Also posted on Facebook.
Years ago, scammers hijacked my father’s email and tried this with me.
As many of you know, my late biological father - Philip Ochieng - was a famous man on the African continent.
“He” sent me an email saying that he was stuck at a conference in Nigeria, had left all his documents and money in a taxi, and was stuck.
It came from his known email address, and back then it was thought that those were pretty secure. Nevertheless, I was suspicious.
So I asked him one thing that I knew he knew, but few others in the public knew back then: my mom’s first and middle names.
It rattled the scammer so badly that he misspelled my name - the name my father himself had given me.
“Jullitte, there isn’t enough time to answer any questions, I need the money now!”
As I recall, I was able to reach the old man via telephone and let him know about his email.
BTW, this is one of the stories that was lost on my old Typepad blog.
You'd think a Nigerian prince would know better than to try scamming a Kenyan princess.