New wrinkle in e-mail scam

This is either the dumbest or the most cynical hustle to hit the internet in a long time. E-mails are showing up with “SCAM VICTIMS COMPENSATION PAYMENT” in the subject line.
In what is a remarkably obvious hint, the e-mails begin, “Dear Victim,” What follows is a new wrinkle in the by-now famous “Nigerian Bank” scam.
Recipients are informed that “during the last U.N. meetings” supposedly held in a town in Nigeria, “it was alarmed so much” by the actions of “Nigerian scam artists” that “the U.N. body in conjunction with the federal government of Nigeria,” has decided to pay 150 scam victims $300,000 each.
“Dear Victim” is informed that of 87 beneficiaries, half of whom are in the U.S., “according to the number of applicants at hand,” there are still “more than 14 left” to be paid.
The recipient’s name was supposedly revealed to the purported check writers by an apprehended scammer - so it is important not to communicate or duplicate the message for any reason because the U.S. secret service is “on trace of the other criminals.”
However, the sender, after insisting that one must “keep it a secret till they are all apprehended,” invites “Other victims who have not been contacted,” to submit their application as well, “for scrutiny and possible consideration.”
All one has to do is e-mail or phone “Equitorial trust bank Ltd.” and choose “Wire Transfer, Certified Bank Draft or ATM electronic Visa Card.”
What usually follows for those who respond is, either revelation of their banking information (and a subsequent looting of their account) or an invitation to pay a “processing fee” or some similar charge, before they can receive the payment, which never comes, according to anti-fraud experts.
The one caution universally echoed by law enforcement personnel is, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”
As far as is known, no one has ever received a large payment from Nigeria or a soldier trying to smuggle currency out of Iraq.
Neither has anyone been paid for winning a contest they didn’t enter, or from any number of other clumsily-worded appeals to greed and avarice.
The best thing to do with such emails, experts say, is to delete them.
In the immortal words of one-time Bayside resident W.C. Fields, “You can’t cheat an honest man.”