If South Africa is so poor, why do I get so much email from there giving me millions and millions of dollars?

This question is aimed for Bono of U2. Only because I watched a Bio program on him tonight and learned of his great doings in South Africa. Maybe someone should look into some of these so called lottery games and other scams, claiming to have millions in bank accounts. They want to give away half of it for the use of my bank account. Sounds like money laundering or identity theft stuff to me.

It's an email scam, dude....seriously.

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Yes, it's a scam. In case you haven't figured it out, the point of the scam isn't that they will send you money. It's that they want you to send them money for a never ending series of bogus expenses that must be paid before they can send you anything. You will never see a dime. I get three or four of these fake lottery e-mails every week, along with the fake job offers where they want you to deposit checks in your account and then send them the money.
If you actually believe that they are going to send you millions of dollars, then you must be the most gullible person on Yahoo Answers.
Do a Google search on Nigeria 419 scam. It will make for interesting reading.

You have probably heard the term "land poor" referring to people who have no liquidity because their assets are all tied up in real estate. The problem is not that south Africans are poor, but cash poor their holdings are tied up in banks. All they need to get their money is our help. Just last week I sent off a check for $10,000 to cover the legal fees for a man whose inheritance was being held up by the bank. He will be sending me a check for $75,000,000 in a few days.
They don't need us to launder money or steal our identities, they just need our help and are willing to pay for it.

Yes, South Africa is poor. That's why there's so many deposed leader's widows, daughters and brothers begging you to help them! They're all trying to take your money. They're all scams, and they've been around for decades. Business owners used to get them through the mail, but since it's free to send email, millions of these messages are sent every day to try and scam anybody with $$$$.

Send them money to help, and there will "be a problem," (insert any excuse here), and you will need to send more money. Then more, and more and more, until you finally realize you've been tricked.