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You’ve got mail

So, it happened! You are a millionaire, or is it just a joke? A message in your e-mail box says you have been granted one million dollars for helping in a transaction or that you are the winner of the International Lottery drawn in Spain. To believe or not to believe?

Jack, one of my New Zealand friends, received a message from the bank of Nigeria saying that they want to grant him five million American dollars for helping with a very important transaction. He didn’t have to do anything; just let them put the money onto his account.

“Hello,

I am Mr. Vincent Madu, the director of central bank of Nigeria in West Africa. I have decided to contact you on a business transaction that will be very beneficial for both of us. During auditing in our bank, my department came across a huge sum of money belonging to a deceased person who died in November 1997 in a plane crash. Nobody claimed his money.

I have kept this information as a secret to enable the whole plans and the idea to be profitable and successful during and after the time of the execution. The amount is US $15M (fifteen million United States Dollars).

I believe you are the right person to contact, and my colleagues and I agreed to give you 30% for your assistance, and 10% for any expenses at home or abroad during or after the transaction.

I await your prompt response to assist us in this regard”.

Jack had agreed to co-operate with Mr. Madu, but after some time his enthusiasm started to disappear. The reason was the following: all of a sudden, Mr. Madu changed his mind “…after a deliberate investigation…”. In his letter he said “…we came to the conclusion that it would cost about U$4,250 to get all the approvals and affidavit from the high court to enable the central bank credit your account, and give the attorney the instrument to move into action”.

Soon after, Bank of Nigeria urged Jack to pay for the transaction as soon as possible. However, seeing that my friend didn’t have any intention to send money to them, the director of the bank reduced the amount, first, to $2,500, then to $1,500, then to $1,000 and, at last, to $200.

Nigerian brothers tried to hypnotize their victim with friendly feelings and teary stories about their honesty and families. But by that time it was pretty clear even for my friend, blinded with the prospective of becoming rich, that he was not going to get any money.

In one of his messages Vincent Madu informed Jack that he hadn’t had enough money to pay for this transaction. We roared with laughter when reading that letter. Can you imagine a director of the bank who has to sell his car to raise $4,000? To prove his genuine intentions Mr. Madu kept e-mailing my friend various messages containing the story of the world, his family, Bank of Nigeria, the USA and even Christianity. At the end of each letter there was a sentence literally begging for Jack’s money: $150, $100 or even $50 to prove his interest in this transaction.

Jack stopped answering e-mails and changed his address. My friend was sure he wouldn’t get money, but would surely get a computer virus like Trojan. And he did!

Who is hidden behind the mask?

I decided to investigate the matter and found out that there was a bunch of Nigerian mobs trying to rob people over the Internet. Now I’d like to share the results of my investigation with the readers, as these kinds of affairs are not mere entertainment and one of my friends lost in “Nigerian Banks” around $50,000, and another was threatened by the mobs over the phone and via e-mail.

These people are Internet swindlers and the situation is rather serious, even FBI pay very close attention to it warning people of the danger on their website.

All swindlers need is your identity to rob others. As a prize for giving away your identity, you receive is Trojan or Spyware. The messages are specially designed to get all possible information out of your computer. The thieves can pretend lawyers, agents, bankers, tax agents and the representatives of Government Lotteries and Programs. Do not believe them!

As soon as they get your ID: number of your driving license, bank account or credit card, they are going to use it all to purchase drugs, property and… you name it. Money will disappear from your account, but you won’t even know about it until creditors call you.

In the second or third message the swindlers usually demand payment: they ask you to transfer money via Moneygram or Western Union. Please, do remember, that the lottery winnings are not taxable and there’s no bank in the world which would offer you money of a deceased millionaire. No lottery committee would ask you to pay for any transfer of the winning funds, or post it by courier.

All these lies are created by the mobs working in the motels, backpacks and Internet cafes. They use laptops and mobile phones labeled with the names of victims and e-mail addresses for each case. Actually, there are two names: one of a victim and another of a character played by a swindler not to be lost in the debris of imaginary roles.

If you received an e-mail announcing that you are a winner and asking you to register onto some website, simply delete the message. Nowadays, anyone can buy a web space and nobody can check if it is genuine, unless you are FBI. Ignore the messages saying that some bank has opened the account for your name. No bank will do that for you, and no bank will ask you to sign papers to authorize the transaction onto your account.

The Internet swindlers won’t stop if they feel they can get some money from you: they will threat you over the phone or via the Internet or can even do some physical damages.

The rouges will stop bothering you in a couple of days if you delete their message without reply. But if they know your phone number, you will receive very unpleasant calls. In this case FBI advice buying a sport’s whistle and using it instead of “hello” when a swindler rings. He won’t ring you again, trust me.

Competent people from the organization investigating fraud and Internet thefts inform that there are no lotteries in the world sponsored by: Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Jess or Michael Jackson, Sultan Bruneo or Microsoft Corporation.

Where is the free cheese?

The reason why I have decided to write this article is that there are people who would send money to the strangers to pay the unreal expenses or give bribes to inexistent clerks, bankers and investigators to get inexistent money.

Before publishing this story I had given it to my friend to read. After reading it, he said that his associate had lost $6000 in the same bank of Nigeria for the same reason. Good work, Nigerian guys!

Nigerian “bankers” nearly fooled my friend Jack. Thanks God, he didn’t pay a cent. But, as you see, there are people who believe in the existence of good guys giving money to strangers.

Remember, you can’t get anything for free, and if somebody offers you a million for nothing but your beautiful eyes, do not believe him/her. Such generosity simply doesn’t exist in the world.

You can’t become rich if you don’t work on it. Set your goals, reach your targets, make your plans, struggle against the obstacles, and do what it takes to make your dreams come true.

And the last thing to remember is The free cheese exists only in a mousetrap!