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Well they *almost* have access to it -- but they need your help to get it out of the country.

Yes, it's the good old Nigerian 419 scam I've reported on before so I'm not going to go over all the details again.

However, it seems that things are not well in the land of scammery.

I guess MR OBDULA and his mates have been just so successful that the number of emails they're receiving from those eager to help relocate all that cash is exceeding the disk capacity of their PCs.

In response to this dilemma, our Nigerian buddies have started a new scam.

Now they're sending out emails inviting various computer companies to fill an order for hard drives and ship them to Nigeria via FedEx.

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This is known as the "Suck and Sting" scam and here's how it works.

The first order is for a small number of hard drives or other easily resold items.

Payment is made by way of a valid bank cheque or draft and there are no problems.

The goal of this first transaction is to simply gain the confidence of the supplier in preparation for the real scam.

In a week or so, another order is received from the Nigerian scamsters. This second order is for a larger number of items worth much more.

The order is marked "Urgent" and the scamsters make all sorts of noises about not wanting credit -- that the goods need only be shipped when their check or bank draft is received.

Unfortunately for any gullible computer dealer, that second cheque or draft is a fake so if they're silly enough to send off this "urgent" order before the money has cleared -- they're stuffed.

Although the Suck and Sting has been around for over a year, it seems that the Nigerians are ramping up the number of emails they're sending out -- probably because the 419 scam is now well past its use-by date.

Despite their switch to a new scam, the Nigerians still haven't learnt how to use the caps-lock key though. All the samples of these emails I've seen are in capitals with spelling mistakes and bad grammar (a lot like this column).

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