Question & Answer

Question: Our customer just called and told us to be expecting a large wire from Nigeria to be credited to his account. When we asked him what "large" meant, he said he expected to receive $40 million! He's never had balances anywhere near $100,000 let alone this much. Should we take any action? Have you any information on this type of transaction?

Answer: Funny you should ask! I received a letter in the mail last week from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, signed by Dr. Benjamin J. Shigalo, with exactly the same offer! Yes, you should take action.

Get your customer on the telephone and advise him to quickly close his account-transferring his funds to a new account. He has probably already furnished his account number to the people in Nigeria, and they will attempt to tap his account. You need to stop that. The whole thing is a scam.

The letter usually comes from Lagos, and is signed by a professional-a "Dr." or an "Esq"-who is looking for "partners" in the United States. Government officials are "awarding contracts" in order to move funds which are "trapped in Nigeria." By billing the government in your name, they will re-award the contract and pay your "application for payment", thereby freeing the cash by getting it out of their country and into your account. For helping them do this, they offer 30% of the total wire to you, the "partner" (read "victim"); 10% for miscellaneous expenses; and 60% for "Us-The Officials".

The scam works in two ways, depending on the letter. In some cases, they instruct you to put $9,000 in a joint account in order to bribe officials in their country with "hard dollars", as they call U.S. currency. The $9,000 is, of course, returned to you after the wire is received. (Ed. Note; "Yeah, right!") In other cases, as in your customer's, they ask for "Your Banker's Name and Address, Your Account Number, Telex and Fax Numbers."

Several times in the letter they stress the need for being "utterly confidential and top secret". These letters are appearing all over the United States and are making the process of doing business here very tough on legitimate Nigerian businessmen. They are most often addressed to businesses (as the one that came to the HOTLINE). And it sounds good on paper. If you're slow on arithmetic, 30% of $40 million is $12 million. Even I could be talked into early retirement for that!

Paul Nadler, the "Bankers' Advisor", is fond of using the rule that applies to these offers-TINSTAAFL. (There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch !)

You, and/or your customer should report the receipt of the letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Copyright © 1996 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1/96