Exactly what the title says.
How does contacting someone and telling them they are going to receive a large sun of money, end up scamming the intended ‘recipient’ out of money.
In: Other
“You’ve inherited a million dollars! I’m the executor, but I can’t access the money without paying $5,000 to the local authorities. If you send me $5,000, I can get the $1 million out of the estate and forward it to you.”
Mass email is cheap. If even 0.1% of people fall for this, the scammer makes bank.
They will either ask for personal information like bank acct info, or they will say they need $500 for a processing fee or to secure the funds or something like that. Surely if you think you’re about to get millions of dollars, you can give up $500 for a few days.
The general setup is that some advance feel is sent to the scammer, who then promises to remit the full promised amount after receiving that advance payment.
Instead the scammer simply pockets what is sent to them and vanishes.
The scammer says “I am going to give you a million dollars, but you need to send me ten thousand dollars first”. They’ll give some reason they need the money like “I’m sending the million dollars, but the corrupt local government is requiring a ten thousand dollar bribe or else they won’t let the money leave the country”. You’ll send ten thousand dollars, and get nothing in return.
Because they usually ask for the persons bank information, credit card number, Social Security number, or other personal information and then they can steal money from their account…
To add to what others have said: first they’ll ask for some amount for some fees, sure, but then they ask for more. And more. And more. They’ll keep asking until they bleed you dry and you have no more money to send. That’s how you end up with people like in prison for embezzling funds from their workplace—they tell themselves they just need to borrow a *little* money for the fees, quickly paid back once they get their payday.
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