Just a quick warning guys and gals, it is obviously a scam but just be aware, this bloke knew my home address (I have it on a few sites so it isn't a secret as such but just be careful)

Attn:

Mr. Natalie Oliver

I am Engr.Femi Coker, The Director of the Contractors Award and Review
Department with the Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). I am
contacting you on this business of transferring the sum of US$23,615,000.00
(Twenty-three million, six hundred and fifteen thousand United Stated Dollars only) into a safe foreign account and the need is very
urgent. I got your contact from the internet when i was searching for honest
person who will assist me to receive the money into your bank account and it
is with business trust that made me to contact you on this matter. I write
to solicit for the transfer of this money into your account.

This money was generated from an over invoiced contract sum in my
corporation (NNPC).
I am contacting you for your help and partnership for the following two
reasons:

1. As a civil servant, I am not permitted to own foreign accounts due to
civil service code of conduct.
2. My present financial resources as a civil servant will not be sufficient
for me to handle the transfer alone successfully without financial
assistance from a reliable foreign partner abroad. 30% of this sum would be for you as compensation for using your Bank account in transferring
this money, 5% would be used to reimburse the expenses made by both parties
during the processing of the transferring which include, telephone bills,
traveling expenses and other fees. While 65% is for me.

Please note that I will arrange to meet with you immediately after the
successful conclusion of the transfer, the 65% share of mine will be used
for investment overseas. Your assistance and co-operation is highly needed.
I assure you that this transaction is 100% risk free. If you are interested
I will require your banking information as mentioned below:

1. Name to be used as beneficiary
2. Your private and confidential telephone/fax number(s).
3. Your bank name and address, your bank telephone and fax number(s). 4. Or if you are not comfortable with providing your existing account, you
can within the shortest possible time, confidentially open an entirely new
(Virgin) account for the transaction. I would prefer this arrangement. I
hope to conclude this business within the next fourteen (14) working days.
Looking forward to your anticipated and urgent positive response via this
e-mail box

Regards
Engr Femi Coker.

These are very common now. We have received a letter demanding money with a threat of fines if not received by a certain date.  Letter looked like an official government type.  I was suspicious of the quality of paper though and checked it out on the internet and sure enough it was a scam.

The thing is with the advice of opening a new account solely for the 30% share, some people would probably think they have nothing to loose! As I said this bloke knew my full postal address, although he failed to recognise I am in fact all woman!!! :D Mr. Natalie Oliver indeed LOL

I got one the other day saying i had placed an order with some company for £165.00 and they needed to confirm my bank details so that they could dispatch my parcel :-(

It is quite scary how close you can come to being, or how badly you can be hit by these fraudsters :(

This is the first email I think we have ever had of this kind, so it has really brought it home for us today!

I regularly get them from banks I am not with and pay pal.  Obviously not genuine.  My son had one saying a cheque for £3,000 was on its way to him as he had paid to much tax.  A cheque did arrive without a covering letter and the cheque said drawn on behalf on Inland Revenue.  He took it to his bank and they contacted the police.  How they got his address I am not sure but it is easy to buy addresses through mailing list companies.

If it looks bogus just delete without opening.

>If it looks bogus just delete without opening.

Our email comes in through Outlook Express, if you are not familar with it, as one message comes in, the new message is highlighted, and opens in a box lower down the screen, if you delete that message, the highlighter goes to the next email down and opens that mail in the box further down the page, it is difficult to explain with out you being able to see it, but it basically means that often the email program actually opens the email automatically (not a feature you can stop unfortunatly) so most times we have no choice over which emails to open and which we shouldn't.

I agree with what Daisy says below, if it seems to good to be true, then it probably is! :)

Unfortunately there are a few people who believe these things (the Nigerian scam, why, heaven only knows :D ). The best thing is to ignore EVERYTHING unless you KNOW that you are expecting a communication from these people. Always remember - if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is :D :D If you want to check something out, go onto the company's web-site through your normal means - NOT/NEVER through a link in an email.

Daisy

If you are unsure about emails, type 'Phishing Test' into Google. There are several 'tests' that you can take which explain which emails may be genuine and which aren't - very useful :)

Daisy

I had 2 of these as well this morning. one to me and one to a mr. i read them then deleted them,they must have got your email address from this site as it's the only site that this particlar email address of mine is showing on.

I normally reply with "Thank you for your email.  It has now been forwarded to Fraudwatch Internation.com.  I hope this solves your problem.

I never get a second one :D

The trouble is that by replying, you are confirming that your email address is a current one, thereby making yourself more likely to continue getting SPAM :(

Daisy

Whilst I worked at Lloyds, I would forward about 30 of these per day to the ISP providers of the writers.   They would come from Nigerial, Liberia, South Africa, Congo, Zimbabwe, Russian republics, etc etc etc.   Most of them would be from the widow/orphan of a head of state killed in mysterious circumstances, etc etc etc.

We all have to remember - if it seems too good to be true - it will be too good to be true!

Margot

There are actually fora dotted round the web where members spin the senders of these emails along, the holy grail is to get the hoaxer to send you money, one or two have managed this, one even got a hoaxer on a wild goose chase raround various banks around the country checking to see if money had been deposited there, another aim is to get the hoaxers replying to your emails, most of the emails are sent from internet cafe's where the time on the PC is paid for, while their sending email replies out, their using their internet time up and not sending out hoax emails to other unsuspecting people.

If you do a search for scam baiting, it apparently gets quite addictive baiting the scammers.