Too good to be true? It could be a scam...

Last week 75-year-old John Cornford received a surprising letter. It bore his name and the sender claimed to be a business manager working for the Hong Kong-based Hung Kai Finance company. This person, who gave his name as Hua Ong, informed Mr Cornford that by a strange twist of fate a very large sum of money – $10.5m to be precise – had been deposited in the Hong Kong bank by someone also called John Cornford. Never mind that the letter appeared to have been sent from Nottingham, its author explained, this was just because he had asked a friend to forward it on. But faced with such an elaborate tall tale, Mr Cornford, of Mark Anthony Court, Hayling Island, could not quite suspend his disbelief.