Soccer Eagle Lotto

I have been getting a lot of google hits on the Soccer Eagle Lotto post below. Many folks have received the exact same email with the exact same numbers, and they want to know if it is legit.

It most certainly is not legit.

Even though it is listed as being out of the Netherlands, my guess is that the real brains behind the outfit are in Lagos, Nigeria, and that this is a standard issue 419 scam. So far no one has gotten back to me, but what generally happens is that they keep coming up with "complications" that require you to wire money for fees, bribes, taxes, etc.

Do a google search for "419 Nigerian Fraud" and you will get a plethora of sites, including one from the US Secret Service, warning you of this. It goes back to the 1920's and was originally done with letters, then with faxes, then with email. I have received various 419 scam solicitations from Nigeria, South Africa, Yugoslavia, Indonesia, as well as a few from Great Britain and other Western European countries. Depending on which source you go by, 419 scamming is between the fifth and the third largest industry in Nigeria. It often involves government officials, so the phone numbers might actually be to government ministries.

If you think our government is bad, just think about that for a minute.

By all means, have fun with them. You can have some rather memorable and bloggable exchanges with them (although these jerks still owe me a repsonse, although my name might be on some "do not bother" list by now), but DO NOT send them money, DO NOT call them (especially not Caribbean phone numbers), and DO NOT go over to Africa when they suggest that you need to be there in person. You will basically be kidnapped, and I know of at least one confirmed case where someone was killed.

If you do not mind being called at all hours of the night, it is OK to give them your phone number. You can really have fun with them, but they seem to have no concept of time zones, so the phone will ring at 3am. My friend gave them my phone number once as a practical joke, so I returned the favor, and we eventually called a truce. It is kind of funny gettting some Nigerian to call you in the middle of the night claiming to be Mrs. Abacha's lawyer.

The benefit of playing these games with these criminals is that you will get some of the funniest reading matter you have ever had. They combine the pompous with the ignorant, and come up with some rather funny phrases.

As a side note, my friend actually convinced one of them to send him a $50 bill as a token of trust. It was far more work than any $50 he ever earned. Someone else told me that he got $100 the same way, but as far as I can tell, those are the only two cases where any money flowed to the victims.