Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Have a Spam Sandwich

Every.Single.Day (imagine me gritting my teeth), I get one or two of these kind of letters in my spam folder. And they are so idiotic and ridiculous.

So I am going to imagine I am actually idiotic and ridiculous enough to fall for one of them (my comments are in red).

Different coutries are listed on them, the one below happens to be from Africa (but more than likely it's some little American freak in a back alley basement apartment).

******

Dear Friend, (friend? Do I know this person?)


CONFIDENTIAL --> wow, must be serious!

I am MRS.MIRI JONADA; Manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department of Bank of Africa (BOA) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I would like you to indicate your interest to receive the transfer of US$ 26.2 Million. (O.M.G. wowee, now THAT is a lot of money. More money then I can ever dream to see in my lifetime). I will like you to stand as the next of kin to my late client (MR. PAUL LOUIS) who died along with His entire family in 6th December 2003 in a plane crash. (Oh, poor family. They all died together in a plane crash seven whole years ago?)

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. (Wow, this is some run-on sentence from a very official bank person. But this email is so very important, they probably didn't have time to edit themselves. Back to the problem at hand. This poor fellow doesn't have ANY next-of-kin. They ALL died in the plane crash? I need to get myself a tissue).

The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after Eight to Nine years an above, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund. (Eight or nine years....and it's already been seven years? Oh no, they really need to get this money to somebody before time runs out.)

I agree that 40 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of a foreign account, and while 60 %would be for me. (Wow, let's see, 40% of 26 million is STILL a lot of money. What a generous deal they are about to offer me. Wait, is there an offer? I am not sure how I figure into this picture. But they did call me a friend at the beginning of the email. I hope I can get a cut of this. Can I pretend to be the guy's next-of-kin?).

There after I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated. (Awesome, they will come here and hand ME the money!)
Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased (Of course I will!) indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where the money will be remitted (So easy to do all this by email--just give my bank account number? I am ON it.). Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application.

I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required (Oh good, she is laying my fears to rest. But I don't really have any fears--she seems so nice and honest) . Arrangements have been made for the transfer, please treat this business with utmost confidentiality and you should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.

Please make sure you keep this transaction as your top secret and make it confidential till we receive the fund into the account that you will provide to the Bank. Don't disclose it to any body, because the secrecy of this transaction is as well as the success of it. (Will do! Keep it secret until they receive my bank information and make the transaction. Tell nobody. Good idea. I will surprise my family later.)

I am waiting to hear from you urgently.

Yours faithfully,

Mrs.Miri Jonada,
(she is sooooo nice. I am dreaming of all the things I can do with that money. Ooop, I better send my bank account info. to her right away in case she finds someone else).

*******
So readers, I may not be around much longer. I am about to became a millionaire! Nice knowing you! :D

(so freaking riDONKulous, right? Sad though, that some probably have fallen for this.)


20 comments:

Jessica Bell said...

LOL I get these all the time! Do you ever wonder though if you're ever passing up something ligitimate? I do, LOL, but still won't get sucked in.

Unknown said...

What's sad is someone has fallen for this or they wouldn't continue to do it... poor fellows.

Finding Beauty said...

Don't forget your friends!! :-)

Lindsay said...

lol. I get these all the time as well. The sad thing is that I know people fall for them.

Thank God for the spam folder. lol.

Misha Gerrick said...

That is generally known as a Nigerian 411 scam. Mostly because the scammers are... yep you guessed it. Nigerian.

And yes. People do fall for this, but not in the way you think. You see, they know that the less gullible idiots will give an empty account number, so they will ask for... say... $1000 for bank charges. $ 500 for insurance and... $5000 for admin costs and perhaps even $20000 for transport costs. The e-mail suggested that the money will be hand-delivered.

Otherwise, (this is for the REAL idiots) they will say that they can't transfer the money and that you must go fetch it. On arrival your passport will be taken and you will spend the rest of your life making money for a pimp of their choice.

Either way, they make a lot of money due to the effects of exchange rates and/or the value of slaves...

And on that light note, I will stop before I really scare people. :-)

Stephanie Faris said...

I've gotta wonder, does ANYONE ever fall for this stuff?

Meredith said...

I get these all the time! Thank goodness for the spam folder. The whole thing is just ridiculous and sad.

Melissa Gill said...

I guess they must get some suckers, otherwise I wouldn't get 5 of these a day. I love it when they call me My Dear Friend, etc..

Little Ms J said...

Sadly, these people (fraudsters) also show up at my office at least twice a year. Such a waste of time and a pain in the arse.

Matthew MacNish said...

It's really fun to see your humorous take on these silly things Christina, and yes, the English tends to be especially bad, I think because they are trying too hard to sound foreign.

The sad thing is though, someone, somewhere must still be falling for it, because they keep getting sent out.

Shallee said...

Yup, you've gotten hit by the Nigerian scammers! Most really are from Nigeria, and these make me roll my eyes every time I get one.

Good luck with your millions. :)

Unknown said...

Haha wow! That is the deal of a lifetime!

Lourie said...

It is sad, because there are people who would fall for it. I loved your comments though! hahaha.

Elana Johnson said...

LOL! Someone must fall for it, or it would stop, right?

Pamela Gold said...

I agree with many of the others, some people actually fall for it. Sadly though, the ones who do are probably so poor in the first place that once these spammers get their hands into the account, it's empty anyhow. Huh...

Janet said...

Very funny. I too often wonder who falls for this nonsense. And I wonder why these people spend so much time and energy on awful scams and such. Can't they focus that same energy into doing something legitimate?!

Theresa Milstein said...

Congratulations!

This is my favorite part:

"(So easy to do all this by email--just give my bank account number? I am ON it.)."

Don't forget to provide your Social Security number and a credit card for good measure.

Did you ever read Tahereh's rejection letter to a spammer. She treated it like a query:

http://stiryourtea.blogspot.com/2010/05/form-rejection.html

Rachele Alpine said...

Dan Chaon's (a Cleveland author who teaches at Oberlin) last book was inspired from these e-mails. It's called AWAIT YOUR REPLY and is awesome! We read it for a MFA class last year and he came to speak to us afterwards. It was a NYT bestseller.

Sage Ravenwood said...

I have to agree with everyone else, if no-one fell for it, they wouldn't still be going around. Seems like a lot of effort for no output. The misspellings always crack me up.(Hugs)Indigo

Debby@Just Breathe said...

The sad part is I wonder how many people actually fall for this?
Enjoy your money! We will miss you.