Damned Spam Scams
I am quite sick and tired of these damned Nigerian email scams. The most despicable version of this email scam I have ever seen, however, is this one I've just received:
"Dear friend,
My story may sound odd but I must tell you that September 11th is a day I will never forget till the day I will finally die, that was the day of entire lost of my whole life that I built for 62 years, the same day I lost my two sons in world trade center, I thank God my health is getting better now as I am down with stroke. My dear friend I am sorry if I have taken much of your time, but I want you to sit down and read through my mail and see what you can achieve or gain from it."
The email, of course, goes on to offer you fundamentally money for nothing, mentioning God at every opportunity. The reader is offered 15% of the man's inheritance (playing on the receipient's greed), told that he should take the money and move out of the US where it's safer from horrible tragedies like those that have befallen the sender (playing on the reader's fear), told that 70% of the inheritance will go to charities to help the poor (playing on the reader's conscience, as well as greed, since the implication is that he's leaving the money to you to disburse), and that the sender, Mr Anthony Adams, only requires the remaining 15% back to pay for hospital bills. You can see where this is headed, can't you?
What really infuritates me about this particular variant of the Nigerian scam is how they could use a tragedy like Sep 11 to try and get an edge on people, and how they could say things like this:
"As I believe you are a God fearing Human if you are not please do, because he died on the cross of Calvary for you and I to have life and have it in abundance."
I hope there's a special place in hell reserved for these people.
What also makes me mad is thinking about how there would be some people with that unfortunately none too rare combination of greed and stupidity to be fooled by this sort of thing. I don't know which type of person is worse, but I do know that I'm sick and tired of receiving emails from 'people' like:
- Mrs Eveline Babatu (husband murdered by evil dictator Robert Mugabe, oh the poor soul - but hey, look at all the money he left behind)
- Mrs Chae Dae Soon (husband died in Iraq during the fighting, oh the tragedy of it all, but whoops, there's another massive inheritance)
- Prince Johnson J Smith (who apparently, is, and I quote: "32 years old and good looking man, and I am from a Royal Family of an Oil rich Bonny Kingdom Of River State of Nigeria, I have B.SC in Public Administration and I work in my family company (JOHNSON MARKETING COMPANY LTD) as a Sales manager." Right. SURE. Prince. Johnson. J. Smith)
- Mr Adams Benson (some family tragedy or another - HE WROTE IN ALL CAPS SO I COULDN'T BEAR TO READ THE DAMNED EMAIL) (but I'm sure there was lots of money involved)
- Rosemary Rolands, and all the other lottery directors in South Africa whose lotteries I apparently have won, without even having been to South Africa, let alone bought a ticket for. If I had a dollar for every one of these I received, I would ... well, I'd probably just put it in the lottery back here, where I can get a realistic result (i.e. nothing).
For all these scammers out there who are filling my mailbox with scam, may your hard-disks crash, may your file directories be as corrupt as you are, may your monitors ever be blue as the screen of death, and may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your belly buttons (to quote an old curse I learned a long time ago).
P.S. 419 Eater has some pretty funny accounts (illustrated and all) of the tables turned on the scammer. Well worth a read, a laugh, and possibly an evil snigger.
"Dear friend,
My story may sound odd but I must tell you that September 11th is a day I will never forget till the day I will finally die, that was the day of entire lost of my whole life that I built for 62 years, the same day I lost my two sons in world trade center, I thank God my health is getting better now as I am down with stroke. My dear friend I am sorry if I have taken much of your time, but I want you to sit down and read through my mail and see what you can achieve or gain from it."
The email, of course, goes on to offer you fundamentally money for nothing, mentioning God at every opportunity. The reader is offered 15% of the man's inheritance (playing on the receipient's greed), told that he should take the money and move out of the US where it's safer from horrible tragedies like those that have befallen the sender (playing on the reader's fear), told that 70% of the inheritance will go to charities to help the poor (playing on the reader's conscience, as well as greed, since the implication is that he's leaving the money to you to disburse), and that the sender, Mr Anthony Adams, only requires the remaining 15% back to pay for hospital bills. You can see where this is headed, can't you?
What really infuritates me about this particular variant of the Nigerian scam is how they could use a tragedy like Sep 11 to try and get an edge on people, and how they could say things like this:
"As I believe you are a God fearing Human if you are not please do, because he died on the cross of Calvary for you and I to have life and have it in abundance."
I hope there's a special place in hell reserved for these people.
What also makes me mad is thinking about how there would be some people with that unfortunately none too rare combination of greed and stupidity to be fooled by this sort of thing. I don't know which type of person is worse, but I do know that I'm sick and tired of receiving emails from 'people' like:
- Mrs Eveline Babatu (husband murdered by evil dictator Robert Mugabe, oh the poor soul - but hey, look at all the money he left behind)
- Mrs Chae Dae Soon (husband died in Iraq during the fighting, oh the tragedy of it all, but whoops, there's another massive inheritance)
- Prince Johnson J Smith (who apparently, is, and I quote: "32 years old and good looking man, and I am from a Royal Family of an Oil rich Bonny Kingdom Of River State of Nigeria, I have B.SC in Public Administration and I work in my family company (JOHNSON MARKETING COMPANY LTD) as a Sales manager." Right. SURE. Prince. Johnson. J. Smith)
- Mr Adams Benson (some family tragedy or another - HE WROTE IN ALL CAPS SO I COULDN'T BEAR TO READ THE DAMNED EMAIL) (but I'm sure there was lots of money involved)
- Rosemary Rolands, and all the other lottery directors in South Africa whose lotteries I apparently have won, without even having been to South Africa, let alone bought a ticket for. If I had a dollar for every one of these I received, I would ... well, I'd probably just put it in the lottery back here, where I can get a realistic result (i.e. nothing).
For all these scammers out there who are filling my mailbox with scam, may your hard-disks crash, may your file directories be as corrupt as you are, may your monitors ever be blue as the screen of death, and may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your belly buttons (to quote an old curse I learned a long time ago).
P.S. 419 Eater has some pretty funny accounts (illustrated and all) of the tables turned on the scammer. Well worth a read, a laugh, and possibly an evil snigger.
Comments
Might I direct you to this?