“Give us your bank details and we will give you $10m” - If someone said that to you on the street I imagine you would just walk on by. However this is the basis of the commonly referred to “Nigerian Email Scam” and unfortunately there are people still falling victim to this type of scam due to the professionalism it can display and the determination of the actual fraudsters.

The “Nigerian Email Scam” has been around for some time. Originally it was sent using traditional postal mail however with the increased usage of the internet it is much cheaper and quicker to target thousands of recipients.

The premise works by offering a large sum of money in return for the use of your bank account to transfer funds of a deceased individual out of a particular countries jurisdiction.

An example of what a typical email would look like is presented below:

FROM THE DESK OF,
JOHN OKO (Ph.d)
LION BANK OF NIGERIA PLC
34, AHMADU BELLO WAY, JOS
NIGERIA

I am a senior Accountant in my Bank and Accounting officer to Mr.Arthur Kinder who was a contractor with the Federal government of Nigeria. On the 21st of April 2001, my customer, his wife and their two children were involved in auto-crash along the ever busy Sagumu-Ibadan High Way. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since then,the Board of Directors of my Bank have made several enquires to their embassy to locate any of my customer’s extended relations but to no avail.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and Property left behind by my client before they get Confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this Huge deposits of US$10M was lodged.

The Bank has published several Notice for the Next of Kin of the deceased to apply for collection of this Funds or have the account confiscated within a shot Period of time.

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2 years now 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 million dollars can be paid to you and Then you and me can share the money,60% to me and 40% to you.

I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to backup any claim we may make. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable this deal through.I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate Arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the Law. Please get in touch with my email and send to me your Telephone and fax numbers to enable us further about this Transaction.

Best regards,
JOHN OKO,
SENIOR ACCOUNTANT
LION BANK OF NIGERIA PLC.

The content of the emails do vary but the basic premise is the same. Reading the email it is possible this could initially be perceived as genuine and could in fact be plausible. The email does not even ask for any financial details to start with so as to build some trust that they will actually speak to you on the telephone.

In reality the fraudsters use the details they gain from you to perform a number of activities including identity theft.

The simplest method of dealing with these emails is to simply delete them. Do not respond in anyway. Replying by email simply provides the fraudsters with confirmation of a valid email address which they can use to send more email scams in the future.

Customers using AGUK email services already have good protection from these types of email scams deleting over 99% of them before they even arrive in your inbox.

If you are interested in protecting your email from these types of scams then please contact us to discuss the options further.