When I was in secondary school, I remember receiving an email in my hotmail inbox about how the king of Nigeria had left a few hundred million of US dollars behind, and a scheme on how I could get a part of it. However, it required a large sum of about $20,000 dollars before I could later receive a few hundred thousand in return for my "safety deposit". Needless to say, my 15 year old pocket money was far from able to allow me to "invest" in such a sum and thus, I did nothing about that email.
Days later, however, I found out from my parents that the email was most likely part of what the world called the "Nigerian Scam", one of the most successful internet phishing schemes ever. Most victims of the scam never ever have their money restored to them, as the money is usually moved so quickly that it is impossible to trace. My teenager-appropriate allowance was the only thing that had saved me from my ignorance.
A few years later, my younger sister alerted me to a similar type of mail she had received. I explained what the mail was all about to the then 11-year-old girl, amused that the scam was still ongoing. Little did I know that the scam had in truth, not only continued but also evolved in its forms and complexity.
Such scams usually do not aim to phish out large sums of money at one go, but aim to draw out money continuously - such that it can add up to a huge sum of money.
The below video shows an even more elaborate scheme: the lady was a direct target of the scam and it was made believable by the fact that inheritance money was supposedly left behind by a distant relative that the family had previously lost contact with. Official documents were also forged and sent to her. In total, the lady was scammed out of $400 K over the course of 2 years.
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