Not all “Nigerian Letter Scams” come from Nigeria.  Some of them may appear to come from Ghana, as the email copied below purports to be.  This particular email turned up recently in my email box and it is worth reminding people not to fall prey to this, what should now be obvious scam.  As with other scams like this, it starts out with some emergency that requires your assistance to move money.  At first it appears that you do not have to do anything except provide some easy assistance to the email writer, but gradually as the scam develops you are required to contribute money to the effort.  Of course, the entire matter is a scam and you should never respond to emails such as this.  By the way, I have deleted the email address to which I was asked to respond because when I checked on the derivation of the email, I learned that someone’s email had been hacked in order to send this email to me.

Here is a copy of what I received:

“Beloved,

I am sorry to bother you, please i need your help. I am a memberof the last regime in Ivory Coast butiam presently in hiding,the new regime almost killed us all so i had to run toa safe place in another country Ghana.

I feel i might die any timesoon. I need you to help me secure my funds for my children before i die. I shall give you the details when i hear back from you and have them transferredto you for a safe keep & investment.I dont know how long i can hang on.Please Email me now: (email address deleted)

Thanks,”

TIPS

Always ask yourself if you receive such an email, why you were selected?  And even if you are told, as sometimes is the case that it involves an estate in a country where you have no relatives, you should ignore the email.   Do not establish any communication with the scammer.  Any offer that sounds too good to be true, generally is.  These emails are easy to identify and the prey on both greed and a willingness to help.    You also might take notice of the poor typing, grammar and spelling that often is found in these scam emails where English is generally not the primary language of the scammer.  Don’t fall for these scams.