This is a great article about those fraudelent emails we’ve all gotten asking for account information so that someone can transfer us millions of dollars. All we need to do is send some money to them to cover the cost of transferring the money and we’ll be rich. Yeah right.
There is a whole organization out there called 419eater.com. The numbers 419 are used to represent the Nigerian legal code section that these violate. There is an organized group of people that are actively engaging these people down in Nigeria, and I’m sure other areas of the world. I found it very amusing that they were able to get a man to paint his chest and send a picture and even more hilarious that they were able to scam one of the scammers for $80.
It’s definitely worth reading. It appears that the best defense against these people is to simply waste their time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3887493.stm