Bill Gates isn’t the only game in town when it comes to scammers posing as generous billionaires. Here is an email that made the rounds over the past year:

My name is Mr. Warren E. Buffett an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist. am the most successful investor in the world. I believe strongly in ‘giving while living’ I had one idea that never changed in my mind? that you should use your wealth to help people and i have decided to give ($2,500,000.00) Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United Dollars, to randomly selected individuals worldwide.On receipt of this email, you should count yourself as the lucky individual. Your email address was chosen online when searching at random. Kindly get back to me at your earliest convenience , so I know your email address is valid. ( warrenbuff02(at)aol.com ) Email me Thank you for accepting our offer, we are indeed grateful You Can Google my name for more information: Warren Buffett .God bless you.

Sure. Warren Buffett’s email address is going to be “warrenbuff02(at)aol.com.” And he’s going to forget the word “I” at the beginning of a sentence. And rich people give away millions to random individuals all the time. That’s how they get rich—by giving it away, not by getting it and keeping it. Everybody knows that!

So, it is very obvious that this message is designed to appeal only to the absolute most trusting individuals, and weed out anyone who might start to respond but become suspicious and not follow through. It is also obvious that the World’s Richest People are going to forever have their names utilized in email-based grifts like this one, so for future reference, if you get one of these from Jeff Bezos later on, that’s a scam, too.