The Nigerian Bankers Are Coming

Received an interesting envelope in the mail today. A standard business window envelope with a stamp on it and no return address. It looked official so I opened it and inside was an official looking letter with the usual type of scam on it that I would expect in an e-mail from a Nigerian banker. Except that someone had taken the time to print out a color letter and mail it to me instead. I guess there must be money in these scams that someone would actually take the time and money to do this using the postal service.

This one is from some bank manager from a Singapore bank with some money of a long lost relative of mine. Whoever sent this took the time to figure out my last name and invent a long lost relative that had passed away leaving a bunch of unclaimed money. The letter itself was explained that he was on a “five days official assignment” to the US when he mailed the letter to get in touch with me. In the letter he implores me to keep it confidential and gave me his personal contact information but at the same time took the time and effort to print it out on what looks like bank letterhead from the Bank of Singapore. I checked it and it is an actual bank and the logo is correct. He even got the address for the Hong Kong branch of that bank correct. I went further and looked up this person Olivier Denis and he is in fact an employee of this bank and has the title that the letter states. Of course, when I did that search the results for his name with the word “scam” attached almost outweighed the legitimate results. There are so many things wrong with this letter but also a lot of things right. I am amazed that anyone would fall for this but I guess people do. Whoever sent this obviously spent enough time and money in sending it to me that they had a reasonable expectation that it would pay off.

I have included the letter below so if anyone is interested in claiming the lost funds of my long lost relative Lokni Cheeseman go ahead and have a go. Let me know how it turns out and if you do get crazy rich as a result don’t forget where you got the tip from. Seriously though - don’t have a go this is obviously a scam!!!!

Copy of har copy letter I received today. P.S. The word scam on it is something I added. It wasn’t on the original although it might as well have been.