Those style scams continue to flourish because they work.
Because of our business in internet and internet security…I’ve read a few articles about this over the years. It’s a MULTI-MILLION dollar a year business year in the US alone. Most are the elderly and naive.
“Most are the elderly and naive.”
…and the semi-literate.
Even if someone is fairly gullible, the decidedly semi-literate nature of the message should be a tip-off that it did not come from a highly-placed corporate officer at a major financial institution. But, in an era of declining literacy, I suppose that there are folks out there in cyberspace who don’t recognize that the message came from someone who is sitting at a public computer in a Third World country, trolling for unsuspecting, elderly, naive, and semi-literate victims.
Besides the semi-literate nature of the message…The Email address is another giveaway. What professional do you know of who uses "LOVE’ in their email address. Besides the message itself being a dead giveaway…there were so many other clues. Yet emails even worse then this have garnished millions of dollars over the years from hardworking Americans.
Mike makes another good point, and it applies to everyone, not just scammers.
So…here is something for everyone to consider:
When people fill out job applications or other business-related forms, providing an e-mail address like sexmaniac101@trash.net is just…not a good idea. People seem to be surprised when they are never called in for an interview, and IMHO their e-mail address can be a factor in many of these instances. If people just used a little common sense in terms of the e-mail address that they use for business purposes, they would be likely to garner a lot more respect, and to get better results.
However, I hope that the scammers continue to make these mistakes…
Greed seems to always boot common sense right out the door… 
Wish this post would disapear