A man in Nigeria has been contacting me. It reeks like a scam, but he wants no money from me until delivery. He wants me to come to Madrid. I know what you are all thinking, but I do need a vacation. Do I need to be especially worried? My expectations are very low. I am not stupid, and I am well traveled.

Hi charlieh! Welcome to our little ALL SPAIN Message Board.

Yeah, I'm certain it's a scam. I/We recently heard from someone (in the USA) saying they actually received a telephone call from someone IN Madrid stating the same. I did a search of the company name "claiming" to be handing out large sums of money to anyone who wanted it and found absolutely nothing about them online. DOINK! Scam Attempt Thwarted! People have posted news about this kind of scam here and upon inspecting the A) company name (was false), B) Company Address (didn't exist), & C) Telephone Number (was to a cellphone)- we all agreed that it was a farce, a scam, simply fraud.

Feel free to post your information of this so-called company here and we'll happily rip it to shreds for you - and then ask for more! hehehe...

You can do a Google.com search yourself by putting the company name in quotations and you'll likely find other people around the world asking about the authenticity of the same company.

While this doesn't apply to you, it's amazing how many people have contacted ME telling me they were told they just won a lottery and then asking ME if a particularly lottery commission in Madrid was reputable one - and.. (here's the kicker...) ... they hadn't even entered any lottery in Madrid .... and hadn't ever visited Spain!!

Best of luck! And "don't take any wooden nickles"! (old saying in the USA recommending someone not to be fooled easily by accepting wooden coins)

Saludos, MadridMan

Put "Nigeria 419" in your search of choice. Read about the scam.

One of the reasons they like to get people to travel to a location is so they can be kidnapped and held for ransom, or in some cases even killed, and their identity used for forged papers to get someone into the US or another country who doesn't belong.

Always remember. Oil deals, etc, that promise you a lot, are nothing but scams. If there's money out there to be made, rest assured the guys with cash in their jeans, and inside the operations themselves, are the ones raking it in, not some poor boob who gets an "email" offering great wealth.

There's only one thing you can get from any of these things. Heartbreak. You could even be killed.

Wolf

How curious! This very morning a co-worker brought me a letter mailed to her from somebody in Spain with the "You won the lottery...blah, blah" story. Of course I told her it was a scam and not to believe such things, but what it really amazed me is it wasn't an email but a letter! Somebody had gone through the trouble of printing a couple pages, putting them in an envelope and taking it to the post office (got those kind of stamps printed at the post office) Makes you wonder how desperate this people are...

I did as you suggested Wolf, there was no shortage of sites that are talking about these scams. One was dedicated to ideas to seek revenge on the scammers. I have heard of these great offers for years but have not been approached. Guess I am to poor, for those wealthy Nigerians to want to hassle.

Thanks for the insights. The only reason that I didn't just ignore this guy was that he wants no money. He said that there was a plane crash and someone with my last name died with no heirs......of course I was/am skeptical, but what really do I have to lose to check it out? If I actually went to meet him, I wouldn't go alone. It could be fun.
This board is awesome. Thanks

Hell! Why not? They don't mind killing two, three, or four people at a time, and you'd get some great headlines.

The problem is, these people are members of an organized ring that is operating throughout the world, and they really don't give a damned about your "protection." They want your ID, and they may as well get another one along with it.

You should turn this over to the people at the FCC, because they're trying to round these people up.

Wolf

There have been no plane crashes in Spain for years (I would say decades even). Besides, you will get equally fooled.

They will make you come to Spain, then would try by any possible means to convince you to give them (or to an account of their chocie) some dozen thousand dollars "in order to manage the claiming of your future money", and then they will run away with your money.

It is very improbable that your personal safety is in danger, but I will bet you 1 million dollars that you will loose your money.

In Spain heritages are claimed by the state if no heirs claim it by themselves.

It if more secure to play lottery than what you intend to do.

Said that, it is your decission.

Fernando

Wolf, above, mentions the NIGERIA 419 scam. Read the BBC News article Turning the tables on Nigeria's e-mail conmen @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3887493.stm .

First paragraph... Read the rest of the article @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3887493.stm .

Saludos, MadridMan

MM: That was a good article, I am surprised that some frat brothers around the US have not started to scam these dudes. Obviously by that photo they are able to take their own bait.

It's sometimes fun to play with these people and string them along. Many people make a sport of it and post their results on the web. Post the original email with the address and I can try my hand at it!

For me life is too short to waste my time this sitting behind a computer to make sport of it. I cannot fiqure why someone want to do it?

Bill

Everyone does something to make life pass. Some people go to foreign lands to kill Haji for fun, some play golf, some surf the internet for porn, some watch reruns of sitcoms, some drink their troubles away on lonely nights, others try to make a point where there is none. Now I don't know if it makes a drop of difference in the scheme of life but it seems to me if I keep the jackals occupied in some mindless game they will have a little less time to prey on the innocent who are prone to lose much money in these scams.

That was a great article..wish they wrote about other scenarios...
Some guys in Nigeria are also scamming Ebay and Paypal..luckily my son, who was selling a laptop, knew about it right before he put his item on ebay. Within minutes we had someone wanting to buy the laptop and wanting us to send it to her "daughter" going to school in Nigeria, as a surprise gift. They wanted to close the deal right then and have us mail it off first thing in the morning. We actully had about 3 Nigerian scam offers for that puter.

Up until recently, I worked at a Chamber of Commerce where we received calls from all around the country, asking us about the legitimacy of verifiable scams.

I worked very closely with both our local police station as well as the Federal Inspectors with the US Postal Service. The local police were especially concerned with email scams.

If you want to go to Spain, do it - just not to meet people who either want to hurt you or rip you off. It might sound cheesy, but talk to your "local authorities" about this; that's what they're there for.