I have gotten emails from people (who are supposedly) in Nigeria or South Africa or China who tell me that they are the executor of a now deceased persons estate or that they control the funds of said person and need my help to get the money out of the country, promising me a handsome percentage if I help. Many times they ask me to get the money to my bank account then send it to them (less my commission, of course). Or get this one: A person claiming to be from a particular religious calling in some African country (these are the most popular ones) who addresses me in the mighty name of [which ever deity or god that is being worshipped] claiming to be some kind of leader who can ‘help me help myslelf’ by doing them a little favour. And then money is brought into the argument and the tales of what how to get it, etc., etc., etc. are layed out on the table.

As far as I am concerned, all these emails cry ‘foul’! What I have noticed is that all the emails have the same structure and are rife with incorrect spelling and poor language structure. Punctuation marks are in places where they don’t belong, for example: “Please help, me with this business. transaction as I cannot do; it by myself.” Paragraph formation is also very poor. Now, I would think that if someone was looking for a business partner in a foreign country that they would at least get someone who knows English well to setup the email for them.

Here are a few ways in which you can identify fraudulent emails:

1. Poor punctuation and spelling, lots of grammatical errors, and lack of cohesiveness (note that there are emails that can be genuine and have these inconsistencies, though the majority are frauds).
2. You get an email telling you that you won a lottery that you never entered. Most end up asking you to send them some money so that they can send you your winnings. When you ask them to take the money needed to send the winnigs out of your ‘winnings’, they usually claim that the money is in an escrow account which they cannot touch. Please, give me a break!
3. Emails from sources not known to you that request personal details, like username and password and address, etc. Most times these are phishing emails.
4. Emails that are sent by different people but have similar structure and errors.
5. Emails claiming to be from reputable people or websites but whose images and links lead nowhere near the website of whom they claim to represent.
6. Emails telling you that you have won an iPod or TV or free satellite system, but then goes on to ask for personal info so they can send you your prize. Again, this is all part of phishing.

Look out for these types of email and if the site they claim to represent has a way of reporting these emails to them, please do so. PayPal has that feature as part of their efforts to clamp down on fraudulent emails sent in their name.

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