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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 5:24 am

As a Freshman in college I've become quite knowledgeable regarding scams that target students. While most of these "scams" are borderline legal and are based in the United States, I just received this letter in my school email box.

Quote:

ATTENTION STUDENT
Greetings In the Lords name!
I am writing to inform you student of a new scholarship that has formed upon the recent death of Dr. Stephen Williams a respected business man and scholar here in Nigeria. Dr.Williams was a friend of students and loves learning. He bequeaths in his will a large sum of 6 Million US Dollars to world students. You have been selected as a person for who this sum was made available. The transfer of funds to successful candidates will be handled by my firm. If you are interested please mail me Barrister John Owens.
Bless you!

I checked out the header and the IP points towards Benin City, Nigeria.

This is a disturbing development in the world of 419 Scams, as this approach may be quite effective. My generation is often overly comfortable when dealing with online contacts, a cash-strapped college student may could easily fall prey to this type of fraud. The fact that the letter got through my school's rather impressive spam filter is also unnerving. Naturally, I reported the letter as spam, so hopefully the system will recognize future letters as spam.

Naturally, I do not plan on letting this scammer off easy, he is messing with the wrong college student!
If you receive any letters of this nature, please send me a PM, I plan on tackling this problem head on.
No pity, No mercy!

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:52 pm

Just a variation of an old scam.
Tweak it for the target audience.
In this case students.
Sometimes I get picked at random for the award.
Others it is because my name is the same as [fill in the blank].
Or it is because I am known to be trustworthy.
[Didn't know I was that well known worldwide ]

Targeting people in need, andor greed, helps their batting average.

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:55 pm

Dr. Stephen Williams is a well-known Eater member and dear friend and is very much alive. I have a faint memory of this format being some kind of lad de-education or misdirection. Can you post the headers?