On Saturday I’m off to Lagos with ‘ravishing Ruth’

Read Martin’s column every week in the Western Daily Press

MR Ko Njudo has been writing to me again and I am feeling guilty because there he is, hopelessly stuck in Nigeria, and I could help him out so easily. What makes it all the more rotten is that he’s obviously a nice guy. He is willing to give me half the gold bars he would like to bring to the UK and all I have to do is furnish him with a few details. Meanness and laziness is costing me the best part of a million quid, according to Mr Njudo.

I could prove just how lazy and useless I am by showing him that I also recently ignored an official looking email from the HM Tax Office saying I am due a large rebate. Funnily enough, just like Mr Njudo, all the taxman needed to make the payment was a detail or two – notably my bank code and account number.

Why haven’t I got around to it? No wonder I’m so poor.

Unlike Mr Ko Njudo, who must have incredible luck when it comes to stumbling upon vast sources of unclaimed wealth in out-of-the-way places. I say that because recently, before his gold-find, he was emailing from Africa telling me he’d come across a pile of uncut diamonds, which also needed bringing out of Nigeria, if only I (and presumably millions of others) could help.

Then there’s Ruth who contacted me this morning to inform me that her kids have flown the nest and she is looking for “adventures”. I do not know Ruth, but she sent a revealing photo and she is a very good-looking woman. If I was single and desperate (or just desperate) I could click on the link and go to a website which presumably would offer Ruth’s contact details – in return, of course, for those much-needed bank details.

I have been using the email system since 1999 (indeed I was one of the first West Country journalists to file copy by email 25 years ago) and all this junk has been coming down the wires ever since. I must have received tens of thousands of offers promising free money, exotic women, unexpected gambling wins, get-rich-quick schemes, foreign villas, chances to obtain a larger penis and goodness knows what else...

Being a cynical old newspaper hack, I am predisposed to regard any such offers with wry amusement and not once (he says with much crossing of fingers) have I ever fallen victim. But you’d only need to let your guard down just once.

And your email system’s AI bots aren’t always accurate when placing dodgy missives into the spam folder. Both Mr Ko Njudo and ravishing Ruth got through to my main in-tray this week, as did the taxman.

It was the latter who caused me to write this column. The others were so obviously ridiculous. Why should someone in Nigeria know my name and claim it’s only Hesp and no one else who could help them, and become fabulously rich in the process?

And why would a beautiful stranger suddenly fall for a weary old journalist with a beer belly and want to have “adventures” with him?

Who believes this stuff?

Presumably there must be one or two gullible fools out there, otherwise these outlandish scams wouldn’t continue to exist. But it was the tax scam that caught my attention. Mainly because my accountant had said there was a chance of my getting a rebate and this, of course, is exactly the time of year when such a thing would occur. So I did not hit ‘delete’ immediately, but I did scan the email carefully.

Because, although it looked official with all the right typefaces, logos and so on, there was something fishy about it which prevented my clicking through to the website where I’d be given details on how to reclaim my money. Then I spotted it… Why would UK tax officials bother to put a © for copyright symbol on any missive they send?

Of course, the golden rule is that if anyone ever offers you money for doing nothing, then it is almost definitely a scam. If they want your bank details, it is guaranteed to be what used to be known as daylight robbery.

Nevertheless, there seems to be an increasing tide of clever rackets doing the rounds, many of which are targeted at older folk. I’ve heard of a few telephone scams recently where innocent victims were caught out, losing considerable sums.

And I think older people are more susceptible, not just because many of them are not particularly aux fait with the digital universe – but because the world they grew up in was a very different place.

Many of us will remember that world. It was a relative nirvana where you’d only read in newspapers about bad things happening – you’d probably live for years without actually meeting a wrong-un or personally witnessing any form of criminality.

Today just under 90% of UK adults have a smartphone, which means nine-out-of-ten of us will be subjected to a tsunami of potential criminality on a daily basis. As I say, you only have to put a foot wrong once...

Anyway, gotta go. I’ve booked a flight to Lagos to pick up those gold bars and I’ve asked Ruth if she’d like to come along.

There seems to be an increasing tide of clever rackets doing the rounds, many of which are targeted at older folk. I’ve heard of a few telephone scams recently where innocent victims were caught out