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Why on earth would someone do this? This is a email I just recieved and yes I know its just spam but I'm not finding this funny one bit.

M.Joe Chambers, Solicitors & Advocates of the Supreme Court, 5th floor Western House,8/10 Broad Street Lagos-Nigeria. Email: barristermilton@myway.com

Hello Lxxx, I am Barrister Milton Joe a solicitor at law.The personal attorney to a late foriegn expatriate Mr.James Lxxxxx, who hails from your country and bear the same surname as you.This is an urgent and very confidential business proposition. On the 21th of october, 2005 it was reported to us that my Client, his wife and their only daughter were involved in a Local Plane Crash at Lisa in Ifo,Ogun State Nigeria. The Boeing 737 with Flight number 210 left Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos at 7 p.m,enroute Abuja (The Capital City of Nigeria) all occupants in the Plane lost their lives, unfortunately on this same flight were other dignitaries like two diplomats and a host of others died. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts,I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.I contacted you to assist in claiming this fund from the finance house where he deposited it before his untimely death.The finance company where the deceased had an account valued at about USD$5.3million dollars has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confisicated within the next ten official working days. Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for two month now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at USD$5.3 million dollars can be paid to you as the next of kin.All I need is your full maximum suport and cooperation to enable us achieve this transaction within 10 working days and I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. If you are interested in this transaction, kindly furnish me with your full name, address,Age, private telephone and fax numbers to enable us commence immediately.Please Visist the crash websites below. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/10/23/nigeria.plane/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4370286.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4368516.stm http://newsunleashed.com/nigerian-airliner-crash-kills-all-117-on-board.html Best regards, Barrister Milton Joe


What can I do about this? I know delete it but this is my husband and I'm not going to let someone trash him. He passed away over 2 years ago, of course me being his wife I know this is all fiction but thats besides the point. Will people stop at nothing?

Steve, you know about Nigera scammers can you suggest something? Anything? Alot of James's family is not all up on the computer like I am and getting something like this will highly upset them.
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Hi Lisa -

I think it's despicable, personally. Obviously, you seem to know about this so-called "Nigera Scam", which has been running the ranks for god knows how long.

They've recently 'adapted' to using links to actual BBC news stories to add shock value and/or credence to their "plights".

Your husbands' name was James (lastname), I assume? They often simply tap into email lists (the route of most spammers) to get a last name, and then slap it on an official/dignified first name, sometimes with a title, to make it seem "rich". I think this was just a very unfortunate coincidence; I doubt they know your husband was James or even that he has passed on. Each one of these letters is tailored with the recipient's last name - however, the chance of his family getting this *exact* letter are pretty slim...even if they do get one, it will probably read "william" xxxx or "reginald" xxxx, you know?

I'm very sorry for your loss - I sincerely hope this dirtbag gets locked up in a filthy cell.

-Fox
Thanx Fox,

The thing is this came into my yahoo email that I hardly ever use but no where is my yahoo email attached to my last name. I hardly EVER use my last name anywhere, usually I'll just put in L. My last name is not common, there are less then 100 in the whole united states, the spelling is much different then a name that is more common, yet this email had the correct spelling.

I find it odd considering I've been getting emails from someone claiming to be my husbands only child. My husband was way sterle so not sure how he could have a child.

I just wish people would leave me alone and let my husband rest in peace.
the worst you can do is reply to them. Once you reply, even if you say "bugger off", they'll keep emailing you, give your email addy to their cohorts, etc.

there's really not a whole lot you can do, unless youre willing to bait them. Wink

if you report the offense (fraud/spam) to yahoo, it wont make any difference because these scammers have tons of email accounts.

how they typically do their email -
one or more accounts for personal use
one or more accounts for communicating with cohorts
multiple accounts for sending spam
multiple accounts for communication with victims

if you look, it has where your reply is to go to a different email addy than the one that sent the spam. the reply to addy is where the real fraud takes place and where they're communicating with victims. the spam account only sends out the spam, thus it's disposable and your reporting and getting it shut down wont do anything to slow them down.

BTW, the fact that they used James Lxxxx is simply a coincidence. They take a common first name, and add your last name, then send the spam.

I know you said that your name isnt out there with your email acct, but it's somewhere since one of them found ya. They get their lists from lots of places - forums, yahoo member lists, aol lists, website guestbooks, etc. I had one that sent me a 419 email to an email account of mine and it's not out there anywhere that i know of. the ONLY way i can think of that they could have gotten my email addy was by using an email addy generator like the spammers use. acct is firstname_lastname@mydomain.com

If you have time to kill (and I mean TONS of time to kill) can always bait him Wink

if you do bait him, do it safely! always use an anonymous email account that hides your IP addy (fastmail or gmail), never ever give out any of your real info (not even your real name), etc. For safe baiting help, join http://www.419eater.com

if you sign up to the eater, dont put any real info in profile and dont use name in username. reason why is cause the scammers are known to stop by and read the eater from time to time.

if you need a gmail invite to set up an anonymous account with fake info, let me know Wink

oh, as to why so much concern about being fully anon when baiting, although these lads (scammers) are in nigeria, south africa, etc, they often have cohorts in other countries such as the UK and the US. There's a whole mob of them in Houston, for example.
Last edited by wayoutwest
couple more rules to follow when baiting (along with the bait safe)

never give them something they can use on another vic (ie: when they ask for copy of passport, dont send them anything, not even a fake one - they use them on victims)

never give fake info that tracks back to someone else. (ie: if you give fake mailing address, make sure it doesnt exist and isnt someone else's real address) just as you need to bait safe, never put someone else in their crosshairs.

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