<p>Not to entirely highjack the thread (because it does involve a form of telemarketing, the fraudulent kind), but my elderly and infirm father-in-law, living in FL, called me today to ask if he could use my email–he has no computer–to receive some information about a lottery prize he had supposedly won. I immediately told him that these were all scams, and he admitted he receives this sort of thing in the mail on a daily basis, but this was via a phone call and “seemed different”, so he wanted me to look at the email and check it out. Holy moley. There were two attachments to the email–a letter from “Megabucks Sweepstakes Co.”, purportedly in Jackson, Mississippi, explaining that my FIL had “won” $11.8 million (!), which he could claim by sending them a mere $559 for an FTC “stamp of approval”, and a copy of a check made out to him for that amount (drawn on Wachovia Bank, with the account number conveniently chopped off). A quick Google check revealed this outfit (or should I say this one guy) has been working this scam for years, using constantly changing cell phone numbers. My FIL is not a stupid or naive man, so the caller must have been darn convincing to have persuaded him to even accept the email. What a pile of pond scum, to prey on the elderly this way. Many CC’ers have elderly parents or grandparents–they should be warned about this sort of racket. In any event, I have forwarded to the scammer all the Nigerian scam emails that have been caught in my spam filter in the past week–and that’s quite a few.</p>