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I cannot believe that there are still so many people who reply to those scam emails - you know the one’s - those that come from PayPal and various individuals purporting to be the son/daughter/heir of a squillionaire Nigerian banker from the Ivory Coast. I mean, just how stupid can you be!

I receive emails from banks I do not even have accounts with asking me to verify my details. And whoever is running that PayPal scam must be onto a good thing somewhere because they still keep coming even though I delete every single one of them; obviously some fools are falling for their please verify your details by following this link line.

We accommodation owners get more than our fair share of them and here is a classic:

I am DR. Robert Maxwell from Kerala Forest Reserch Institue, India. I want to book a 2 double rooms in a hotel/gite/camp for the 4 persons from my Department arriving from my India to yor country for a reserch programmes from July 15-August 31st 2008. Kindly get back to me with your rates and the tol cost for the 4 delegats who woll stay the duration.

Names of Guets

1. DR Robert Maxwell
2. Dr. R.V Varma
3. Dr.Jose Kallarackal
4. Mr Mammen Chundmannil

Kindly get to me if you have those availablility. Also to please calculate total cost including all the taxes so that we can get our sponsors to make you a big cheque to you.

These always come from Yahoo addresses, the grammar is appalling, the spelling atrocious and the ‘delegates’ are always doctors. The booking is always for a long period. They always want to pay by cheque whereby, if you are stupid enough to follow this through, they send you a cheque for several thousand more than is needed. They then request a refund from you by which time their cheque has been bounced and you have sent them their refund.

You have no idea how many people have fallen for this scam but it only takes a bit of thinking through. One thing though is to never reply to them; once you do that they have your details and you are sunk. Having said that though there are plenty more to take their place - just remember - delete, delete, delete.

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