A lot of the articles I write concern scams and fraud that in some way depend on electronic communications (email or websites) to function. Nigerian 419 scammers have probably saved thousands of dollars on postage since the widespread adoption of email.

However, not all scams occur online.

Just this week, I heard about two separate cases locally. One was an elderly person who let two men who claimed to be from the power company enter his home. They quickly found a large stash of cash in the victim’s bedroom.

There was also the case of a person just out of high school who got a letter in the mail tell him he’d won the lottery. He ended up wiring just under $2,900 to a criminal overseas.

The home entry scam almost always targets elderly victims who live alone. If this sounds like your relative, neighbor or friend, you need to warn them about this type of robbery. Make sure they know never to let anyone in without seeing identification and confirming the visit with the power company (or whoever claims to be visiting). Also, encourage them to keep their money somewhere other than inside their house. I know there’s been a recession lately, but 1929 was a very long time ago, and we have FDIC and NCUA insurance in case of a major meltdown. Perhaps we should ask this most recent victim which turned out to be safer: keeping his money in a financial institution or in his house.

A lottery scam is a lottery scam, and it doesn’t matter if the message is in your inbox or on paper. I think a lot of people know about the email version of the Nigerian 419 scam, but when it shows up on paper, they let their guard down. It’s sort of the opposite of 15 years ago, when everybody immediately trusted everything that showed up in an email.

I wish there was a statistic on email vs. paper Nigerian 419 scam success rates. I’d be willing to bet the paper version actually snags more victims. Just remember that it doesn’t matter what form it takes, it’s always fraud.