Going through my spam folder looking for a boarding notification, I ran across this email. Will Nigeria ever be taken seriously? For those uninitiated in the world of internet scams, 419 is the Nigerian penal code reference for various types of fraud. If there were some sort of gold medal in fraudulent activity that was somewhat humorous at times, Nigeria would win every year. If for some reason, you have been taken in by a scam such as this, a great resource is the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which is a US Government office that is a point of contact in resolving these sorts of issues. This is certainly not a new phenomenon, but almost a welcome change from all the v1agra spam.
From Federal Bureau Of Investigation Sun Feb 14 11:02:04 2010
From:
"Federal Bureau Of Investigation"<robert@fbi.gov.us>
Subject: ***Mail From The FBI
Anti-Terrorist and International Fraud Division
Federal Bureau Of Investigation.
Seattle, Washington.
Telephone/Fax Number: (206) 426-2866
Attn: Beneficiary
This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you legally won the sum of $850,000.00 US Dollars from a Lottery Company in the United Kingdom. During our investigation we discovered that your e-mail won the money from an Online Balloting System and we have authorized this winning to be authentic and paid to you via a Certified Cashier's Check. Normally, it will take up to 10 business days for an International Check to be cashed by your local bank. We have successfully come to an agreement this company on your behalf that funds are to be drawn from a registered bank within the United States Of America so as to enable you cash the check instantly without any delay, henceforth the stated amount of $850,000.00 US Dollars has been deposited with Bank Of America.
We have completed this investigation and you are hereby approved to receive the winning prize as we have verified the entire transaction to be Legitimate, Safe and 100% risk free of scams and frauds of any nature, due to the fact that the funds have been deposited at Bank Of America you will be required to settle the following bills directly to the lottery claims agent in-charge of this transaction whom is located at the liaison office of the Lottery Company in Seattle-Washington. According to our discoveries, you are required to pay for the following:
(1) Deposit Fee's (Fee's paid by the lottery company for the deposit into an American Bank which is - Bank of America)
(2) Cashier's Check Conversion Fee (Fee for converting the Wire Transfer payment into a Certified Cashier's Check)
(3) Shipping Fee's (This is the charge for shipping the Cashier's Check to your nominated destination)
The total amount for everything is $299.99 (Two Hundred & Ninety Nine United States Dollars & Ninety Nine Cents). We have tried our possible best to indicate that this $299.99 should be deducted from your winning prize but the funds have already been deposited at The Bank of America and cannot be accessed by anyone apart from you the winner. Therefore you will be required to pay the needed funds to your lotto claims Agent in-charge of this transaction via Western Union Money Transfer Or Money Gram. The payment will NOT reflect at the Bank of America with the given transaction code(EA2948-910) until you have covered the processing fees needed.
In order to proceed with this transaction, Click Here (lmj@gala.net) to contact your claims agent Mrs. Louise Major .You will be required to call her for verbal verification and e-mail her with the following informations:
FULL NAME:
FULL MAILING ADDRESS(INCLUDING CITY/STATE/ZIPCODE):
AGE/SEX/OCCUPATION:
CONTACT PHONE NUMBERS(CELL & HOME):
You will also be required to request Western Union details on how to send the required $299.99 in order to immediately ship your prize of $850,000.00 US Dollars via Certified Cashier's Check drawn from The Bank of America, Also include the following transaction code in order for her to immediately identify this transaction : EA2948-910. This letter will serve as proof that the Federal Bureau Of Investigation is authorizing you to pay the required $299.99 ONLY to your claims agent via the information in which she shall send to you upon your request, if you do not receive your winning prize of $850,000.00 US Dollars we shall be held responsible for the loss and this shall invite a penalty of $3,000 which will be made PAYABLE ONLY by you (The Winner).
Robert Mueller
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
(Photo courtesy of Dan Mogford on Flickr)
Open the extended posting for the full text. Some hostname and ip addresses have been removed to protect the innocent.
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