How to identify a scammer

I'm tired of being scammed by people. So I learned to recognize a scammer. I thought other people might want some help with that...

I'm a bit annoyed that somebody would actually try this on me. I know some of you can easily recognize a scam right off the bat, but some aren't so lucky. To help prevent another unfortunate accident, I will present you with this. Just for those of you who may not have figured this out, I have not fallen for a scam yet, and especially not for this poorly written one. 

So I got this message (un-bolded) this morning from somebody on here: 

How are you and your Family? I know you will be shock to come across my email. However, it is my sincere pleasure at this moment to exhibit my total trust bestowed on you in accordance of which I am fully convinced that you will really be of immense assistance to my present predicament as my business associates. Well, i hope my proposal to you will be given proper attention despite the fact we have not known each other. But i summon courage to introduce myself to you through this medium.I am Mr koffi from Bgfl bank Côte d'Ivoire we need to claim the sum of 9.8 Million British Pounds by our late investor who i presume to be your relative because of the similarities in your names, The reason i contacted you is to nominate you as the heir to the trust, you claim the money legally and legitimately as a collateral heir then we share it equally. This project is risk and hitch-free as Most of these investors are brokerage accounts holders, they operates, held or titled their accounts in names of entities that are exempt from capital lost and steadily holding a profitable stock trades structure, they mostly use numbers, pin and code to operate their account for the avoidance of scrutiny as they follow their investment with portfolio monitoring tools to track their account's gains and losses so when they die their investment die with them as mostly their families know not about the investment. Momentarily, all that needs to be done is for you to make contact with the bank to make simple inquiry about the statue of the account, Of course I will guide and guard you on how to do this, and with my position here I will see to it that your inquiry and application for claim is giving a swift attention and favorable response.
Please acknowledge the receipt of this mail and let me know if you have any question Remain bless.([email protected]) waiting for your reply.''

It's clearly a scam, for many reasons. 

1) First of all, not everybody lives in Britain. If they really were a true bank associate, they would have figured out by now to contain at least the American conversion of the currency, and possibly another form of popular currency. 

2) A true bank associate would know how to capitalize I's and know proper grammar. "I know you will be shock to come across my email." Seriously? It's shocked, and it's a message, not an email. 

3)"This project is risk and hitch-free as Most of these investors are brokerage accounts holders, they operates, held or titled their accounts in names of entities that are exempt from capital lost and steadily holding a profitable stock trades structure, they mostly use numbers, pin and code to operate their account for the avoidance of scrutiny as they follow their investment with portfolio monitoring tools to track their account's gains and losses so when they die their investment die with them as mostly their families know not about the investment." This is a run-on sentence, these "investors" are geniuses if they figured out a way to make their investments die with them and are lying by using these "identities" exempt from capital loss. 

4) "The reason i contacted you is to nominate you as the heir to the trust, you claim the money legally and legitimately as a collateral heir then we share it equally." First of all, if I claim the money legally and legitimately, then I shouldn't have to share the money with anybody. 

5) "we need to claim the sum of 9.8 Million British Pounds by our late investor who i presume to be your relative because of the similarities in your names," First of all, what is the name of this relative, and how do you know my own name? I do not believe my name is anywhere on this site. Second of all, nobody in my family who is alive today is an investor, and if there is somebody in my family like that, then why would I of all people be getting the money? 

6) This was most likely copied from somewhere else based on the quotation marks at the end. 

7) "Please acknowledge the receipt of this mail and let me know if you have any question Remain bless." The receipt? I believe that is the wrong word for this situation. 

8) "I am Mr koffi from Bgfl bank Côte d'Ivoire" Côte d'Ivoire is in South Africa. Why would I want to send my "British pounds" to somebody I don't even know in South Africa and have to deal with the currency exchange and stuff. 

9) A quick Google search of the email address yielded this: https://www.google.com/search?num=30&newwindow=1&safe=strict&biw=1842&bih=995&q=koffi.abraham3000%40gmail.com&oq=koffi.abraham3000%40gmail.com&gs_l=serp.3...34226.34226.0.36160.1.1.0.0.0.0.118.118.0j1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..0.0.0.Vo1sQQ5m0Hs For those of you too lazy to click the link, it's a whole bunch of sites warning about scams. Searching for Mr koffi from the bgfl bank blah blah blah yeild the Koffi scam. Apparently, Mr Koffi is a pretty well known scammer. I'm honored to have received a message from him... 

My advice: If you ever receive a message where, right off the bat, the person gives you an email or phone number, go google it. It's most likely a scam. Then, flag/report the person and block them. Only after a LONG time (a year or so) should you consider the possibility of contacting a person through an email or phone number. Even then, you should do a Google search of the information first, just to be safe. 

Reviews

[KittyKatgirl]

I am sorry that some a******s decided to use you as their full of s**t useless scams. *hugs* It is really good of you to bring this out there, so that people who might not recognise a scam when they see it are warned. I am using a school laptop for a class so I will send a read request to my friends.

[Silent Wolf]

Thank you. *hugs* I do hope that people don't fall for it, but I know they do.

[The Archangel Gabriel]

By the way, back in the day, I think I found a different type of scam as well: they find you on a dating site or wherever, and they tell you false stories and ask for money. I think I found a pretty good site for identifying these people.

I seem to have gotten a bunch of email in the past claiming something like true love known by them (that this is known by them, somehow) and asking for money to do things like come and visit when they would not do it or were not doing it. I was annoyed by this, but what to say?

I liked the answer, "I have money for you, but I don't believe that you really mean that you are coming to visit me."

Have you tried the I Ching to guide you in an answer. It is a 5,000 year old book from China, I think. It is the oldest book we have. Karl Jung used it in his psychoanalysis, I think, and he said he never got a wrong answer... Makes you huh? Maybe he believed what was true somewhere in his psyche? I think he liked the coins instead of the Yarrow sticks like I like. Three American pennies or real Chinese coins, I guess. That would be fair rules....

Want to call him on that money and see if you can work something out? Keep a few million and send the rest to charity?

[The Archangel Gabriel]

I have some points for you. I call messages here email as well, a type of site mail.

It could be that he is a banker, and that you could claim the money as he says. Filing a false report on this would be dangerous, I guess.

That was a good search for you finding him at so and so bank. That seems like he was honest and trying to help.

You might recognize that people need that money, and he needs to share his half. If you claim it, you might just give him half; it is perhaps reasonable to share half of the money.

I think that most of the site mail that I get here where they say another address to answer is mostly chicks that were interested in dating me. Possible. Tough to say when they don't write again here. I had too many to answer, and they might have been automated hacking.

Thanks for this article. I seem to think those were all or almost all good reasons to believe this is a scam. It could also be somebody trying to share money with you? Reply to him? That would be cool of you, and you might find a legal and safe way to claim the money in question and split it.

Thanks, kiddo! You're grand from what I can see and very bright...

[The Archangel Gabriel]

I think I used to get emails in the past that claimed they needed help getting some money they were due, always somewhere strange and foreign like Cambodia or Libya. I think that all of the ones I got were complete scams, and this sounds like the person was writing you honestly...

Maybe, somebody that wants to sleep with you and thinks they are helping? Hahahahaha!

Well, this post will do, and I want to read the numbered section now. So, you help that guy get some money, and he shares it? You might try answering like I did with some of mine, I think, all scammers, I think...

[The Archangel Gabriel]

How to identify a scammer? I look forwards to reading this work!

[MySecretMuse]

Thank you for posting this so we can all look out for scammers! This is very nice of you

[Amber Lily]

It's a good idea to get this information out there! Thank you for doing so. I couldn't believe the run on sentences in that 'email'. Wow that was horrible. Hopefully most people would be able to notice right away that it's a scam, but like you said people do tend to fall victim to these things. Keep WC safe!

[matpat]

lol people will literally do anything

[Dani The Unreviewed]

Look...Any reasonable person receiving this, should instantly know, that it's Bullsh*t.
I've received similar messages, from women, who claim they had millions of dollars, and they need someone's help to take it. Seriously, if anyone is dumb enough to even reply...LOLS. I mean, all the sudden some stranger starts bugging you with messages, mentioning lots of money, and trying to force you to email them. If anyone falls for that, they should get a Nobel prize for stupidity. Thank you. And thats about all there is to know about these random messages.

[Cody Jeremy Thompson]

Oh i got that one too, wrote a response to those beautiful chaps with couple of chicken farm pictures tied in. ^^

[Silent Wolf]

I also wrote a nice message to them, including all the faults in their proposition. :)

[Cody Jeremy Thompson]

Honestly they didn't even try.