Although the Nigerian dead relative/dictator scam has been around for ages, it seems there's still plenty of naive people who are more than happy to get suckered into it.

Janella Spears, a resident of Sweet Home, Oregon received an e-mail promising $20.5 in return for a little help to her long-lost relative J.B. Spears. The victim was persuaded by the scammers' ability to identify her relative and chose to send them $100. This is where most people would stop, but Spears did not. She went on to mortgage her home, took out a lien on her car and spent her husband's retirement fund.

Now in case you're wondering how come nobody told her to stop, well, they did. Both her family and bank officials told her it was a scam and begged her to stop, but the allure of $20 million was obviously a bit too much for her. One would have expected she'd become suspicious after receiving documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and the U.N., as well as pleas for help from President Bush and FBI Director, Robert Mueller.

"The hope is [other people] are not going to fall as hard as I fell," says Spears. They won't, lady, don't worry.

More here.