JAMES CONNOR & CO.CHAMBERS
(ATTORNEYS & COUNSELORS AT LAW)
FEDERAL HIGH COURT NIGERIA
WHITE-HOUSE BUILDING,
14 OLD BOND CRESCENT, NIGERIA.
Compliments!
I am Barrister James Connor the Personal Attorney to late Mr. David, who was a contractor here in Nigeria, who, on May 2002 with his entire family perished in the Air-Crash on board From Kano state.
As a matter of fact, my client made a fixed deposit Amount, valued at (US$10.5 million dollars) with a Bank here in Nigeria, and upon the duration time of their agreement, his bank started contacting him but no response. Consequently, the Bank issued me a notice to provide the next of kin to the deceased or his account will be confiscated after five years.
I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at (US$10.5 million dollars) could be transferred into your account. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us make this great benefiting transaction successfully.
Please get in touch with me through ( jamesconnorchamber4@yahoo.com ) to enable us discuss further.
Due regards to your family.
Hon: James Connor Esq.,
Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
more to come...............
steber2000
11 Comments
Hi James.
I am very happy that you have selected me to take on this responsibility.
I am very sorry to hear about your collegue Mr. David and his family. That is a terrible thing to happen to anyone.
I remember when a good friend of mine, Aaliyah Haughton, was killed a few years back in a similar incident.
To this day I suffer with nightmares about this.
My therapist says that I should keep up the sessions, and the medication should ease the pain.
Do you go through the same thing James?
I feel that we are going through the same thing and I can relate to you. This is why I answered your email.
What do I have to do next?
This type of email has been going round and round the world for several years now. I do not know anyone who has been fooled by it. However as it continues, can I assume that there ARE people who fall for it? It seems there is some abject stupidity going on here, but I'm interested to know exactly who's stupidity - the spamming low-life first-on-the-bloody-hit-list-come-the-revolution slug, or idiots falling for it?
For example, can you imagine anyone with an address like:
JAMES CONNOR & CO.CHAMBERS
(ATTORNEYS & COUNSELORS AT LAW)
FEDERAL HIGH COURT NIGERIA
WHITE-HOUSE BUILDING,
14 OLD BOND CRESCENT, NIGERIA.
having a YAHOO email address? Come on!
Senior Advocate of Nigeria???? OK - lets try it out:
If 1,000,000 people send me one dollar .... I'll be a millionaire. Contact me for bank account details. Thank you.
TRANSCRIPT
By Chris Hansen
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 12:37 a.m. ET March 21, 2007
This report aired on Dateline Tuesday, March 20, 8 p.m.
Ever get an e-mail like this?
“My name is Mrs Maryam Ibrahim,...{I am} suffering from long time cancer of the breast...Before my late husband died {he} deposited the sum of 20 million dollars ..20% of this money will be for your time and effort...”
The writers of these e-mails sometimes appear to be desperate characters in far-off lands, offering millions in reward money — if you’d only help them in their plight.
If you get a letter like this, you probably ignore it, smelling a scam. But there are thousands of others who take the bait, falling for this global, billion dollar racket.
In 2005, we introduced you to Pam Krause. A town treasurer in Wisconsin, she got an e-mail which asked her to help a desperate widow recover her husband’s fortune. In return, she’d get a reward of millions of dollars. But only after she paid some fees in advance. Altogether, she lost $18,000 dollars.
And although the scam’s been around for years, people continue to fall for it.
John Hambrick, FBI's Internet crime complaint center: It’s unfortunate, but they do.
Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: Are these people stupid who are falling for this?
John Hambrick: Well no, they’re not. Some are quite well-educated.
Case in point: Nestled along the frozen shoreline of Lake Huron, Harrisville is the seat of Alcona County, Michigan.
In the bitter winds ofwinter, residents are freezing in their tracks. And not because of the weather.
Resident: It shocks me that a guy that I thought was a pretty smart guy could fall for something like this.
This time, a county treasurer, Thomas Katona, the man who had control of the county checkbook got an e-mail that promised millions if he’d only invest some upfront money first. Police say he took the bait, hook, line and sinker.
First, he sent the scammers $70,000 of his own money. Then, the crooks apparently convinced him to sink at least $180,000 of county money into the scheme. And a total of $1.2 million may be missing from the public till.
County sheriff Doug Ellinger: The taxpayers of Alcona County are obviously going to suffer some loss here. Every property owner that pays property taxes is going to feel some sort of loss from this.
Katona faces 11 felony counts, including embezzlement and forgery. When he declined to speak for himself in court, the judge entered a plea of not guilty for him.
The e-mail scam in Michigan is just the latest and most extreme example of a decades-old problem that the internet has only made more widespread.
Hambrick: It’s Canada, England, the Netherlands, it’s everywhere at this point.
The FBI’s John Hambrick says at least 10,000 people will be victimized by the e-mail cons this year alone. The majority of the scams originate in West Africa, especially Nigeria, are called “419 scams,” named for the Nigerian law which makes them illegal there.
Some operate from Internet cafes where the crooks are able to send millions of messages, hoping to lure the unsuspecting victim.
Hambrick: And the ability to send out exponentially more in terms of volume increases their returns. A fraction of a percentage of a response is significant to them. Milllions of dollars are at stake.
But the criminals operate worldwide and appear to be only loosely connected— not necessarily controlled by a single kingpin. The scammers have been around for years. But there are more and more victims.
Hansen: What makes these offers so alluring to people? What makes the average guy, say “Alright, I’ll invest eight, ten, twenty thousand dollars in this? “
Hambrick: I don’t have an answer for that one.
Hansen: Greed?
Hambrick: I would say, yes, it’s an easy buck; it’s the potential to be that once in a lifetime windfall of money.
Most of the conmen remain hidden, far away, overseas, protected by the anonymity of the Internet. And according to law enforcement, that’s where they are most likely to stay.
Hansen: Why can’t the FBI do more about this?
Hambrick: In terms of prioritization of resources, we’re focused on terrorism at this point. It’s simply not a high enough priority for us to focus on this.
Authorities say the scammers are part of several international networks based here in West Africa that are nearly impossible to put out of business. The FBI says Nigeria, for instance, has made some progress. But every time a scammer is brought down, another takes his place. As names on e-mails, these scammers are faceless phantoms, almost impossible to track down.
But what if we could take on the challenge of finding some of these rip-off artists? Make it our mission to smoke out some of these conmen?
Tonight from London and other places around the world, we’ll show you how Americans are getting ripped off in a torrent of internet scams. But this time...on hidden camera... you’ll see how Dateline turned the tables.
It’s an investigation where a financial predator gets taken for a ride. We’ll make them believe they’re the ones who are going to make a fortune and make it too much for them to resist.
I am just waiting for this guy to get back to me. Hopefully s/he does. Stay tuned *L*
Dear Beloved,
I acknowledge receipt of your mail and i am really sorry about your friends' ( Aaliyah Haughton) death, I want you to understand that my decision to seek or your consent to present you to the bank as my late client's next of kin/relative was borne out of the fact that all efforts in the past to locate his next of kin has proved abortive.
Furthermore, I want you to know that in as much as I know that you may or may not be directly related to my late client, the fact remains that as the personal attorney to late Mr. David and by virtue of my status as the sole executor of his will here in Nigeria, it behooves on me to present you to the bank as his identifiable next of kin, so that the funds left behind by my late client estates will be released to you by the bank as the only person that is privy to all information regarding these funds that he deposited at the bank, it therefore behooves on me as his attorney to present his bonafide next of kin/beneficiary to the bank as the inheritance laws in Nigeria stipulates.
I want you to understand that the inheritance law in Nigeria clearly leaves an onus of proof of who is or is not the next of kin to the deceased, solely on the deceased's lawyer to prove, and I being late Mr. David attorney here in Nigeria have every legal backing to present an identifiable next of kin/relative of my late client to the bank. Hence, my decision to contact you was hinged on the fact that the bank has written me requesting that I present the next of kin to my late client, failing which the funds will be reverted to government coffers as "unclaimed funds".
Before we proceed, I wish to emphasize the importance of trust and honesty in this transaction because these are the bedrock of any successful transaction. Having contacted you on this transaction, I want you to know that absolute trust from both sides have to be established.
All other necessary documents that the bank might require from you shall be secured from the high court and subsequently, forwarded to you in the course of the transaction.
Upon receipt of your full information stating your full name, full mailing address and private telephone and fax numbers, I shall furnish you the draft copy of the text of application form which you will complete and send to the to the bank to enable them initiate the process of releasing the funds to you via your nominated bank account.
In addition, it is pertinent to inform you that this transaction is void of any legal implications as all legal documents to portray you as the bonafide next of Kin shall be forwarded to you and also to the management of the bank where my late client has this huge deposit.
Thank you and I wait to hear back from you on this.
Regards,
Barrister James Connor.
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)