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.”
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.
