An email arrives with the title:

“*****ARE YOU DEAD OR ALIVE ********”.

Seems a little serious but is just the opening to a standard advance fee scam.

The message claims to be from a barrister at the International Monetary Fund, although his email address is not of the IMF.

The gist of the message is that two men have presented themselves as my agents at the IMF ready to claim on my behalf, a sum of $12.5 million that is due to me.

They claim that I died of throat cancer some months previously and they have power of attorney from my estate.

This may sound very strange but many scammers do love their complex highly improbable stories.

The message says I just need to forward proof that I am alive otherwise the money will be paid to the two men.

Proof in this case means providing identification documents along with personal details such as my address and date of birth.

This is all just a scam to get my confidential information to be sold to other criminals for identity theft purposes.

The second half of the scam in many cases is the advance fee part where I would have to make a small payment for release of the millions of dollars and of course there would then be another payment and so on until I realise there is no pot of money and give up.

These advance fee scams come in many guises but any offer of money or valuables for essentially nothing is always a scam. Only the scammer wins.

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This is a common scam and is a variant of the Advance Fee Scam (also known as the 419 scam).

It is most commonly carried out by Nigerians or strangely by people from elsewhere but claiming to from Nigeria.

There is a story, sometimes pages of it, trying to explain how the sender is some kind of bank official or government official and they have control of bank accounts. One of which belongs to a recently deceased person with no next of kin and no official will. Here’s the con. The sender wants you to pretend to be the next of kin to the dead person and claim the inheritance, which you then split with the sender.

An example of this scam is an email from Mr. Konibally Kone, although he spells his name differently at places in the email so must be confused on who he is today.

His deceased client supposedly left $13.7 million which he and I can share as long as I follow his instructions.

He also promises it is totally safe as he has all the required legal documents.

Of course, he does not have an official email address – just a Gmail personal address in the name christpoher 654321.

All I have to do is reply with name, address, contact details, date of birth and Id document.

For anyone who does reply, the scam follows the standard pattern where he or she gets drawn into the scam and has to pay an unexpected but small amount for some purpose then another fee then another and so on till the victim realised there is no fortune, just a scammer taking their money.

Also, the scammers will likely sell your details to other criminals who carry out identity theft.

Money for nothing is always a scam and pretending to be the next of kin of someone dead is a pretty nasty thing to agree to.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

For the months just before and then after the death of Saddam Hussein, los of scammers were using his name. Some claimed they wanted to hide his billions and you could help and be well paid for the privilege. Others told long ridiculous stories about one or more of his children being stuck somewhere like Jordan and needing you to accept a huge sum of money into your bank account for them.

Some were creative with new stories but most followed the tried and tested approach of just offering lots of money for nothing and not worrying whether the story made any sense or not.

This latest one is back on the theme of Saddam’s billions but pretends to be WBS (World Bank Swiss), which doesn’t exist and has $18.5 million to give to me from Saddam’s funds at the bank.

I just need to supply the usual details – name, phone numbers, address, bank accounts etc. and the money will be available at BIL (Bank in London), which also does not exist.

The sender is supposedly a top official at Bank of America, but the email is from a free Gmail address, so can only be fake.

Could anyone believe this level of tripe?

I hope not.

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PAYMENT NOTICE OF YOUR FUND US$2.5M

Whenever there is a natural disaster – epidemic, earthquake, flooding, forest fires etc. scammers try to take advantage by advertising fake charities, fake products, fake helplines etc. They also try to tempt people with offers of free payments and the Coronavirus pandemic has led to a lot of these.

e.g.  The United Nations and humanitarian partners (UNHP), Agency, is today brought out US$855 million for its urgent push to curb the risk and help to impact on COVID-19 outbreaks in these vulnerable communities, as part of a wider UN Global Humanitarian Response support plan to all the listed names that qualifies for US$2,500,000 compensation.  This is to inform you that your (US$2.5M) outstanding payment has been approved and ready to be paid through Bank to Bank Transfer as the bank-indicated.  “

This is just standard scammer text using the name of a made-up agency and the quite ridiculous idea that the recipient will receive $2.5 million in compensation for no reason. Anyone getting this message knows they have not lost that amount of money therefore it would be ridiculous to believe that anyone would pay such compensation to random people.

However, people do still reply, perhaps in the hope that the mistake will never be noticed.

The message goes on to request the usual personal information – name, address, contact details, bank details etc.

The sender’s email address is clearly a personal one and is registered in Hungary.

All rubbish of course.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.