Hi All, 29th Sept 2003 - just received this e-mail
It's headed AN URGENT HELP from Tony Okonkwo
it starts
Good Day ,

l am Dr.Tony Okonkwo., Civil Servant in the Ministry
of Health. l know this proposal will come to you as
asurprise because we have not met before either
physically or through correspondence.
I got your contact from our chamber of commerce here
in Nigeria and have no doubt in your ability to handle
this proposal involving huge sum of money.

As this mail wasn't addressed to me personally (It's addressed to chevi79 @hotmail.com (I've inserted a space to stop it being a link) I have my doubts as to it's authenticity - it isn't a virus as far as I know but it does invite you to respond. I suggest you all handle it with care.

John

Mate, treat ANY email from Nigeria with a very large grain of salt- it is definitely a scam. The next step is that they will ask for your bank account details to 'remove' money from that country, and, strangely enough, your account will be emptied.

Ignore, delete, but don't bother replying.

OZZ, I had no intention of replying, just warning the regulars that it's going the rounds again and to tell any Newbies be careful with this sort of mail!.

It's going around *again*? You mean it ever stopped? I get at least 3 of these a day... I want to know who the idiots are who actually fall for this scam which keeps them going!

This one gave me a jolt since it's the first time I have received it. Just in case you get it you'll know it's a scam. Because I don't have HTML switched on in my e-mail program, this is roughly how it appeared to me:

**************************************************
Important notice

We have just charged your credit card for money laundry service in amount of $234.65 (because you are either child pornography webmaster or deal with dirty money, which require us to layndry them and then send to your checking account). If you feel this transaction was made by our mistake, please press "No". If you confirm this transaction, please press "Yes" and fill in the form below.

*Enter your credit card number here:*

*Enter your credit card expiration date:*
***********************************************

If you receive the e-mail and don't have HTML switched off it looks like this.

Ugh, I've gotten 10 in the past 24 hours. It scared me too the first time - I knew better than to enter my information, but for a minute I was about to email them and go 'excuuuuuse me?'

The first time that I received that one was at the office, we don't HAVE a credit card so that was a clue. I have mentioned this one in this forum and said then that I am sure many people would be fooled. Very nasty.

I thought it said if you don't agree you should complete the form.

I always find it better just to delete any emails from addresses i don't recognise that way it is unlikely to infect my comp if it is a virus, and hopefully the people sending them will get fed up and give up. Can some one tell me what HTML is ?

I found a very funny site here, all about baiting Nigerian scammers. The participants are leading the scammers on so much, I found myself teary-eyed from laughing.

Not sure if this is the answer to the scamming problem, but it is something that I know that I could not pull off as well as these people did.

Stewpot , HTML stands for Hyper Text Mark up Language. You can read about it HERE (scroll down a bit)
Anything nasty like the Nigerian scams I simply forward to my local Police. They are always grateful.

They've found themselves quite a hobby there ozzz