Nigerian-type scams first appeared in the 1980s and continue to be one of the most prolific scams around. It quickly spread through Europe, North America and Australia. There are several variations. Although there are several variations, the basic scam is that people receive a letter advising there are millions of dollars held in a Nigerian bank account that they can share in by sending details of their bank account and blank letterheads.
The sender of the letter, describing himself as highly placed and influential with contacts in the Nigerian Government, says fictitious invoices will be prepared to enable the transfer of money to the account of the targeted business. They say that to ‘facilitate’ the transfer, they have to first pay approximately $5,000 to the contact in Nigeria for fees, taxes and bribes. Many people have been suckered into sending $5,000 to cover those costs and some have been stung for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Variations on the scam are now arriving from South America, Asia, European and Arabic nations. In place of Nigerian bank, these letters promise proceeds from a will, church funds being saved from a dictatorship, and widows from the World Trade Center tragedy.