The Nigerian Prince Scam

 I see this a lot.  So much in fact it surprises me anybody still falls for it.

Someone sends you a message, usually claiming to be someone important, saying they have a very large sum of money they would like to give to you, but first you have to pay for some thing related to the gift and then the gift is yours.

Let me point out something that should already be abundantly clear:  If someone is honestly going to give you a very large sum of money, they will pay for the related things out of said sum and give you the rest free and clear.  If they say you need to cover this or that before you receive the large sum of money, walk away, don't waste your time.  That is the tell:  The large sum of money does not exist and you are being told a lie.  

The most recent version of this scam has come in the form of a "contest winning" where you've "won" a certain quantity of bitcoin (BTC), saying all you have to do is sign up on this BTC exchange and use a code to get your money.  They even have a working web site.  Guess what?  It's a front.  They'll happily collect your email address and any number of personal details, including your password.  Surely you wouldn't use the same password for every account you have would you?  Of course you would, so now they have that, too.  Now you use your contest code and sure enough the page "credits" your "account" with the bitcoins.  Excited you've just won a small fortune worth of BTC you try to transfer that into something you can cash out right?  Now the direct fraud:  You can't "activate" your account with their proprietary exchange until you transfer in a "small" fee, say 0.01 BTC (that's a little over $650 btw).

This is a crass attempt to hide both a data collection scam and a quick hard to trace way to commit wire fraud.  The web site isn't a coin exchange, it's a filing cabinet where you willingly hand your personal info along with $650 in the form of 0.01 BTC.  You will never see that money again, and more than likely your username, password, and any other details they managed to collect have been sold on the black market.  

Just walk away from them friends.  Keep your money, and do not suffer liars.

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