Well...not exactly.
I placed this in the humor category because all I can do is laugh when I get an email like this.
I wonder how much money I would have to wire to some South American country first?
Do people really fall for this stuff?
Dear Sir/Madam,
Peace of the lord be with you.
After going through your profile, i decided to contact you for assistance and distribution of my inheritance.
My name is Victoria Kess ,a dying woman who have decided to donate what i have to you/ church. I am 48 years old and i was diagnosed for cancer for about 9 years ago, immediately after the death of my husband who lived all his life in Australia, who has left me everything he worked for.
I have been touched by God to donate from what i have inherited from my late husband for the good work of God, rather than allow my relatives to use my husband hard-earned funds ungodly. Please pray that the good Lord forgive me my sins.
I will be going in for an operation couple of hours from now, and I have decided to WILL/donate the sum of $5,500,000 to you for the good work of the lord, and to help the motherless and less privilege and for the assistance of the widows.
Now i cannot take any telephone calls right now because my relatives are around me. I have adjusted my WILL and my lawyer is aware i have changed my will you and he will arrange the transfer of the funds from my account to you.
Contact my lawyer with this specified email contact:
Email: winkoors@aol.com
Name: Barrister Wim Koors
Inform him that i have WILLED ($5,500,000.00) to you and i have notified him that i am WILLING that amount to you for a specific and good work. I know i do not know you but i have been directed to do this by my instinct.
NB: I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished, as I do not want anything that will jeopardize my last wish. In addition, I will be contacting with you by email, as I do not want my relation or anybody to know because they are always around me.
Regards,
Victoria Kess (Mrs.) victoria-kess@hotmail.com My Lawyer Contact Email Address: winkoors@aol.com
From time-to-time there's a write up in the paper about some elderly person falling for such scams. South America is a new twist; it's usually West Africa that does this.
When I was at the University of New Orleans I got one via e-mail in the early 1980s before the internet became operational. I called the FBI office in New Orleans and they were quite interested in my report. It was pretty new then; I was the first in New Orleans to report such a scam, and it was from Nigeria. That was the days of 300 baud telephone modems that took a rotary-dial telephone to operate. I had a computer terminal & keyboard ... no computer back then. Apple was still a hobby computer.
I got something like that sent to my work email address. I then got a bright idea and forwarded it to our business office. I said something along the lines that, since, I got the email sent to my work email address I didn't think I should be able to personally profit from it. And that I thought the business could probably benefit from such a windfall.
I cc'd it to my immediate supervisor. I figured out everyone would get a good laugh from what I did. My supervisor emailed me back and said uh..tom, I think that email might be a hoax.
First I kind of laughed that he would actually email me this response. But then I thought about how ignorant he must think surveyors are.
Oh well....;-)
