It's a long way from Nigeria to Hong Kong

[DesertDog]

The other day, this showed up in my inbox:

Compliments of the day to you

My name is Huan To, I am the Manager in a bank here in the Taiwan. I am contacting you of a business transfer, of a huge sum of money from a deceased account. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that everything has been taken care off, and all will be well at the end of the day. I decided to contact you due to the urgency of this transaction.

A chain of events have led to my making you this offer, and these events, I believe very strongly, are not just coincidental. In June of 1999, when I was the operations Manager of this Bank, a certain foreign individual named Mr. David Abel made a time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar month valued at US$10,000,000.00 (Ten Million United States Dollars) in my Bank. Upon maturity, (twelve months later ), the bank sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but we got no reply. After a month, I took this issue up personally and sent another notification, this was also returned, and it was the third in a series. Finally I discovered that the depositor, Mr. David died in an air crash along with his wife on the 31st October 2000 in an Egyptian airline flight with other passengers on board.

Since his death, none of his next-of-kin are alive to make claims for this money as his heir, because the only one we know, Mrs. Caryl Abel died in the same accident (May their souls rest in peace). We cannot release the fund from his account unless someone applies for claim as the next-of-kin to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines. Upon this discovery, I now seek your permission to have you stand as a next of kin to the deceased, as all documentations will be carefully worked out by me for the funds to be released in your favour as the beneficiary’s next of kin because after five years, the money will be called back to the bank treasury as unclaimed bills and the money will be stolen and shares amongst the directors of the bank. So it is on this note I decided to seek for whose name shall be used as the next of kin/beneficiary to this funds rather than allow the Bank Directors to share this money amongst themselves at the end of the 5th year. I have not revealed this to anyone until now and
With the very strong feeling that no one will ever come forward to claim the funds, the need for a foreign assistance becomes crucial as a next of kin to the depositor is earnestly being searched for and I cannot acquire the funds in my name. I have already developed a foolproof, legal and totally risk free transaction through which the fund can be transferred to your nominated bank account through our correspondent bank within a very short time after due documentation and authentication process. The strategy is to use my position and influence as the Bank Manager to present you as a next of Kin and beneficiary of the funds as I shall arrange all documentation to support this claim and I shall grant approval for the transfer of the funds into your nominated Bank account through our correspondent bank. The required assistance is perfected to be 100% risk free and I want to assure you that I have concluded all local modalities for the successful completion of this transaction within 10 banking days from your a
I expect your urgent response so I can advice you on what we need to do to have the funds transferred to your local account through our correspondent bank as all funds transfers of of the magnitude of the one in question can only by done through our correspondent bank, except the requirements for a direct transfer of the funds to your local account are met.

Regards,
Mr. Huan To,
Taipei, Taiwan

Let me get this straight.

[ul]
[li]You’re the director of an unnamed bank in Hong Kong[/li][li]You’ve become aware of an unclaimed account to the tune of $10,000,000[/li][li]This account is about to revert back to the bank[/li][li]You would rather this money go to some random stranger you’ve written to[/li][li]You’ve cooked up a “risk free” scheme to defraud either the bank or the estate of the guy who deposited the money, take your pick[/li][li]You’re using your Yahoo account to find the one guy who will do this for you[/li][/ul] Uh, huh.

I sent a two-word reply, the first beginning with ‘F,’ the second ending with ‘U.’

DD

[velvetjones]

It just blows my mind that there might be people out there who actually believe this BS. How utterly ridiculous can you get?

I’m surprissed that he’s not asking to share the money though I’m sure that’s coming later.

[Frank_2]

Hey, what’s the big idea? Huan sent that message to me and now he’s involving you too? It was supposed to be a secret just between the 2 of us. :mad:

[DesertDog]

@Frank #2

Hey, what’s the big idea? Huan sent that message to me and now he’s involving you too? It was supposed to be a secret just between the 2 of us. :mad:

Okay, okay. We’ll split it. Sheesh.

DD

[Craneop2]

I got one of these letters the other day. Although mine was from Tonga ( wherever that is) the story was almost the same down to the amount.

The thing that wigged me out was he had my real name! Spelled correctly and every thing. I do not know how he got my name as I ALWAYS spell it wrong when I sign up for stuff or use any service on the net.

Sure wasn’t my bank account or he wouldn’t have bothered!!