Susanne and Elroy Sovic have been shocked to learn people are still falling for the same well-worn letter scams.
The local couple found it almost comical when they received the all too familiar message from a foreign power broker offering millions in exchange for a little "free" assistance making a money transaction.
According to the letter, their relative left behind millions but the estate company would not release the funds to anyone but an heir, so if the Sovics would co-operate as stand-ins, they would get half of the grand fortune.
"My husband really found this letter humourous because his father made the name up when he immigrated to Canada," Susanne Sovic said.
But she stopped chuckling when an acquaintance almost fell for it.
The scam is loosely referred to as the "Nigerian prince" con although there are many variations.
Generally, either some political figure needs help accessing frozen bank accounts, or someone has died with a similar last name to yours and the estate lawyers need help distributing a vast fortune.
It's all hogwash of course, and criminal at the core. It is the bait to hook people into a conversation that eventually will require you to hand over money or personal information or both.
These messages arrive by email, telephone and conventional mail and often sound official and tantalizing to the unsuspecting reader.
"I wasn't going to do anything about it, these messages are out there all the time, who doesn't know these are scams?" said Susanne.
"But then I heard this other person I know thinking it was a wonderful thing. They had gotten the exact same letter with their name on it. I knew I had to come forward. You don't want people to fall for this. If they do fall for it, then they are embarrassed so they won't want to come forward then, will they?"
The police are very familiar with these scams. Many of them originate in other countries and so cannot be easily investigated. Some have proved to originate in B.C. but go through several addresses or phone points, so they are hard to trace.
Prince George RCMP media relations officer Gary Godwin has encountered many in his career. He said the old maxim "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" doesn't go far enough.
"I won't say every offer you've ever read on the Internet is a scam, but I have never seen a time when the easy money on the Internet was legitimate. You have to be careful. Just don't go there, when you see these messages. Don't take the bait."
Sovic's letter came by conventional mail and claimed to be from a barrister in Spain who got their name from "the Canadian public records" while searching for a namesake to their client who was killed, along with his family, in the 2004 tsunami.
Questions about possible mail, Internet or telephone scams can go to the federal government's anti-fraud website at www.antifraudcentre.ca.
