I Love Email

I love email. I love getting emails. I love chatting to people via email and getting a wad of mails in my inbox from the same person. That said, I don't like spam; junk mails (sign up for our newsletter!), loans (you're pre-approved!), medication (make her happy tonight!), stock market (hot newcomers on the market), chain letters (forward this message of love and something will happen) and other kinds of irritating as hell rubbish. I don't want the meds, the loans, don't want to invest, and - pay attention here - no matter how many people your forward it to, nothing will appear on your screen, no one will donate money to a charity, and you won't get free anything.

*ahem*

There is one kind of spam, however, that I LOVE to receive. The Scam-Spam. You may recall last summer I started to correspond with one of these spammers, trying to "clear funds from his company", as well as my "European lottery game win". Well, on checking my spam folder, I have several of both kinds, and sit there reading and chuckling to myself that people fall for it. Yes, of course someone in Nigeria has access to £20million and has chosen YOU to help. And yes, you entered a lottery but forgot all about it.


Right.

So, here we have, for your viewing pleasure, Harrass-The-Spammer #1 of 2007!

Reply-To: toya_diawara@hotmail.com
From: "Toya Diawara"
Subject: FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:58:38 +0000
To: dan.junk@blueyonder.co.uk

Dearest One,

Greetings to you. With due respect, I am Mr.Toya Diawara, a director at the Ministry of Works here in Abidjan Ivory Coast. I have contacted you to seek your assistance for the transfer of the total amount of $16.8 Million which accrued from a deliberate over invoicing of some contracts awarded to a now deceased foreign contractor by the ministry of works with the corporation of the ministry of finance.

I have access to some contract approval information concerning a contract which was executed by this contractor attached to the Ministry of Works. This contract has long been executed and commissioned, but this over invoiced payment is still outstanding and has not been claimed due to circumstances which I will explain to you in the course of our correspondence. This matter requires utmost attention as the current political situation in our country since the intervention of the united nations who brokered a peace deal between the government and the new forces rebels has now presented an opportunity for the money to be transferred out of the country as the previous financial embargo has been lifted.

Owing to the demise of the contractor and by virtue of my position here at the ministry of works, I have decided to use all the resources within my power to retrieve this outstanding contract payment since the contractor whose name was used to process the contract payment approval has long died and no relatives has ever came forward for the claims of the outstanding payment. We have made several attempts to possibly trace any of the late contractors's relatives who will assume the responsibility of coming forward for the claims of this outstanding payment.

It is never my desire to see the above matter treated that way hence I conducted a search that will assist me in first and foremost trace any relative of the deceased and also ensure the safety of the funds.I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by the late contractor because if a relative is not found within six weeks then the public trustee will move and liquidate the entire estates of the late contractor including this unpaid contract amounts on the account of having been unserviceable for a long period of time.

I look forward to your co operation and your extreme discretion in this matter. Until such a time this matter is settled, I will continue to work with you in any way possible to see that the outstanding payment is released and transferred in your name as a bona fide next of kin to the late contractor as I shall be presenting you to the ministry of works. We shall within the course of the next few days plan and execute how best to pursue this matter of mutual interest with a view to cost effectiveness.

I have all the necessary legal documents that will be used to back up any claim we may make. All I require is your honest co operation to enable us see this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect us from any breach of law. Please get in touch with me by telephone or email to enable us discuss this further.

Yours sincerely.

Mr.Toya Diawara.

____________________________________________________________
Discover the magic of RSS feeds at MSN Ireland! http://ie.msn.com/
Bless him and his scamming little socks. I find it interesting that the sweet little man has signed up at MSN Ireland - odd for a man living in Africa, but still. Maybe he can't access msn.com because of, er... you know... And it's also worth pointing out that the "From" address and the "Reply To" address are different. He'll send this mail to several thousand people, some of which will flag it as Spam. Hotmail check it, and close the account - however, people can still reply to it as the "send to" address is different. Cunning.

So anyways, I've replied, calling him Mrs instead of Mr, used a different name, and generally laid it on thick. As in, thick as tarmac. £10 says I land him, hook, line and scamming sinker!
Mr Diawara,

My thanks for contacting me. I am happy to help in any way I can, as long as it is not going to backfire and land you, I, or both of us in a prison cell somewhere, and assume that your extreme discretion will protect us against any such happenings.

With Christmas gone and New Year out of the way, money is an issue for us here in England, and as such a large sum would be more than welcome. What do you need me to do in order to assist, and is it possible to send me some gesture of goodwill in the meantime? Additionally, do you have any way in which I can validate who you are? I am not very technically-minded on the computer, so any help would be greatfully received.

Many thanks,

Danielson English
So there we have it. Let's see what happens, and if I get "invited" to visit him to finalise the details!

Oh, and if you're wondering, that picture is fried spam. Highly recommended ;)

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6 Responses to “I Love Email”

Anonymous said...

You should read 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace - he did almost the exact same thing with amusing consequences :)

I just can't believe people actually DO fall for this nonsense...

Anonymous said...

I THOUGHT THAT LOOKED LIKE FRYING SPAM!! Where in the world did you find that!
Terri

Nancy Jensen said...

Frying spam is the only way you can choke it down... I mean... eat it.

Dan said...

Fried spam is lovely stuff - never knock the fried spam!!

And CB - I will have a look around for it - sounds very interesting. It's amazing how many people do actually fall for it though. Did no one learn the saying "Nothing in life is free" from their parents?!

And Terri - Google Image searches can pull up pretty much ANYTHING you can think of!

The Special Zipper said...

Minge .. did you mean cons or is this another funny term from the top of the world ... lucky there were no more letters.

Look out Dan .. emails coming your way .. hehe.

I don't know what is wrong with you all .. last time I gave them my bank account details nothing bad happened ... JUST KIDDING.

Anonymous said...

OMG... when we were kiddies... we always ate fried spam and eggs...
or spam on toast w/ mayonnaise... I haven't had it in ages.... the Hawaiian's love it!! I hear it's a staple over there.

We'll keep a watch for those "cuns" ROFL!

Terri