Last Updated on June 13, 2017
I received a very suspect E-mail from someone who identified himself as a barrister for an American family who had lived in Nigeria for 30 years. The family was killed, the lawyer took control of their estate, sold the belongings as instructed in the will, but hid the money rather than donating it to a Christian charity as the will mandated. It seems the couple, as the poorly written E-mail stated, “had no child until they died.” I assume they had no new children after their deaths, either. Anyway, this lawyer apparently falsified documents and failed to declare the money, hiding it with a Security company that was unaware of what was inside the packages.
But wait! It gets better! This legal eagle found religion, and suddenly decided to follow God’s will (and the family’s) by finding some Christian to receive the $10 Million inheritance. Apparently, I — yes, I!! — happen to have been selected out of all of the Christians in the world. (I’d have actually had better chances at winning that record Powerball jackpot within the past year.)
The E-mail is rife with grammatical errors that indicate no lawyer would have ever written it. And I seriously doubt that any lawyer would freely admit to such illegal activity, born again or not. It’s also worth noting that though the family he represented was American and spent time in Nigeria, the E-mail account he used to send the notification to me comes from an Australian domain. I wonder how many people are dumb enough to believe this preposterous story and actually open the floodgates of personal information!
If the writer of this “apparent” scam happens upon my journal, and your intentions were completely honorable and you do happen to have a $10 Million dollar check waiting for me, then please make it payable to the DJ&T Foundation. That way, you can really live up to your mission of contributing to a worthwhile charity.
Mentions of Nigeria seem to pop up often when it comes to potential scams…so often, in fact, that a website about specific Nigerian scams has been created. You’ll find some interesting ones here.
Meanwhile, if that E-mail seems too good to be true, it probably is!
