyger]

Originally posted by Calcoran
Hey, wouldn't there be a nice scenario idea hiding behind all this?

Not within the core of the Federation, but I could see some unscrupulous Ferengi con artists running a scam in the frontier and border regions.

[Calcoran]

Oh my, that's it !!!!! (beware of the multiple exclamation marks)
You've put your finger right on it, Sea Tyger! The net is actually controlled by Ferengis who managed to come here through a spatial distortion or something! That explains the amount of stupidity we keep receiving every day: all the junk mail, spam, and other hoaxes that can't be kept away from our mailboxes. Ferengis, all of them!

PS: I apologize in advance for all reformed Ferengis who might stumble upon this .

[spyone]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger

I've always thought about opening a separate account with just $5 in it (I can do that at my credit union), just to see what happens.

Apparently, the con men are way ahead of you. After you provide your name, phone number, and bank name and account number, they ask you to pay an "advance fee to show your willingness to cooperate". If you pay, they encounter problems on their end that require more funds.

Consumer Reports covered it this month, calling it the "Nigeria scam".
15.5% of the complaints referred to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center in 2001 were over this scam. 16 of the roughly 2600 complaintants had lost money, a median of $5,575 each.

[First of Two]

Hm. a group of Ferengi running a "Cardassian Scam" (for Hebitan relics?) out of a border outpost...

[Greg Smith]

My account is often in the red anway, so it wouldn't matter too much.

Thanks for the info, guys. I knew it was too good to be true

[Balok]

This scam is rapidly becoming the chief export of Nigeria (and certain other western African nations). It's been thoroughly debunked over at Snopes Urban Legends Page. There, you can also find some links to other reference material (near the bottom of the article).

It turns on finding a victim who actually believes someone will give them a huge sum of money for doing nothing. Since the scammers send out thousands of these emails for virtually no cost, they don't need to find many victims to make a nice living.

The way to put this sort of crime out is to share information about it with others, since it can only work when the potential victims are uninformed enough to believe the scammers.