He Fell For It

Here's what someone who loses $150,000 to a Nigerian scam artist looks like:

His troubles began in July 2007. He said he got an e-mail from someone claiming to be a lawyer with a client named David Rempel who died in a 2005 bomb attack in London, England, and left behind $12.8 million...
The lawyer said his client had no family but wanted to leave the money to a Rempel. It was his lucky day. "It sounded all good so I called him," said Rempel. "He sounded very happy and said God bless you."
The man then told him he had to pay $2,500 to transfer the money into his name. Then there were several more documents. Some cost $5,000.
And on and on and on. Finally, the big day came:
They met Rempel the next day with a suitcase. They said it had $10.6 million in shrink-wrapped U.S. bills. Rempel wanted more proof. His new friends pulled out one bill and "cleansed" it with a liquid "formula," which washed off some kind of stamp. Rempel was told that process made the money "legal tender."
"I was like holy crap, is that mine?" he said. "They said ‘yes sir, it's yours.' It all sounded legit."

The he dropped the secret formula and the bottle broke. He was told he could get some more secret formula for $120,000. And he paid it.

via J-Walk blog