As regular readers will know, I go on the MyLot.com site very frequently.
A curiosity happened on there the other day. I had put a photo up on one of the discussion boards. Back came a strange reply which read like one of those phoney emails that you get from Russian women looking for romance. Plus email address (absolutely no-go where MyLot are concerned so the person's moniker disappeared in no time at all).
Anyway I took notice of the name (Nina Camara - sounds Senegalese, not Russian), and the email address (.in or India, would you believe), deleted the comment and went off and wrote an email to this person telling her I was married and I had no money (implying I would not give out my bank account details by email ....), but if she wanted to keep contact, all well and good.
Further checking on the Web, particularly the excellent anti-scam site run by Joe Wein, produced the information that this is in fact a scam. What they are hoping to scam from me, I hate to think. I am too broke and not stupid enough to give them any financial details, and do I need a girlfriend in Senegal, India, Russia or wherever? I don't think so ....
An update upon this - 5 years later.
This scam is still being used.
The name of the girl has changed once in a while though the scam mail (with reference to Darfur in Sudan and Dakar in Senegal) remains the same.
The photo of an attractive, smiling young black lady in a white dress is still also used. This is actually a photo of a lady called Zainab Abdulaziz from the Ivory Coast - who has absolutely nothing to do with this scam and whose photo is being used without her permission.
There are also a number of different ladies called "Nina Camara" listed on various places on the Internet (6 women with that name can be found on LinkedIn, for example). These individuals are all likely to be highly respectable women who have nothing to do with this scam. I hope that that point has been clarified.
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