By now we’re sure many of you guys have received or have at least heard of the Nigerian Prince email scam. For those who haven’t, basically it is an email that says that a Nigerian Prince needs to transfer money out of his country, and if you were to help him, you will get a portion of it.

However the kicker is that you will need to send money first for taxes and other various fees, which is pretty much where the scammers get you. Presumably people have wisened up to these scams since, which is why it looks like scammers are taking things to new and more hi-tech levels.

According to Anorak, they received what appears to be a new scam in their emails. The technique behind this scam is similar to the Nigerian Prince, except that in this case, they have swapped out the prince for a Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. Apparently he has been stuck in space since 1990 for “14 years” and they are looking for a way to bring him home, a fee which will apparently cost $3,000,000.

Like we said, this is more or less the Nigerian Prince scam with different characters. It also sounds like the scammers were inspired by Matt Damon’s The Martian movie too. Hopefully many of you guys know a scam when you see one, but in case you don’t, this is one (of the many) you’ll want to avoid.

New ‘Nigerian Prince’ Email Scams Are Making Their Rounds , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.