Your dear friend Princess Leia

From New Scientist's Feedback column:

It is commonly believed that no matter how preposterously unlikely the propositions in so-called Nigerian scams are, the scammers succeed in making money with them because, so long as they send out enough of them, there will always be at least one sucker out there who will fall for them.

Surely, though, can there be anyone on the planet who would fall for this one, received by a colleague in the US? It begins: "Dear friend, I am Princess Leia Organa, only survivor of the royal family of Alderan... I was falsely imprisoned upon the imperial battle station 'Deathstar' when my planet was hideously destroyed and ended by the very bad Sith Lord Vader..."

And so on, down to the usual request for assistance in transferring funds. The suspicion that this is just a joke is tempered only by the knowledge that you could say the same about all the others.