People still fall for this?

I got this e-mail the other day.

I am surprised this is still out there and that people are still falling for it.

The e-mail said:

From the desk of Mr Samba Ibrahim

Bill and exchange manager

African development bank

Ouagadougou Burkina Faso

Dear friend,

I crave your indulgence for the unsolicited nature of this letter, but it was borne out of desperation and current development. Please bear with me. My name is Mr Samba Ibrahim an auditor of African development bank. I discovered existing dormant account for 5 years.

When I discovered that there had been neither continuation nor withdrawals from this account for this long period and our banking law stipulates that any unserviceable account for more than 5 years will gointo the bank revenue as an unclaimed fund.

I have made personal inquiries about the depositor and his next of kin but sadly, the depositor and his next of kin died in motor accident while the rest of the family died in Iraq during the crisis, I only made this investigation just to be double sure of this fact and since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives.

I seek your consent to present yourself as the next of kin of the deceased. as an auditor in the bank I will use my position in the bank to help you becoming thenext of kin to the estate, so that the proceeds of this account valued at $25.6 million dollars can be transferred to you, this is the story in a nutshell.

Now I want an account over seas where the bank will transfer this fund. Thereafter, I will come for the sharing and investment, also to use part of the money to help the iranians, it is a careful network and for the past eleven months i have worked out everything to ensure a hitch-free operation.

[Blah blah blah, more about how this guy is trustworthy.]

This message is respectfully yours,

Mr Samba Ibrahim

.

In case you didn't catch on, this is a SCAM!

All this guy wants is my bank account information so he can clean it out and keep it for himself. And I am sure he is not even African. He is probably some 30 something bald dude living in his Mom's basement.

There is another common one where some guy mails you a check for $5000 and asks you to deposit it in your account because he doesn't have access to a safe account. He says just send him back a money order for $2500 and you can keep the rest. So people fall for this, they send the money order, go buy a big screen tv with this windfall and then find out that the original $5000 check was fake and they have just given away $2500 dollars that they don't have.

This is a warning to my blogging friends, just in case you haven't heard of these. Please don't fall for this stuff.

Don't give anybody your bank account information. I never give out my bank account info to anybody unless I was the one who called them. I don't care who they are.

Even people that I legitimately owe money to can send me a paper bill. They don't need my info over the phone.

I once got a phone call that said I had won a cruise. All I had to do was give them my bank account information to "verify my identity". When I wouldn't give it to them, they tried to make feel stupid for not trusting them.

Some times they call you to ask for donations for a good cause, but they are not legitimate. If you are not sure, hang up the phone.

Please be careful.

These fleecers are out there trying to take advantage of you.

Good, intelligent people fall for this stuff all the time.

Be good, be intelligent, but don't get screwed.

-Della