I thought I would let you know of the latest Nigerian email scam that has appeared within the last week or so. Quite a few friends of mine have received emails purporting to be from people they know asking for money. I have copied this extract from one of the sites that regularly updates me with all the latest scams but I thought this one is particularly serious enough for me to circulate this to you.The warning states:

"Nigeria continues to develop and export the world's most innovative Internet scams. In one bizarre variation that seems to have ramped up in recent months, the scammers are taking a page from Facebook and leveraging the power of social connections.

Here's how it works: The scammer somehow breaks into a victim's Web-based e-mail account. He then impersonates the victim and sends an emergency plea for help to everyone in the account's address book, asking them to wire money to Nigeria. The e-mail includes some variation on a story about getting mugged or losing a wallet while on a trip to Nigeria.

Other people who have been victims of this scam admit that they gave up their e-mail password in response to one of those bogus phishing messages that ask recipients to "verify your information." The brilliance of the scheme is that while the story in the e-mail might strain credulity, people are obviously far more willing to trust a friend than the supposed widow of a former dictator."

The wording of the email usually follows this format:

How are you today? I went to Nigeria yesterday for a program called (Empowering students to handle conflicts and promote peace in West  Africa).And I have gotten myself stranded here because my wallet is missing and my ATM card and other valuable things like my I.D card is missing along with the wallet.

I needed to pay for my hotel fee but do not have anything on me right now,please I want you to help and send about $3500 to help me pay some bills here and get my flight ticket back and I will return the money back as soon as I get to back to the country by Monday Morning Am so sad and unhappy about the situation here.

Please I need to hear from you soon so that I will send you the information you will be sending the money to me through MoneyGram.But the problem is that i have gone to the MoneyGram outlet here and was told that i would not be able to used my international passport to get the money pick up because it is not a Nigerian Passport,So i have decided to used a good friend of mine here who is a professor in the university of Lagos Nigeria by name Professor Mustafa Farooq so please you will be sending the money to he information to help me get the money picked up in MoneyGram Nigeria,Please be rest assured that I will pay back the money as soon as i arrive to the country by Monday Morning,And please understand that your help is much needed right now because am very stranded.

Waiting to hear from you.

Thanks for the effort

Regards,

Anyway, I thought I would just let you know about this because I know that some of you have recently signed up to use Facebook. I think you all know by now my attitude to some of these so called 'social networking' sites (Present one excepted of course!) and this is just another example of why I do not normally sign up to them.Please also DO NOT assume this just comes from Facebook, there are social networking sites such as this one and there are also other ways of 'tapping' into your email addresses.

There is little you can do about this except to check every email carefully and verify it's origin if you can. Personally, in every email I send I include either my own name or company name in the Subject Heading of the email itself. If it aint there, it's not from me. No doubt the 'scammers' will find a way round that soon.

Best wishes to you all

Bill DAVIES

OGI Investigations S.L