May 19, 2004 -- Man writes book on "Nigerian e-mail scam"
Over the past four years, Clark has gotten tons of calls from people who have been duped by one of many third world country dictatorship scams. When people call who have lost money, its nearly impossible to get money back. Clark would much rather people call before they decide to help some corrupt government official who supposedly needs your help. At least he can try to stop them from throwing away their bank accounts. But many still go ahead and get involved out of greed. One man has written a book on these scams, which have come to be known as Nigerian e-mail scams. The book details his contact with these people over several months, after he received one of these e-mails. Tom Davis was supposed to wire 14,000 pounds of sterling to several different locations in Amsterdam. Then he would fly over and a security officer would take him around to the various locations to retrieve the money, which would be used for administrative purposes. For doing so, he would receive a cut of the $65 million purse that a former government official wanted to smuggle out of the country. Instead of just deleting the e-mail, he decided to see how far he could take these crooks. During the conversation he was able to discern that they were somewhere in Europe or Africa. He couldnt find out much more than that, other than the fact that these outfits exist all over the globe. Once these people get your money, there is no way to get it back. So, dont believe any of these bogus e-mails. Anyone who promises you free money, is selling you a lump of goal.