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Another twist has been added to the Nigerian money scam. The con artists send
a letter, fax or e-mail to victims claiming they have millions of dollars to get out
of their country. They ask the victim to give them their bank information so they
can deposit the money into their account to get the money out of the country,
and in turn the victim will receive a percentage of the money. The new twist is
that the con artists are sending checks as an advance and telling the victims to
wire most of it back to cover expenses to transfer the rest of the money. The check
then bounces, the crooks get the money and the victims are left owing the money
to their banks. This same scheme is used in fraudulent sweepstakes.
One version of the Nigerian letter scam is from a woman who claims her husband was
killed in the September 11 attack leaving her with millions of dollars that must be
deposited in a U.S.-based bank account. She promises a good sum of money for helping her.
Be very careful of e-mails, faxes or letters you receive with this type of
information -- it's one of the oldest scams around.
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