Beware of email culprit

Beware of email culprit

I still keep one paid email address I have had for over 20 twenty years. And because it’s been for a long time, the address is known by many spammers around. On an average day I receive about 200 junk mails in this address.

They do not normally border me much because it takes me only a minute or two in a day to get rid of them all.

For the past few years I have been receiving a new kind of junk mails. It started with only a few in a day to about 20-30 a day recently. I am still not sure what should I brand this particular type of culprit.

What these delinquents do is sending unsolicited emails to addresses they get through various legal and illegal means. The letter contents may be different but the layouts are always the same.    

All letters will start with an apology of the intrusion, follow by telling you of some huge illegal fortunes they own and need to get out of the country with your help. They are willing to share with you for a percentage if you agree.

When you start to talk to them, they will trick you further to fall into their trap by telling you how and when they will transfer the huge fund to you. Then they will make a quick turn and ask you to pay them some small sum of bank or legal fees to make it possible to transfer the big fund to you.

Once you make the first transfer, they will keep on pestering for more.  Their bait is to keep on telling you the huge sum of money is nigh. You will hear the repeated saying that millions are ready to ship to your hand but there is only one more little point that needs your help.    

Actually, this type of scandal is not new. It started almost 40 years ago long before email came into existence. It happened even before we had telex or fax in office. l still remember the time I  received these type of mails in hard copy through post office. It disappeared out of the scene for decades and is back again in electronic form.

They did not bother me a bit as I had said earlier.  But it bothers me a lot when I read in the news recently that many people are cheated by these email culprits. One senior well educated woman was deceived by a total of 8.5 millions Bath (US$ 250,000) by an email culprit. I can hardly believe this. But the woman came out to tell herself the story on the Internet.    

Many other mishaps also have fell prey to these felons. I do not know how many more innocent people will suffer from these people. The law of any particular country can not really reach them as they operate across countries.

So, until we can come up with a better way to deal with all these outlaws, we should find way to help protect the innocents. One effective way to counter them I can think of is to expose their illegal activities. Henceforth, I write this article.