Published: January 13, 2006 02:00 pm            

Age-old scam evolves with technology

I can hardly believe my luck. I’ve won an international lottery worth $1 million euro and another lottery prize of $1.5 million. And, on top of that, I’ll be sharing in millions inherited by a crude oil merchant in Morocco and a bank manager in Ghana – just for helping them move their money to the United States.

Whew, what a windfall!

Hold on, you say?

I’m about to be scammed?

As ludicrous as it sounds, many people do fall for these get-rich-quick schemes that seem to flood our e-mail accounts every day. And the messages seem to have ramped up in the past month.

While I’ve been laughing at them, I fear others might not.

Some of the messages are pretty convincing.

For example, “Justin Lorenzo,” who says he is “an Italian crude oil merchant,” claims he was recently diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and only has a few months to live.

“Justin” is very rich and wants his “soul to be at peace with God” – which can be achieved if I just help him move $14 million now stashed in trunks to a safe bank account from which the money can be used to support charities around the world.

For helping “Justin,” I would get to keep 20 percent of the money. That would calculate to $2.8 million.

Wow. Sounds simple enough, right?

Problem is, “Justin” and his millions don’t exist. And if I’m gullible enough to pay for “expenses that might be incurred,” I’ll be out a few thousand dollars which I’ll never see again.

Welcome to the Nigerian scam. In various forms, it’s been around for nearly a century. In the early days, letters would be sent to wealthy people in the United States, Europe or Australia from folks claiming they needed to move large sums of money out of some impoverished or war-torn country. As technology advanced, so did the scammers, who communicated by telephone, fax and now the Internet.

And it’s always the same: Send them a few thousand to get things started, and you’ll make millions on the other end.

Except that never happens.

An e-mail I received Jan. 5 was especially inventive. In it, “Sandra Boga,” daughter of assassinated African official Emile Boga Doudou, has $9.3 million in her inheritance which she desperately wishes to move into a safe account in a western bank. Just in case it’s of interest, the e-mail says, she’s “23 years old, single and also a Christian.” That’s in case you want to grab a mail-order bride along with your millions.

There really was an Emile Boga Doudou. And he really was assassinated – on the Ivory Coast in 2002. But I doubt his daughter is sending messages to random e-mail accounts around the world trying to escape Africa with her inheritance.

The Better Business Bureau, the U.S. Treasury Department and other agencies warn you to never send money to one of these requests. Don’t give anyone your bank account information or a credit card number over the phone or the Internet. And be skeptical of any claim of a Web site that will verify that the money exists, or someone who offers to send you a cashier’s check for a portion of your “winnings.”

Some scams even prey on our best intentions, stealing money people believe is going to a good cause – recently Hurricane Katrina relief and aid for the West Virginia mine-disaster survivor.

“With these unsolicited representations that there is money to be made, if it’s mail throw it away and if it’s e-mail delete it,” said Barb Pettitto, a spokeswoman with the state attorney general’s office.

“We literally tell people that if they get a call like this to hang up on these individuals.”

That’s advice I took to heart, even when I learned that I was one of 10 winners in the “Staatsloter/International Promotion Programes,” a global lottery based out of Amsterdam. (Be cautious of anything out of Amsterdam!)

That notification came from a guy named “Andreas Amschwand.” Sure.

And I said no thanks when I got an e-mail from lottery coordinator “Walter Jones” of “Lottery International Programs.” He promised me a cool $1.5 million.

All I had to do was respond with my personal information. And I had to “keep all lottery information confidential” – another sure-fire sign that this was a scam.

“These scams have been around for so long,” Pettitto said. “If you’re duped ... your chance of recovering your money is close to nothing.”

So be on the lookout for scams, especially if you see a phrase such as the one in an e-mail from “Koffi Nana,” a “bank manager in Ghana”:

“We are looking for a trustworthy foreign partner. ...”



Chip Minemyer is the editor of The Tribune-Democrat. He can be reached at 532-5091.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.