The INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE DEPT, WEST AFRICAN PAYMENT DIVISION, FRAUD VICTIMS / COMPENSATION says that I have unclaimed funds in the amount of 1.5 BILLION dollars. That’s right, not million, BILLION!
The release charge on the funds is only $255 USD. But I’ve got to hurry, some jerk is claiming to be me and trying to get the money released in his name.
I had no idea I even had this money until a department directory e-mailed me.
Wish me luck!
I don’t know, my dreams are pretty wild. Let us know how it works out for you.
Make sure you send them your ssn/birth certificate too, just to clear things up. That should take care of that asshole imposter.
And once you’re rich, don’t forget who your real friends are.
Arnold, I’d like to show you a “life-skills” book that you might find useful. It’s called The Con and it’s an entertaining and informative volume about how scams work. I hope you will enjoy the stories and tips.
Actually I just think it’s a great book and if I was in charge, everyone 14+ would read it. So this is my chance to plug it.
Don’t I know you from somewhere?
The guy who wants to send me $30,000,000 is a piker by comparison.
looks like not all black people are as “street smart” and good at hustle math as the media would like us believe. At least, not in rural West Africa.
On a related note, “Street-smart teen found dead in a library” http://www.theonion.com/audio/streetsmart-teen-found-dead-in-library,18226/ . Clearly, lacking book-smarts sucks in this day and age.
Wait - are you sure they are American dollars? I mean, 1.5 Billiion Nigerian dollars may be worth about $7.43 American all together.
In my defense they told me that claiming other people’s money was standard procedure as long as I paid a modest name substitution filing fee.
The Nigerian currency isn’t dollars, it’s the naira (sign: ₦; code: NGN), subdivided into 100 kobo. On the other hand, the e-mail always included the letters USD (sign for the US dollar) next to dollar amounts, except next to the 1.5 billion dollar amount. Maybe it is some devalued currency? 
Don’t you even think of trying to put your hands on my money!
I promise that when the 1.5 billion dollars is deposited in my account, I will buy every SDMB poster in this thread a brand-spanking new Chia pet, design of your choice.
Zimbabwean dollars, probably. Heck, I can let have 100 Trillion Dollars if you’ll send me a SASE. Plus a modest handling fee, of course. The aforementioned $255 USD will suffice.
I think I will get that book, it seems very interesting! Thanks for the recommendation.
OK, how cool is that! I wouldn’t mind having one of those bills framed on my wall.
When you get the money, could you help out a friend who just emailed me about being stuck in Edinburgh with no money?
Good news. I contacted them about this problem and they say we can each have the $1.5 billion. All we need to do is send them a duplicate claim processing charge.
1.5 billion? wow, judging if you combine that with the offers of making your penis an inch longer for 30 bucks, your penis can be 50,000,000 inches long.
1 point 5 BILLION dollars??? Shoot, that used to be a lot of money…
I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but *please *take me off your Chia list. KTHXBAI!
Using simple maths, I can prove that you would be playing the odds to take up this offer, and should do so at your earliest opportunity. There are at least 1,500 billionaires in the world, so there is a one in four million chance the person contacting you has access to this kind of money. Your stake is a mere $255 for a possible return of $1.5 billion, that’s a return of over 58,000%. Factoring in the odds, on average you can expect a return of 1.47 times your stake. This is much more favourable than other forms of gmabling such as horse racing or a lottery! In fact, the odds are probably even better than this, as there must be lots of people who work for governments or rich people who could access their funds on their behalf, but I erred on the side of caution.
Sending money to an anyonymous person on the internet might seem like a long-shot, but remember, when talking about these huge sums of money it only needs to pay out once to be worthwhile!
I know exactly what to do!
Let us, the Teeming Millions of the Doper Crowd, each invest $1 towards helping you pay that up-front $255 fee. Then we can all share in the proportionate division of your jackpot! 
