The Minot Police Department Crime Prevention Unit has received information about area residents being targeted for and old scam, known as the “Nigerian Scam” with a newer attempt method. The scam originated in Nigeria where a scammer would pretend to be a government official trying to move large sums of money to Americans’ accounts and would be willing to share a cut of the money with the recipient. In the most recent reported attempts would-be victims are being sent emails from a scammer claiming to be an Officer in the US Armed Forces with a “Beneficial Proposition!” asking the recipient to assist with the safe keeping of “packages”. When the recipient responds to the email, the scammer claims that they have come into a huge sum of money due to investments while deployed with the Army to Afghanistan and promises to share in the proceeds if they can assist in putting the money in their (the recipient’s)account.
This is a ploy to obtain banking and personal identifying information from the victim. Often the scammer will also solicit funds for various fees or other payments needed to process the transactions. None of these requests ever result in the victim seeing a payoff and often result in accounts being accessed and money and identities stolen.
The best way to avoid being a victim of these solicitations is to delete messages sent from strangers offering any kind of business deals. Getting offered something for nothing is a scam 100% of the time. If it sounds too good to be true, it is!