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NEWS

12:45 PM, 1 Apr 2008

Tsunami fraud wins 2008 scam prize

By a staff reporter

An e-mail asking people to claim to be the next of kin of a man who died in the Boxing Day tsunami in order to help a Togo lawyer access his $US17 million estate has been branded this year's biggest financial scam.

The so-called "Nigerian letter" has taken out the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's annual "Pie in the Sky" campaign for the dodgiest money-making scheme.

The scam claimed a lawyer from Togo was handling the estate of a man who died in Phuket during the 2004 tsunami. According to the offer, the person receiving the e-mail coincidentally had the same name as the deceased man and could help access the estate by responding to the e-mail and paying money up-front.

"Of course, there was no $17 million estate, and people were being scammed for up-front fees," said the corporate regulator's Acting Executive Director of Consumer Protection, Delia Rickard.

The first runner-up was Instep Super and its sole director, Mr Leslie John Donnell, for offering returns of up to 20 per cent and claiming to be the "best performing superannuation fund in Australia" - despite being unlicensed and having no evidence to support the claim.

An offer to invest $40,000 in a device that could supposedly harvest and recycle electricity that leaks out of power lines took third-place.

"The serious purpose behind these awards is to warn people that 'get rich quick' schemes promise the world but almost always end in tears," Ms Rickard said.


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