I don't like to brag, but I became a multi-millionaire today.

There's no need to contact me for a loan or a charitable gift because as soon as the money hits my account, I plan to escape to a private island to soak up the sun, sand, and surf.

From now on, my only job will be holding onto and sipping on the many Mai Tai's I'll be ordering from my attentive, private wait staff.

How did I accomplish this vast wealth?

Well, it was easy. I checked my e-mail this morning, and there it was. I've copied and pasted it in its entirety below:

Dear Sir,

As the Executor of the estate of Late Engr.Richard Megson; I seek your humble consent to present you as a next of kin to the sum of $17.1Million belonging to my Late Client who died intestate(without a will).

Upon your acceptance of this offer,i will prepare all necessary documents to support this claims and i assure you that it is completely legal and risk free. Respond for more details.

Yours in service

BARRISTER HENRY BILL.

Lawyer&Solicitor

Seriously, though... people fall for these e-mail scams daily.

There may be several variations, but they all work in the same way: to enrich the fraudster. If I were to contact this person, I'm sure I'd have to wire some money for taxes or a special fee or some sort of bribe for a foreign governmental official. This would be a few thousand dollars, but only a minute fraction of the millions I would be promised to receive, right?

I probably shouldn't have, but back several months ago, I gave in to temptation and actually replied to one and gave them the police department's phone number to contact me. Obviously, the international fraudster was too dumb -- or his English not good enough -- to figure out that he had been sent into the arms of the law because he actually e-mailed back saying that it was a wrong number, as I wasn't at that number.

I guess I can't fault the police -- maybe s/he didn't recognize the Nigerian accent -- but the dispatcher had obviously been mouthpiece-to-mouthpiece over the phone with an international criminal, committing all sorts of punishable crimes. It's too bad you can't cuff people over the telephone lines!

In any event, many people feel it goes without saying that, "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" but I'm going to say it anyway. If you receive one of these e-mails or letters, saying you have some huge inheritance from someone you never heard of, a sizeable foreign lottery winning without actually ever buying a lottery ticket, or some other big prize, just delete it or throw it away.

I probably shouldn't have even replied to the one I just spoke about because s/he probably sold my e-mail address to every spammer out there. Good thing I have good spam filters!

And sadly, I guess there will be no sun, sand, and surf for me, nor a private island or attentive wait staff or endless Mai Tai's either...