Hardly a day goes by when I don’t get a number of messages in my Yahoo Mailbox from senders in Africa.  Sometimes these messages inform me that I have just won such-and-such lottery, but many of the lottery letters come from non-African countries too.  What I get almost exclusively from Africa, however, is messages informing me that I am the beneficiary of some legacy worth millions of dollars. Often the name of the sender is an Arabic-looking name, but almost undoubtedly the sender is not an Arab.  Sometimes though the name of the sender looks Bantu or Sudanese-Guinean.  I would say that by and large the senders are black Africans, as the mail often originates in places like Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, South Africa and Ethiopia.

Typically, such a message begins with, “My dearest…”, “Trusting to hear from you…”, “Awaiting your urgent reply…” or some other stereotyped phrase.  As soon as I see one of the customary openings, I just delete the message, but if, allowing that a particular message may concern some other matter, I open it, as soon as I see that the sender is connected with the First National Bank of Addis Ababa, the Bank of Ouagadougou or the First National Bank of Pretoria, I delete it.  I’ve found that, typically, the sender pretends to be an executor of or lawyer on behalf of some estate, or someone who needs an accomplice to take advantage of an inheritance that he knows about.  Naturally, I’ve never followed any of these through, but I suppose, as a prelude to getting the $15,000,000 bequest, you’ll have to advance a few hundred dollars for applications and formalities.  And then you won’t hear another word.

I used to get most of this e-mail in my Bulk box, but lately it seems I’ve been getting more and more in my Inbox.

I don’t see how anybody could fall for this scam.  But I suppose if the senders contact millions of Internet users, they may come upon an unwary teenage girl or balmy old lady once in a blue moon who sends them $100 to start processing the ‘inheritance’.

I tried blocking e-mail from some of these senders, but they may have multiple addresses, so if you block one, they send from another the next time. 

This reminds me of an Internet scam that I learned about in 2003, when for a very brief period I worked for AT & T.  I myself use computers daily of course, but I have no personal computer and no phone connection, so I myself haven’t been confronted with this swindle.

What happens is that you get a pop-up screen that originates in some African country.  At the time I was involved the country was usually Guinea-Bissau.  The pop-up has to do with pornography.  You are asked if you care to download the program and you click on ‘No’.  You are asked again and again, and you keep clicking ‘No’.  Finally, you are asked something like, “Do you want to miss this opportunity?”.  By reflex, you click ‘No’ again.  Then some long pornographic movie or series of pictures starts downloading.  You try to stop it, but sometimes it takes quite a while to shut the thing off.  

When you get your next phone bill, you find you’ve been charged $100 or $200 dollars extra that month.  You call AT & T.  They may let you go the first time, but, then again, they may not.  If they remit your blunder, I don’t know what they do about the charges.

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