Nigerian scam

Nigerian scam. Although this scam has its root from Nigeria dated a decadeback, nowadays, you receive similar scam letters from manyAfrican countries, notably, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and even SouthAfrica.The subject lines of these emails are pretty similar.

Somethinglike: Business relationship, Urgent Assistance needed,Soliciting for your assistance, A cry for help etc. Most of theemails from this scam begin in the same way. Here are twoexcerpts from most recent emails that we received:"I am Engr Moses Ekpen a director in the budget and planningdepartment of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum and NaturalResources (FMPNR),

I had a seven man Tenders Board Committee incharge of contract award and Payment approvals. I came to knowof you in my search for a reliable and reputable person tohandle a very confidential transaction, which involves thetransfer of a huge sum of money to a foreign account."Or"I am Mrs. Mariam Abacha, the widow of Gen.

Sani Abacha, TheLate Nigerian Military Head of State. You were introduced to methrough the Chamber of Commerce. I am presently in distress andunder House arrest while my son Mohammed is undergoing trial inLagos and Abuja. He is presently detained in prison custody. Thegovernment has frozen all the family account and auctioned allour properties.

To save the family from total bankruptcy I have managed to shipto Europe and Asia through a Shipping company, the sum of US20,000,000.00 respectively kept by my late husband."The essence of these emails are also basically the same – theperson although does not know you, thanks to your businessreputation, has decided to contact you with a very confidentialproposal to transfer a mind boggling amount of money from hiscountry to any foreign land.There could be numerous stories but the bottom line is theyrequire your help to transfer the amount.

For your service theywill promise you something from 10 to 40% of the whole amount.There would be a telephone no or an email address to contact theperson.You may wonder how they swindle people.There are various ways that the crooks rip off their victims.Some of the most commons ones of them are described below:They will ask you to open a bank account under their name.

Ontheir second step, they will ask you to deposit a sum of say US$10000 to that account, explaining if the account does not haveany decent amount, the officials those who are responsible fortransferring the promised millions of dollars would becomesuspicious and won't authorize the transaction. Once youdeposited the asked sum, they simply withdraw it and disappear.

Usually they choose a bank where they might have someconnections. So you, after losing your money, do not get anyhelp from the bank either.They will ask you to send some merchandize or gifts for theofficials they need to bribe in order to make the transactionsof the assumed millions of dollars smoothly.

Naturally, younever hear from them once you sent the requested gifts to theiraddress.We even heard stories like this one: A man was persuaded to cometo Nigeria to look after the transaction by himself. Over therehe was kept hostage until he shifted all his liquid assets tothe thugs.Looking at the increasing quantity of scam emails that wereceive, this only convinces that many fall for this seeminglysimple trap.

According to FBI these swindlers have defraudedmillions of dollars from gullible people.There could be other variations of this scam, next time you readan email that feels suspicious, just delete it! There are otherways of making money!Some words of cautions! Although most of these scams originatefrom African countries, please do not generalize and considerthat all companies form these countries are bad. As usual a fewpeople are responsible for tarnishing the reputation of acountry. by: Nowshade kabir