I thought I was back in the 1990s this morning, when I read this. I couldn’t quite believe that a) people were still trying the old 419 trick; and b) someone actually fell for it.
If you read the comments attached to the article, you’ll see the general sentiment appears to be that the victim doesn’t deserve a huge amount of sympathy, which I suppose is fair enough. If you’re going to believe an email littered with typos from someone you don’t know, you probably deserve to be taught a lesson. Perhaps not to the tune of £350k, but once bitten, twice shy etc.
“My wife is dead and I am dying/ I am the CFO of a multinational corporation and I am dying/ I know too much and I am dying/ I have stolen a drug king pin’s spare change and I am dying.” We all know them, we’ve all read them, we’ve all wondered what would happen if we responded (to find out, check this out). It’s just surprising that people still fall for them.
But then, I spend all day in front of a computer, talking about, writing about and reading about technology. If I were to get caught out by one of these, I may as well ditch the tech PR job. The victim in this case was a doctor, and probably was too busy saving lives to be completely au fait with the latest in 419 scams.
At least, that’s the hope.
Chivalry House 