In the last 24 hrs, I seem to grow rich suddenly. One of my relatives in Africa died, leaving me an estate worth 15.5 million euro, & I won two Australian lotteries each worth 400,000 US dollars. Am I lucky or what?

Before the congratulations start to pour in, let me tell you that all three of these are all internet scams. And there seems to be a sudden spurt in these e-mails in the last two days. Commonly known as 419 scams, these scamsters have a simple modus operandi that involves the following steps:

1. Send an email to unsuspecting people, informing them that they have won millions of dollars (or suddenly inherited them). Ask them to contact back.
2. Once the victim responds, he/she is convinced all the more by giving fake account numbers, company names etc. The net is cast now.
3. At this time, the email sender asks the victim to deposit a big sum of money as “processing fees” in some bank account. Once the deposit is made, the email sender vanishes with the money, usually without a trace.

Beware of such fraudulent emails. There are some excellent sites below that offer more details on these email scams, & how to protect yourself against them. Do look at them, knowledge is the best defense.

1. 419 Eater
2. Listing on iGeek.info
3. How to avoid internet scams