I recently received some angry e-mails, such as “kiss my a#! ya lying scumbag conartist loser” and“F#*@ OFF!!.”

No, they’re not from a bunch of irate Republicans making editorial comments about my columns, but in reply to a scam letter from Lady Rita Mosley. It appears some impostrous villain gained access to my e-mail account and sent off thousands of e-mails that are a variation of “Nigerian Scams.”

“YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR TELLING A FALSE STORY IN YOUR EMAIL. BECAUSE OF THIS, YOU SHOULD EAT ELEPHANT S+$! AND DIE FOR REAL,” answered another person in all caps.

A lesson I’ve learned from this is never have a password that is the same as the account name - a common practice that the less trustworthy among us are aware of.

The fake e-mail read, “Dear Beloved, Here writes Lady Rita Mosleys wife of late Sir David Mosley, suffering from cancerous ailment without a child. My late husband deposited the sum of Twenty Million Pounds (20,000,000.00 Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling) derived from his vast estates and investment in capital market with his bank here in UK. Recently, my doctor told me that I have limited days to live due to the cancerous problems I am suffering from. With this hard reality that has befallen my family, and me I have decided to donate this fund to you and want you to help me use this gift which comes from my husbands effort to fund the upkeep of widows, orphans, and needy financially. You can contact me through my personal email address: ritmley2007uk_77@yahoo.co.uk

Rita Mosley



Anyone answering the Yahoo e-mail address is asked for their bank account number so Rita can make a deposit. Instead, the cash flow is reversed. In some cases, they ask for some money up front.

Even without the weak grasp of proper English displayed by Rita, it is hard to believe anyone would fall for the e-mail — and yet some do.

“I think you are a scammer by the name Rita Diatta that you scam my husband with more than 1500 dlls one year ago, I will report you to the chamber of commerce,” responded one person.

Another from England wrote, “please tell me if this is a fraud or what because i know you probably want money up front and i'm a single mom living in projects and can barely make it. lisa mcdonald.”

I e-mailed Lisa immediately, telling her the letter was a scam.

The Website scamtypes.com notes, “Those of you who are regular readers of ScamTypes .com will know that the most popular name that we have seen used in these scamming emails is that of (Lady) Peggy Morrison.

“Just recently, we have received further emails from ‘Catherine Levett’ and ‘Rita Mosley‘ who, strangely enough, live at the same address as Peggy. All have a dead husband and a cancerous ailment.”

Searching on the Internet, I’ve found a number of variations of the letter sent from my e-mail. One reads, “My Attorney is Barrister Franklyn Marcucci. Do email him at once and let him commence with the transfer modalities, his email address is: franklin_legal @yahoo.co.uk, you can reach him through his telephone number, which is +447024079121,+448704780215 and you can also contact me through his telephone number but note that you must ensure that this is not disclosed to anybody until the money has been successfully transferred to you because of security reasons on my side.”

These scoundrels hide their real identities and locations through fake names and fake postal addresses. They also use anonymous free e-mail accounts and mobile phones - as well as stealing real e-mail addresses as they did with me.

I received some responses like this, “Thanks for your kind gesture to donating me Twenty Million Pounds (20,000,000.00 Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling) instead I am forwarding your kind request with your e-mail ID to Inspector of Police - London, Scotland Yard Duty Officer, dailyemail BBC, Editor London times. These people will help you to distribute your money with honest and equally amongst the needy people as desired by you.”

A Bill Stanley answered, “Thanks Rita. That's very generous, it's people like you that make the world go around. Please forward me your federal tax id number, social security number and address. I would then be more than willing to "help you out". Your ip address has been forwarded to a cook county processor.”

Bill didn’t seem to believe my reply explaining the hijacking of my e-mail address. He wrote, “I'm sure it was, you'll find out soon enough.”

I guess this means I’ll be hearing from Cook County.

Many just requested to be taken off the mailing list, as if the crooks would update their source of addresses upon command.

Other replies were quite entertaining, such as, “I would love to accept your fund. Unfortunately, I have more money than I know what to do with. Can you help me with some ideas on how to give it away? I am a pimp in the St. Louis metropolitan area of the United States of America. I specialize in providing men with obese partners for their sexual gratification. Incidentally, if you are looking for honest work, I could use a few more women. Having lost your husband, you must be feeling pretty frisky.”

The biggest insult was from the hijacker. I was about to get online and change my password when I discovered the switch had already been done - but not by me - thereby not allowing me to access my own account. I contacted the Internet provider and discovered someone had telephoned their office and changed the password that very morning.

After a lengthy discussion, I was able to again change the password and carried out security precautions to see the problem would not be repeated.

The lesson is — don’t use passwords that can be easily guessed.

I’m still waiting for calls from Scotland Yard and Cook County.