Saturday, April 12, 2008

Do I have 'Gullible' stamped on my forehead?

I switch on my PC, it goes through the normal warm-up routine. Mailwasher launches.

While I am out of the room the normal couple of dozen spam emails are deleted.

Three are left:
  • One from the "Executive Governor, Cent. Bank Of Nig" offering to courier me USD 10 M in cash.
  • Another from "OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE
  • FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA" apologising for the delay in sending a different wire transfer to me for USD 11.3 M
  • and the third from a named individual simply described as 'The Legal Representative'. This man purports to be a barrister distributing the assets of a dead person. This offer is low at only USD 5 M.
Wow! That's USD 26.3 M waiting for me in Nigeria, all in the last eight hours. I am so excited. Not.

The most worrying thing is not that I am particularly gullible (my job ensures that I receive regular Fraud Prevention and Anti-Money Laundering Training), but that the scammers have managed to get as far as the penultimate wall of my anti-spam armoury.

Fortunately I just see the words and smile. They sit in a benign environment on a preview screen in Mailwasher and I simply hit 'Process' and then they are gone.

Empty screen. Till the next...

Edit: I haven't even finished proof reading this post and another one has arrived. This time it's a paltry USD 1.3 M. Change of country - this one is from Benin. Grrr.

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