Have you ever received mails from individuals or organizations you have never had any dealing with offering you huge amount of money for a lottery you didn’t enter for or an opportunity to share in the money of a deceased persons?
Chances are that you have if you are a regular internet user. These kinds of mail are from fraudsters and you should never be tempted to respond to them if you don’t want to lose your hard earned money to them.
A very common one is a mail from a non-existing international lottery organization informing you that your e mail address was picked in an end of the year promo. The mail will be so real that it contains your winning numbers and your e mail address to authenticate it, but it is 419.
You will be requested to send your personal information such as your name, phone number, address and your bank details to another e mail address.
If you respond and show interest in claiming the money you have supposedly won, you will be asked to send money (transfer charges) in order to facilitate the transfer to the designated bank you have provided. A few days later, you will receive another mail from that same individual giving you reasons why your money is still on hold telling you to send them additional money ranging from $150 – $350.
Please take note that if any monetary transfer is to be done, the sender should bear all costs of transfer. No courier company or bank will ask you to send money them money before your fund can be transferred. Beware!
Another mail you should avoid replying to is one from any individual who claims to have a huge sum of money amounting to millions of dollars trapped in a foreign bank account asking you to be his partner so that the money can be transferred to your account and after the transfer, it will be shared 60% for him and 40% for you.
An attempt to cooperate with such individual might get you into trouble or you might end up being defrauded.
There is another mail that looks real but not from an authorized source. Sometimes, the mail comes with subject : from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), FBI or big banks from Asia and sometimes from the United States Ambassador to your country. Fraudster use names of these international organizations to dupe people.
A typical example of such mail is this one from Barclays Bank London “This is to officially bring to your notice that your fund placed on hold by Barclays Bank London has been approved for the release today after a long time investigations by the House of Lords committee on terrorism and fraud. Your fund is now free to be released to you without any further delay. Kindly forward your information to …………where you want the funds to be transferred.”
Another example was the one purportedly sent by management of Guarantee Trust Bank, imploring customers to update their security information.
“Dear Customer,
This is to notify you of the present upgrading to enhance effective self security on your account.
Follow the link below to start the self security on your account
We are sorry for any inconveniences.
Security Advisor
Guaranty Trust Bank © 2012.
Thank you for choosing Guaranty Trust Bank Plc.”
There are others that solicited funds from unsuspecting members of the public for one reason or the other.
Such mails are sent by those who hacked into email addresses of organizations or private individual.
One of such mails was sent by unknown persons that used the Yahoo ID of a top member of The PUNCH management team.
It reads: “I hope you are doing well.
I made an emergency trip to new york unfortunately my niece had a nearly fatal accident yesterday night and needs to undergo surgery which needs 147,000 naira to start the treatment on her.
Please Can you to lend me some quick funds that I can give back as soon as i come back next week. Sorry for the inconvenience but i heard she is in a very bad condition and needs attention as fast as possible.
I can forward you details on how to pay the funds to her. You can only reach me via my email for now.
I await your quick response….”
Instead of thinking that your breakthrough has finally come when you receive fraudulent mails like the above your best bet is to hit the delete button to avoid being tempted.
