I'm so sorry for the woman.  She must have been so depressed after the stark realization she had lost her lifetime savings.

The elderly become feeble-minded as they get older.  That is why they are easy prey to the con artist. 

We should revere our elderly, instead of victimizing them.

I hope the people that did this to her will suffer for a very long long time and die violent deaths. 

Some people just don`t care what they do to other people. They only care about money !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is a scam e-mail I received today.  This is why so many people fall for this crap.  These people should be shot!!!

 
 
Dear Sir/Madam,
 
It is obvious that this mail will come to 
you as a surprise. This is Because we have 
not met before but I am 
 
sending you this email due to the 
circumstance surrounding the health of my 
dad, Mr. Christopher
Ikpomwonsa.
 
My name is Collins Ikpomwonsa, the eldest 
child to my dad, I am 15 years old, a native 
of Edo State, 
 
Nigeria. I know very well that, you are 
going to take this message as one of those 
junk messages. But 
 
believe me, it is real from the dept of my 
heart. I cannot claim my dad to be heal, 
when he is not.
 
Like I earlier told you, my dad is very 
heal. He is suffering from cancerous ailment 
and stroke. Doctor 
 
said he can live with the stroke for the 
rest of his life, so long as he is able to 
maintain good diet and have 
 
a well regulated blood pressure. But the 
problem we are having now is that of the 
cancer. He has limited 
 
time to go about the operation. He has been 
referred to have the operation done in 
Germany, but no funds 
 
to start up with. Doctor's report has been 
acquired for the application of visa at the 
German embassy 
 
here in Nigeria. The problem now is, there 
is no funds to start up with. Not even a 
transportation fare 
 
that could be used from my State, Edo State 
to Lagos State, where the Embassy is 
located, not to talk 
 
about the ticket fee and the treatment 
expenses in Germany.
 
My family is a very poor on we barely eat 
from hand to mouth. And there is no security 
for us to acquire 
 
a lone for this, and we have not been able 
invest in the NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE 
 
SCHEME(NHIS), because there is no money to 
do it with.
 
So due to the above, I have decided to go 
into begging and soliciting for funds from 
people to help my 
 
poor family in this circumstance that has 
befallen us. Please, in the name of God, and 
for Humanity sake, I 
 
am pleading for help from you, it does not 
matter how small it is, it could make a 
dying life survive. I 
 
know God will with his abundant wealth will 
refill it for you in thousand folds.
 
Immediately I am through with sending you 
this mail, I will go back to the street to 
continue begging from 
 
people over here.
 
I am sorry if this is going to get you 
inconvenienced, please do not bother your 
good self. Because, I do 
 
not want you to please me, while displeasing 
your self. But, if you know you have enough 
to help my poor 
 
family with, please do help, and God will 
bless you.
 
You can contact me with the below email 
address and phone number:
Email: collinsikpomwonsa@yahoo.com
Phone: +2347031154801
 
 
Thank you so much for your response.
 
Your Child,
Collins Ikpomwonsa.

I sent this fraud a n e-mail telling him I had money to send him.  I'm waiting on a response.

I know someone that has won two fairly large online contests.

What happens when you really win is they call you.

They say, "is this Mr. So and So?"

When you say yes, they say, "Mr.  So and So, you have won $XX,XXX from the such and such contest"

"We have your name and address as Such and Such is this correct?"

When my friend replied, "So is this kind of scam where I have to send you money first?" They replied, "No Mr. So and So, a when you win a real contest you are never asked to pay any money of any kind." 

"Mr. So and So, we are going to send you an affidavit to sign and notarize stating that you are who you say you are and live where you say you live Once we receive that affidavit back we will mail you a check for $XX,XXX."

A day or two later you get an affidavit in the mail that asks you to confirm that you really are Mr. So and So and live at Such and Such Address. It only asks you to sign for this information. It does not ask you for your social security number, drivers license number, or any banking information. They do not ask for any fees of any kind, not even for the cost of them shipping you the affidavit.

A few weeks after you mail in the affidavit you will receive a check.  

I would agree with you, but she was only 72 years old! That isn't old by today's standards.  Except for those unfortunate individuals who are afflicted with dementia and Alzheimer's disease, the mind is usually the last thing to go.  Many great artists are creating brilliant works at 80.  As you probably know, Normal Mailer died last week at age 84.  He completed a novel last year.  A really silly show with Charlie Sheen called 2-1/2 Men has Robert Wagner (age 77) as an occasional guest.  He's still hot! (well, I think so)  Roger Moore (be still my heart!) who played James Bond until he was 58 is currently an Ambassador for UNICEF at 80 years old.  Former Pres Carter is 83 and visited Darfur last month to promote peace with Rev Desmond Tutu (he's only 76)   Henry Kissinger, born 1923, still advises our world leaders on international relationships.  Barbara Walters is 78.  At age 88 Mike Wallace decided it was time to retire from 60 Minutes.  (I agreed)  However, if 91 year old Walter Cronkite wants to come back to anchor the evening news again, I'll be watching.

Well, I think I've made my point that most people do not become feeble-minded as they get older, just those who stop using their minds in the first place.

I'm sure this woman was more alert at 62 than at 72.  Barbara Walters, et al, the same way.  It's the natural course of life.  Aging, it's called.  We will all get there in our own time and pace.

Some of those people, arguably, started out feeble-minded... although it does explain why some "world leaders" are making such clever(Not!) decisions these days.

Anyway, something about this story doesn't set right with me.  

She's gonna get scammed out of a quarter mil, chasing only 2.5 mil?

She's keeping these detailed records, and not telling any of the kids what's going on during the entire episode? 

^{_{Modern "education" teaches a version of history so fictionalized, it should be followed by "TM"}
They're warning me about Osama or whatever. Picture me buying the scam; I say "never!".}

Possible remedies: 

A severe penalty for sending such a letter or e-mail. That is, the person who is told they "won" should immediately be able to sue for that amount, either the sender or the country of origin. At least make the penalties more severe than the penalty for illegally downloading music. If someone is targeted who is elderly or unable to understand the situation that should be even more severe! 

Mail servers should be able to detect incoming mail mentioning winning Lottery prizes and someone at the ISP can intervene and then take immediate action against the sender.

This reminds me of this scam several people tried to run on me on Postaroo.com. I was selling a riding lawn mower and someone answered the ad stating that they were from the US but out of the country on business. They wanted to know if it was ok to send a postal money order for the lawn mower for $2300 which I was selling for $350. I was told to cash the money order and a amount for shipping the lawnmower, which I have forgot exactly what it was but it was around $1,500,  was to be put on a  money order and sent to that shipper who would come pick up the lawn mower once they received my money order. The difference from the original sales price and the shipping was mine to keep for all my troubles. There were a lot of red flags that came up when I first read the email from that person but the keeping the difference at the end was the "nail in the coffin" for me on determining that it was a scam.  I know people get scammed into paying more for something than what it's worth but nobody gives away twice as much money for a item, atleast not volunteering on their own.

There are already penaties for fraud. The problem is catching the people who are committing the fraud. Some of them are stupid, but it's not easy to catch the smarter ones. Smart people are often ahead of others in new endeavors and some of the smart criminals will always be ahead of the people trying to stop them. At the opposite end, there will always be people falling for the newest (and sometimes the very old) scams.

The technology to scan emails is readily available, but if you think that's the solution you probably haven't thought it through.  It would be wildly impractical to look at every email that mentions winning the lottery, so let's assume that only emails containing the full text of a known message are flagged. How many of them are going to be perfectly legitimate emails from people who think they need to forward it to everyone in their address book to warn them about it? What do you suppose your internet service would cost if your ISP had to have somebody read 1000 or 10,000 emails a day and decide what to do about them?

Perhaps the bigger problem is the door you'd be opening for people to read your email because they have your best interest in mind.  Do you reeally want the government, your ISP, or anyone else reading your email?