This is a first, at least for me. I got this as a comment spam to one of my blog articles today:
Please be aware that this guy is trying to scam people. There is no money, just a buttload of fees to “get to them”. Read more about Nigerian 419 scams if you haven’t heard of it before.
IP Address: 62.173.32.112
Name: ALBERT OKILO
Email Address: [email protected]
Comment:
From The Desk Of:
Albert Okilo
First Bank Of Nigeria Plc.,
35, Marina Lagos.
Email: [email protected]
Business Proposal
I am an Accountant with FIRST BANK Lagos Nigeria. My name is ALBERT OKILO,Banker I am the personal Account Manager to Engineer Frederick Wong , a National of your country, who used to work with shell Development company in Nigeria. He died with his entire family on the 31st October 1999 in an Egyptian airline 990 with other passengers on board. You can confirm this from the website below which was published by BBC WORLD NEWS.WEBSITE. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/502503.stm
Since then I have made several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended Relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to contact you as any-one can stand as a relative of the deceased so that the funds can be released to the person as the next of kin.
I am contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they Get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged, particularly the FIRST BANK NIGERIA PLC., Lagos Nigeria Where the deceased had an account Valued at about ($15 Million U S Dollars) has Issued me a notice to provide the next of kin. Or have the account confiscated within the next ten official working days.Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 3 years now, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased as I have mapped out all necessary modalities to accomplish this and protect your interest.
The Bank will release the funds to you as soon as all necessary
document are presented in your name as the relative of the
deceased standing as the next of kin. The funds will be shared as follow as soon as it is transfered into your account; 50% will come to me, while 40% goes to you and the 10% will be used to settled all expenses incurred by both parties in the course of this transaction.
An attorney will be contracted to help us revalidated and notarize all the necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make. Like the Order of Mandamus from the high court which will enforce the bank to release the funds to you. So provide the following informations so we can proceed;
1 FULL NAMES
2 CONTACT ADDRESS
3 OCCUPATION
4 DATE OF BIRTH
5 TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS
All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal
through.I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate
arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.Kindly reply through my alternative email: [email protected]
As i hope to hear from you soon
Best Regards,
ALBERT OKILO
I’ve also received comment spam claiming to be from Sudan.
All very sad.
Wow, I just caught my girlfriend from falling victim to this scam. She receieved a proposition identical to this one (the next of kin scam). However, she told the Nigerian scammer that she has no money. I think the scammer is just trying to take advantage of her honesty – he had some other poor fool mail her a money order for $9,500 british pounds! I have the check here in front of me, and it is from a bank in London. The scammer wants her to cash the money order and send 75% to him and 25% to some other place to cover a bunch of fees. The strange thing is, there is no fee requested of her – it looks like she is just the “middleman” to make the scam more believable to the poor guy in London who sent the money order. I’m wondering, however, if the check is even real. It wouldn’t make much sense for the scammer to be so persistent in trying to get her to cash the check (calls her every day and harasses her) if it weren’t real and if he didn’t think she was trustworthy enough to cash the check and actually mail the cash to him. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do??
-Eric