I hope my message fine you well.

[StoutFiles]

I am in need of your assistance. My colleague and I need your help to transfer out the sum
of Twenty Five Mllion U.S Dollars ($25,000,000.00M US Dollars).

Seriously though, my spam box is full of this crap. Are people actually falling for these scams?

[Old_Honky]

I think they are sent more in hope than expectation. Their costs are minimal so they send the cr@p out to every email address they can get hold of, and if just two or three morons are so blinded by greed that they go for it that's money in the bank.

On a serious note it would be great to have a list of the people who are daft enough to respond, that would be the ultimate list to sell "100% gullibility guaranteed".

[Green_Grass]

I am sure there is money to be made. For example, We have thousands of people in semi rural and rural areas in India ( as an example)coming online every month for the very first time. These people have all heard of the attractions of the internet etc etc ..imagine how these guys would feel when they receive such a mail.. what a temptation.. Just send a few dollars .. maybe 100- 200 and make a million or two..

Although I feel, the ones that have online lottery numbers and Winnings, have a better chance with total novices to the net..

Hence the scam goes on and on and on..

[janharders]

I know there is money to be made, had a client of mine fall for the "used motor bike worth 20k, need cash urgently, will sell for 4k". three weeks after he had payed by western union, he called me and started the conversation with "I think I did something stupid". And this wasn't even nigeria, the scammers were operating from the UK. Now, he is not a tech-guy but not a first-timer either, so I guess people just switch off reason if the offer sounds good but not totally insane (aka we have 20m usd sitting here, we just need a few hundred bucks so we can transfer them to you). I consider him cured and his scam-detector readjusted and told him to see the money he lost like a medical bill ;)

[g1smd]

They get money from dozens of suckers every week.

To appreciate the scale of the money involved, check this out: [theregister.co.uk...]

See also "419 baiter" and related sites.

...Officers raided 166 homes in places such as Malaga, Benalmádena, Mijas, Torremolinos and Marbella. Police seized € 218 000 in cash, 2 000 mobile telephones, 327 computers and 165 fax machines Besides lottery emails, they also sent over 6 million 'classic' 419 scam mails...

...Losses Over USD 32 billion to date, and some 4.3 billion in 2007...

[cornwall]

Malaga, Benalmádena, Mijas, Torremolinos and Marbella

Steady on, I live in Spain

[Shaddows]

Well, you wouldn't want to stay in Kernow would you?
<ducks>

[Rugles]

If everybody who received one of those emails, hit the reply button and pretended to be interested .... they would be out of business in an hour.

Time for a reverse spam attack, don't ya think?

[janharders]

guess they'd just start a few callcenters in europe, get subsidies from the EU and probably convince a lot of the replying partys that they're not scammers as proven by their affiliation with the government ;)

[rocker]

Also from The Register

A public treasurer in the Michigan county of Alcona stands accused of embezzling tax payers out of more than $1.2m, at least part of which was used to cover costs he incurred falling for a Nigerian banking fraud.

Thomas Katona, the former Treasurer of Alcona County, was charged with nine felonies. According to the Michigan Attorney General's office, the 56-year-old beancounter, who held his post for 13 years, also plowed $72,000 of his own money into the fraud.

[theregister.co.uk...]