Arthur, I don't remember what I wrote, or when I wrote it. (That little session of surgery has my mind a bit scattered, which was rather nice when a bit doped up).
If I suggested that Chris Goodwin's warning was a hoax then I was wrong. For some reason Nigeria has been the home of scam artists for many years, and as has been mentioned done also with snail mail. The hoax is the Nigerian scams (why not Ivory Coast, or Liberia?). It would seem that there is an organized "tribal" mafia in Nigeria that has been making money for at least fifteen years off the gullible, they just happened to have found buying lutes to be a new target. I used to keep a folder on my computer for forwarding to the FBI, until I realized they are getting them also (even agents have personal computers at home). The Nigerian scams are also executed in neighborhoods in NYC from storefronts, so one doesn't need a computer to be solicited. (And that has been going on for a long time, well back into the 20th century). There is one basic rule of economics. There is no such thing as a free lunch! If the offer seems to be good to be true, then it is. Best, Jon
