The Letter from Nigeria

He had not been expecting a letter, but there it was in his mailbox. All the way from Nigeria (that's in Africa, he thought). It looked quite official, as if it had been typed on a crude, old-fashioned typewriter in a third-world country. Jerry read the letter with great interest. The author was desperate, you see. It seems he had this problem and could Jerry please help him out with it... Now most of us would immediately recognize this letter as a classic scam attempting to separate you from as much of your money as possible. But we know this from the frequent emails we get like this letter, and the common admonitions by technology experts to ignore such messages. Jerry, however, was somewhat of a technophobe-- one of the few men on the planet that did not use email. And he was perhaps a bit on the gullible side too. Besides, the letter looked so real, so official. And he could get a ten percent commission on the million pounds he would help this poor man transfer out of his country... Jerry tried to do the math, but did not know the exchange rate from British pounds to US dollars. He still knew it was a lot of money. So he drafted a reply with an offer to help.

A few days after sending his reply Jerry anxiously checked his mailbox and there it was-the response from the Nigerian gentleman who was going to make him rich! The man thanked Jerry profusely, as his situation was growing more desperate by the hour: "they" were after his money and he had to get it safely out of the country quickly! All Jerry had to do was send his bank account number, and the million pounds would be wired directly into his account...

Now at this point, even the naïve Jerry began to get suspicious. He did not think that sending his bank account information to a stranger was such a good idea, but still all that money was calling to him. So he wrote back and asked the man, could he just send a check? A few more anxious days of watching his mailbox, and then it arrived-a new letter from the desperate Nigerian gentleman, who now expressed anger that Jerry had not trusted him, but in order to prove himself worthy he enclosed a check for a portion of the funds, $99,000 to be exact. All Jerry had to do was deposit the check into his bank account, then wire a portion of it back to the man.

Jerry was now conflicted. There was the check in front of him with all those zeroes. It looked quite official. What could be the harm in depositing it? Surely his bank would tell him if it was a fake. Jerry did not want to deposit it in person, so he put it into a night deposit box. Being so technology-challenged, Jerry did not use the internet at all much less to do his banking. So it was not until his monthly bank statement arrived in the mail that he would know if the check was credited to his account. Fortunately, the statement period ended the day after he made his deposit, and when he got the statement a few days later it showed the $99,000 deposit!

What Jerry did not know was that banks put a "hold" on deposits, especially large ones like this, until the check clears with the originating bank. This can take many days. So Jerry wrote checks against this amount to pay off his credit card bills, his car loan, and even pay down a portion of his mortgage. He drooled at the thought of all the interest he was saving. A few weeks later the "Insufficient Funds" notices started arriving in Jerry's mailbox. The $99,000 credit had been reversed, and all the checks he had written against it were now bouncing. Bad check fees were piling up, from his bank and all those he had written checks to. He knew now that he had been conned, and he seethed with anger at the Nigerian "gentleman." As he plotted ways to get back at him, to seek justice, a knock came on his door. It was a police officer! Oh good, thought Jerry, they've come to help me catch these crooks that have wronged me.

Jerry opened the door, and was immediately arrested for writing bad checks.

Justice served.