14 DAY TRIAL // $2.5 million – which is the equivalent of around 2 million EURO – is an impressive amount of money, but rest assured that no one will hand it over to you without a very good reason. Scammers are trying to convince Internet users that the money is safely stored in a Bank of Africa account, just waiting for them to pick it up.
Usually, scammers pretend to be the wife of a state leader or the manager of a diamond company, but now they’ve started sending out emails on behalf of Bank of Africa.
The emails read something like this (all in uppercase bold letters):
“Dear customer,
I am hereby to let you know that your funds wort of 2.5 million usd was directed to Bank of Africa for online banking to your account as the Western Union requirement is too much. Do contact the Bank of Africa for online banking now. Here is the bank contact details.
Bank name: Bank of Africa-Benin Tel#+229 666 251 24 E-mail ([email protected]) Contact name: Mr Kyle A Mendal
Do contact them them for the online banking.
Thanks Rev. Mark James”
Judging by a post on WebUpon, the scam started circulating this summer, but many users have reported seeing it in their inboxes in the past days, which means that it’s not about to die out anytime soon.
Experts advise uses who come across such messages to ignore them. The individual who’s on the other end of that phone number will probably answer with “Hello, this is Bank of Africa. How can I help you?” but that doesn’t make it any more legitimate.
It simply means that the scammers who have devised this plot have put some effort into it. Although they clearly didn’t put any effort in writing a decent notification.