Small businesses get dozens of pieces of mail every day, much of which can be immediately discarded. But now, many businesses are getting some very curious mail from the country of Nigeria. There is an organization of con men from this country operating numerous swindles throughout the United States and Europe. One of the cons that is being used more and more is a solicitation for the use of letterhead or bank accounts from a business.

    The pitch goes something like this: The Honorable "so and so" of a Nigerian government ministry indicates that he has obtained your business's name through some other source and is contacting you because of your reputation for reliability. The person says that there is a pot of money, say $30,000,000 that is available because of an "Over -Invoiced Gas Project" on the African continent. The contractor has been paid in full and various important parties just do not know what to do with all the money.

    This is where you come in. They need a "collaboration" of a foreign firm to claim the fund for the parties' "mutual benefit," requiring the use of your firm's letterhead or bank account or both. For providing this information, you will get a share of the $30,000,000, as much as 35%. All you need to do is run all this money through your bank account. Since all they are asking you to do is give them their share at a later time, you can't lose, right? WRONG! Once these con men get your bank account number, there is no end to the harm they can cause you. Many banking transactions are completed with the use of account numbers electronically encoded on a draft. Thus, in some cases, the con men can access your account without your signature. They may also use your letterhead to con other victims using your company's good reputation to convince victims who might otherwise be skeptical.

    The idea that there is $30,000,000 lying around from a construction project in Africa is preposterous. And the idea that some government official in that country would ask you to put money in your account so that you could share it is inconceivable. Even as ridiculous as it sounds, apparently enough businesses have responded to tempt the con men to continue their efforts in South Carolina. Unfortunately, as with many consumer scams, the victims do not think clearly because they believe they have a chance at easy money.

    As with other scams, the con men probably make and share data bases recording the identity of anyone who shows the least amount of interest in the letter. If you call or write them, you will get more and more letters for months or years. Regardless of what you do with the mail: (1) never give a stranger money on a promise that you will get more money in the future; (2) never give your account or other personal identifying numbers to people with whom you had no prior business relationship; (3) never allow your firm's letterhead to be used by persons outside the firm; and (4) never travel to a foreign company to get "easy money." There you have no protection of American law and money can be extorted from you.