Manna from Nigeria

Who said that you must be in it to win it? According to a letter I received from Spain I won €915,000 in a lottery and I did not even have a ticket. The explanation I was given was that this kindly soul had chosen me to be the lucky owner of a ticket which he had bought in my name. He had decided that I should have the good fortune of having all this money put into my bank account but that he was deducting only 10 per cent as his share and would deposit the rest into my bank account.

This letter seemed very similar to the one I had received from Nigeria several months earlier. I thought of playing along with this very obvious scam by supplying him with the number of one of my virtually defunct accounts containing about €2 but thought better of it as it might cause problems for my bankers. I would have loved to imagine this scam artist eagerly anticipating cleaning out my account only to find he had been had.

I was not fooled of course but unfortunately there might be people who may be fooled by the official looking rubber stamps on this rather lengthy communication which is sent to many people who might be impressed by its contents and who would regret responding to this criminal enterprise from Nigeria.