Nigeria is a lovely place to live in; great climate, abundant natural resources, amazing landscapes and beaches, and a whole bunch of amusing people. Unfortunately among us are a faction whom have pledged to wreak havoc on the finances of the unsuspecting victim. You can’t be in Nigeria and ignore the scams I’m about to list in this article. They’re as relevant today as they were over 20 years ago (a colleague of mine today confirmed that his mum was a victim of scam No. 5). Here are the top five scams that are trending on the Nigerian scene:

1> The Inheritance email – If you have a very good junk checker in your email box then you may not come across this scam. The danger with this scam is that it has worked on non-residents i.e. countries well outside Nigeria. The mails usually have an unsuspicious subject like ‘Hi! or ‘Hello’ and then even the name it’s coming from is a feminine saint-like name like ‘Blessing’ – still unsuspicious. Even at the beginning of the mail you get the ‘Dear Friend…’ because the scammer obviously sent this same email to hundreds of potential phish (no typo). By the time you hear the sob story of how she (whom by the way is most likely a ‘he’) was caught in the middle of some family feud and got banished from her royal home and has been denied her millions in inheritance money, she’ll be asking for you to both keep in touch then by email 2 or email 3 she sends her drop-dead-gorgeous photo (of someone else) she throws in the phish hook to reel you into the scam – pay a small token to hear to initiate getting access to that inheritance and she will pay you a hefty chunk for all your saintly help. O what a good Samaritan you will be (but an unlucky one if you actually fall for that).

Here’s one of such scam emails I shared in a previous post

While you simmer on this scam I’ll share the other scams in part 2 – this crazy Nigerian needs to go to bed because he’s beginning to see two laptops…zzzzzzz