I feel dreadful

I’ve just realized the full implications of something I have done.

Some weeks ago I was contacted by someone. They’d heard about me, somehow (exactly how was unclear), and knew I was a bright and trustworthy individual who could help them out.

This person was a clerk in an African bank, and had spotted that a client had died without any any living relatives as far as he could see. Apparently in cases like this it’s quite normal for bank clerks to help themselves to the money and retire overseas, and this one wanted my help in relocating him and his cash to the UK, for which he was pleased to pay me a not insubstantial commission. Enough, lets say, to make me a millionaire. Funny old world, here this would be considered major fraud, and no trustworthy individual would touch it with a bargepole.

Anyway horror of horrors, I just discovered they found the last living relative. Oh no! How’s she going to feel when she discovers me and my new friend have all her cash?

Talking about cash, I’d better be sure that that payment is in place to facilitate the transfer…

Update on Nigerian Scams

OK so they’re sometimes not so obvious and people who would know better are taken in. In defence the scam in this case wasn’t asking for advanced fees for promised millions; there’s more than one kind of “Nigerian” scam.

Link from Tom Watson MP.

More money idiocy.

Chemist shop is innocent victim of a “Nigerian” scam. I highlight the word innocent as the people who have handed over money to con artists are certainly guilty, if only of gross stupidity.

I wonder if imposing a publically advertised tax on money spent on “advanced fee” scams would make the idiots who fall for them think twice. Possibly not as such people pay so little attention to the stories of people who’ve been caught in the past, that they fall for the same tricks. What really gets me is that there is frequently no shame on the part of the people who recount tales of being taken in by such obvious fraud.

We were talking at the weekend about this. People fall for these things only too frequently, sending fee after fee. Surely they should have twigged on the third or fourth attempt?