$10 million Internet Scam

 People scam for all sorts of reasons. That the kind of statement you would expect from a psychologist or psychiatrist. I think people scam because they see it as an easy way to defraud honest people out of their money.

People who get scammed, however, may not be honest themselves. They may simply be gullible. Scammers do not look for honest people. Internet fraud is accomplished using gullible people.

You would have to be gullible to believe that you had inherited some money from some relative you had never heard of before, or probably even more gullible than gullible to believe that some person who you have never heard of before and was not a relation had nominated you in his or her will as a beneficiary. The truth is nobody is that gullible. Well, maybe I should not say nobody as there is always Dumb and Dumber.

Seriously, who would believe that they are the beneficiary of a will of some Lord or Countess from Europe or Great Britain?  I would suggest only somebody who is desperate or greedy and has a tendency to be dishonest.  Any sane person would immediately recognize such a suggestion as a scam in the making.

The client of Sir Frank Mercer has died—bless his soul. Naturally, not being a relative nor friend nor acquaintance, the benevolent soul he was, saw fit to include me in his will. The email notifying me of this somber occasion informs me that although the man has regrettably died, I have been fortunate that my “name was listed as Heir to our late client funds 8,500, 000.00 Euro ($10.000.000 aprox.), deposited in a Bank Abroad.

This is just a summary for us to hear back from you and explain in details to you, the major reason why we are contacting you. For more details send yourResponse to the personal email address of the Legal Officer below.”

Contact Email: barr.fmercer12@live.com-

I always find it rather humorous how these dead people have an email address at live.com. Maybe this is supposedly a subliminal cue to act now so that the recipient can live it up on the dead man’s funds.

The aim of this internet scam is catch the desperate and greedy, who then become gullible enough to fall for the next part of the ploy. Even the desperate are not gullible enough to fall for the first email and expect the money to be sent to them no questions asked. Naturally, as we all would under genuine circumstances, we would expect some security checks to be made. Our bona fides need to be established to prove that we are not some scammer who is out to scam the scammers.  However, this is a scam, and nobody is going to hand over their details immediately, until they are convinced there is something in this scam for them.

If we were to reply, this means that we will be providing details of bank accounts and other information that can be used for identity theft if we ourselves are not able to be fleeced by the scammers. This information will be used to create new accounts into which funds can be transferred and withdrawn to be funneled to Romania or Azerbaijan or Russia or Nigeria or anywhere there is a Western Union office.

This scam is about how funds abroad need to be harvested—sorry, retrieved—from a certain bank account or even a number of bank accounts, since the funds were secretly dispersed. In the event that your own bank account has no money in it, then you will be used as a mule to funnel funds across to the collection center where all the monies have to be verified and authorized for distribution after probate. In the event, that you are not willing to comply with these requests, an online fraud will done making use of the details you have provided to them.