So there you are, trawling the internet for news of Agostini’s rumoured comeback, or those rare pics of Rossi with some gorgeous wench, when Windows shouts “Bing-bong” to announce the arrival of a new email. You stop what you’re doing, and there it is, simmering in your inbox — a badly written message, usually bearing a heading like “God bless you”, “Business co-operation” or “Just your honesty and sincerity is all I need”.
All these literary efforts are part of the Nigerian 419 scam, named after the most abused section of the Nigerian criminal code. The sender usually purports to be a banker who has access to a dormant account holding millions of US dollars, or the widow of a deceased minister of finance, and writes to you because he or she inexplicably believes you’re an honourable person who can be trusted. All you need to do to earn 25% of the loot is agree to allow them to launder it through your bank account! It’s hard to believe, but thousands of people have sent their bank details and/or deposits to cover the overheads supposedly involved in the transaction. Visit Nigeria — The 419 Coalition Website to read all about it.
Conventional wisdom has it that you should never respond to these enticements. I’ve never been conventional or wise, so I work instead on the premise that the scammers loathe junk mail even more than we do. They send their garbage to thousands of people at a time, and probably get a response rate of something like 0,2%. If we hate getting spam, do they not feel the same? Let just 10% of potential victims reply and the villains’ inboxes would overflow in no time, making the task of sorting the suckers from the rest into a real chore. For a few months now, whenever I feel like a distraction from work, I read through the latest garbage I’ve received and fire off a few replies.
I was initially very rude right from the first word, but soon realised that the recipients probably wouldn’t bother reading any further if the first word started with an F and ended in a K. The trick is to start off all friendly, and lure your target into getting involved before launching a full-on attack.
Some of the scammers seem to take the suckers for granted. Benita Sankara, who headed her email “I need your help”, should be prepared to work a little harder if she hopes to meet with success.
“I know that this letter might be a surprise to you but do consider it as an emergency. I am Mrs Benita sankara from Senegal, I am 35years old and I reside here with my son(Patrick sankara). I am here in Senegal with some amount of money$7,5 million usd for investment. Please if you are interested contact me for further clarification.”
The woman was downright lazy, so I offered her some advice.
Dear Benita,
You’re right — this letter does indeed surprise me. A con artist who’s too lazy to write a proper letter? A mere three lines of text? Shame on you! Please allow me to enclose a couple of examples of the sort of letters you should be sending out. You can’t expect to get rich without making a bit of an effort, you know!See attached from Stella Adji and Mark Ovie. Do you know them?
Warmest regards,
G
Mrs Ramatui Ibrahim, supposedly an Iraqi refugee living in Bangkok, wrote to tell me that her late husband had been murdered, leaving her with nothing except a son called Kazim and $4,5-million that she wished to invest in residential property in South Africa. I would, she assured me, be well rewarded for my trouble if I assisted her. I decided I’d take a chance and treat her approach as genuine — not everyone’s a crook, you know.
Aren’t we both so lucky! Purely coincidentally, I was sitting here this morning thinking about selling my house, and the figure I decided on was exactly $4,5-million! If I give you my bank details, won’t you please deposit the money as soon as possible? The moment I have confirmation of the transaction I’ll post you the keys. Please let me know where to send them so there’s no delay in winding up the transaction.
Love to Kazim,
Yours sincerely,
G
Sadly, the lady must have found a better investment than Chez Foster, because she never replied.
So far I’ve sent about 50 emails to these people, most of them much too rude to publish here, and provoked only two replies. A lady called “Mrs Happy iheancho” was obviously stung to the quick by my response to the “God bless you” message she had sent me, explaining that she was burdened with cancer, had suffered a stroke and wanted me to help her find a good Christian home for the $11,5-million she had lying around in a Dakar bank account. She forgot all her religious pretensions in her reply to my brusque and admittedly insulting response.
At least her message was short and to the point this time: “you’re a doorg big fool and mad man and os goat.”
Richard Kwame also wrote back after I told him to “Go away, you horrid little man,” but he remembered his manners, as befitted a “regional manager of the International Commercial Bank kaneshie branch accra Ghana” with $3,75-million of the bank’s money to launder.
Dear Sir,
I am sorry if you seem to be in a bad mood,but mind you not everybody is meant to be rich in life and make use of every opportunity they meet and i can see you are one of those that are destined to be poor in life.if and when you get hold of yourself you can email me and take a lifetime risk for good money.I await your response.
Regards,
Richard.
Lifetime risk? Nah! Destined to be poor in life? It’s worked for me so far. I’m not going to change a good thing now.
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