How do I deal with a begging letter received from a Zimbabwe refugee?

[deanna]

Hello
I have received a 'scam' letter from a lady who says she has escaped with her 30 year old son from Zimbabwe after her rich farmer husband was murdered in 2004.
She is now in Johannesburg but has cancer and needs urgent medical treatment in Germany. She says her husband left US$8,000,000 which she assures me is all legal and above board and if I assist her I am guaranteed at least 30%. I am asked not to igore this correspondence and treat it with utmost confidentiality. She even gives me her son's email address and Fax number for me to provide my contact numbers.
Should I just destroy the letter or what?
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Deanna.

[sue11]

You could send it to the police, although I doubt the email address or fax address is traceable, they may be targeting your postal area. The police may be able to put up warning letters or something to try to stop the more gullible people from falling for it. I used to regularly receive begging emails just the same, promising me untold riches if I helped by supplying my bank account details. I just used to delete them.
Cheers Sue

[deanna]

Thank you Sue11. I was thinking I might take it into the local radio station where I work and see what they think. I usually delete ones that come via email, but this was by 'snail mail'.
Deanna

[sue11]

That would be a great idea, as your radio station may be prepared to issue a warning to all in your area. Nice idea!

[deanna]

Thanks again Sue11. I did check on the Scambusters site, but although I found similar letters, this one really does sound genuine, so a warning would be a good idea. Maybe a message to our neighbourhood watch is called for too.

[xud]

Deanna, don't be fooled into thinking this is anything but a scam.
I get these things all the time but only by email. I will give you a good example.
Here, in Manchester we have a free-ads paper. Last year I was trying to sell my car. I was inundated with emails from people saying they were interested.
I responded to one of them just to see what happened. A couple of days later they replied and said that they would pay a lot more than my asking price and even pay for shipment abroad. I knew this was a scam even before I opened their email.
So, to get back at them, I simply asked THEM for THEIR bank account details. They never replied.

Why don't you try that, it worked for me. Good luck

[Loosehead]

This is an extremely common scam, there cannot be anyone who dosn't already know about it. Delete and forget.

[black bunny]

you know that this is a scam - destroy the letter and don't give it one more thought.