Now, you are no doubt asking yourself, "How the heck can I get rich by Internet scams?" Well, you can, but in ways you may never have guessed.

I received my first e-mailed Internet scam letter on Friday, April 27, 2007. It was from a man named "Ali Husain," who called himself a "Bill and Exchange Manager, for the Bank of Africa-Burkina Faso."

He began his letter to me, and I quote it exactly, "Dear Friend, I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise. I must appologise for taking some of your availuable time to explain a proposal that I believe will be of utmost benefit to us. I am Manager of Bill and Exchange at the Foreign Remittance Department of Bank of America.

"In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $11,300,000 in account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in an plane crash on the morning of October 31st, 1999."

I have noted where the words were so poorly used that I wondered what kind of an idiot foreign bank manager didn't have a secretary, or at least a spell/grammar check.

Anyway, this guy goes on to say that 35 percent of the money has to go to a foreigner, so he chose me. Lucky, lucky me! He also says "There is an expenses in this business for you to know earlier, if you are willing to handle this deal with me kindly get back to me with your private tele: and fax number."

He goes on."NOTE: I demand a highest trust from you to keep this business strickly confidential for security reasons as you may know that the bank do not know that I am the one who contacted you to stand for this claim. URGENT RESPOND NEEDED."

Yeah, I'll bet he wanted an "urgent respond." This phony scam was so obvious that I laughed out loud. I made a paper copy of it, then deleted it.

The next scam was a little more interesting. I received the glorious news that "We happily announce to you the Draw of the Uk NATIONAL LOTTERY, online Uk National Lottery program held on 23rd April, 2007. Your company or person e-mail address, is attached to a Ticket number 860-377-596-6738, drew the Lucky Winning Numbers 06-14-17-28-30-41. You have therefore been awarded a total lump sum pay out of 500,000 pounds."

Well! Wasn't that fine news? It looks like I was now set for life! Or was I? Say, I had never entered the British National Lottery. But how, then, had I won? Can a lottery be held with money given away, to people who don't even buy a ticket? It seemed so unlikely. It seemed even more doubtful when I performed the Ali Husain-inspired "English Test" on it.

Hmm. You would think the British would know better English, especially someone in the highly important Claims Department of the British Lottery, if there was such a thing, which I severely doubted. Why did they write out UK as "Uk"? And such run-on sentences! Don't they know how to punctuate?

They also asked how I wanted my money sent to me. They offered "Bank to Bank Swift Transfer." Gosh, wouldn't that mean I had to give them my bank account number? That might not be so smart of me. Then again, they said that I could also get my money was by "Comming to our office annex." Sure. It's probably right down some dark alley.

The third Internet scam, guaranteed to bring riches (but not to me) came in June "From, the desk of Mr. Ibru Mohamed, Bill and Exchange Manager in Foreign Remittance Department, (BOA) Bank of Africa, Ouagadougou, Burkina, Faso."

Good old Ibru informs me-gasp!-that yet another person has died in a plane crash, this time a man named the "Late Mr. Morris Thompson." This poor guy crashed on Jan. 31st, 2000. He left behind $15,000,000, and I could get 30 percent of it! Gee! It seems like rich people are always dying on crashing planes, and leaving behind huge sums of money in African banks!

By the way, in case you didn't notice, both this letter, and the first one, are from the "Bill and Exchange Manager." from the same bank in Faso, Africa. But the names are different. Maybe Ali Husain was fired for bad grammar. Still, Ibru wasn't any great master, either.

So, just how can you get rich with Internet scams, like I promised you at the beginning? Well, I could ask you for your private bank account number, or to meet me in secret. I'll pretend I'm a Bill and Exchange Manager from Africa.

But you are truly richer if you recognize these kinds of scams for what they are: something to play upon everybody's sense of greed. Just chuck these scam letters in your e-mail trash bin. After, of course, you've had a couple of free laughs along the way.