What happens when Nigerian scam letters turn honest:

Greetings from Nigeria:

I am Barrister Oyulekun Mabute. Blessings from God and may this letter find you in good health. I don't really mean that, of course, and would switch to any pagan religion if I could make a buck off of it, but you'll trust me more if you think I am a religious person.

I am writing to you because your email was among the 25.3 million emails I purchased from a vendor who pulled down every word he could find off the Internet with an “@” sign in it. I am hoping that you are special, however, and will be among the 0.001% of people who actually are interested in my proposal. Fortunately, with such large numbers, I am certain to attract the interest of at least a couple hundred people. Never fear, though, you are special nonetheless.

Anyway, someone with many millions of dollars died recently and I inherited it. But, for some odd reason, I can't seem to get this money out of my country on my own so I need help, and I see nothing wrong with contacting a total stranger like you and entrusting you with my entire livelihood. Wouldn't you email random people for help if you inherited money? You see, the problem is that the bank is holding this money and I need you to pay several thousand dollars for them to release it to you. Why can't I, a multi-millionaire, do this myself? Well, the reasons are vague and I'm sure you don't really care if you believe me so far because you are now stunned and disoriented with the thought that you might be making a lot of really easy money. You should contact my lawyer (or security company), and think nothing of the fact that these supposedly professional organizations use Yahoo's free email accounts for all their business transactions.

I won’t tell you about any of the numerous “catches” involved upfront. No, you should contact me and I will give you a convincing acting job complete with accent and poor English. This will give you the subtle impression that you are in a position of power - a sophisticated westerner dealing with a backward third-worlder. I will reassure you that this is all very easy for you and you will make a lot of money... 100% risk free! And that there is nothing wrong with it, but you shouldn’t tell anyone else because if the wrong people find out about it (e.g., law enforcement officials or someone with common sense) it could ruin the whole deal.

If you're gullible enough to pay my first fee, then I have another long list of potential problems that will arise. And then you will believe that you have to spend more money so that you can at least get back what money you have spent... to recoup your “investment”. It would be foolish, after all, to spend several thousand dollars on something and then just quit when you are only one step away from getting the big payoff. Little do you know that you will always be “one step away” and that things will be getting progressively more expensive. Good thing Americans have such easy access to credit, eh?

I do sincerely look forward to taking your money. Since Americans are generally a rich bunch while Nigerians are generally poor and you’re greedy enough to do a little law bending, I can easily rationalize all this and not feel bad about it. I hope you aren’t clever enough to use Google to figure out that this is an amazingly long-lived scam. In fact, if it weren’t illegal, Nigeria might even list it among their many other national resources such as oil and gold. We are so brazenly proud of our ability to scam people that after you figure out we have ripped you off, we will call you up again posing as law enforcement officials out to get those “con artists” who ripped you off. Oh, but, you see there’s a problem: We can’t begin our investigation until you wire some money to Nigeria again…

Yours truly in the Spirit of P.T. Barnum,

Barrister Oyulekun Mabute