I am so excited!
I finally received my first scam email from Africa. Her email is from Uganda.
oh.this.poor.poor.woman.
I got one of these the other day from some people based in Switzerland (so they said) and purporting to belong to the Independent Council of Esteemed Persons. Crikey, it’s like having the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen writing to you.
Esteemed Persons!
Whoooo, they must be loaded.
I will be replying to her, I just have to take care of pesky matters like getting my kids ready for school before I can help her repatriate her millions and a big fat diamond ring.
Well I’m very excited too, I got one from Yasser Arafat’s widow.
Then there’s lots more, about the secret bank accounts, and $6.5 billion… the “antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness” and it ends with
Oops. Does the SDMB count as ‘international media’?
Congrats on your deflowering. Considering your enthusiasim, from now on I’ll forword all similar emails that I recieve to you. Hope you have plenty of disk space.
Hey! How do you rate Arafat’s widow and I get some widow from Liberia? I wonder how long until they try to send emails out stating they are Ronald Reagan’s Widow. 
I say gor for it! Be sure that she sends you the 15kg of diamonds first, as a goodwill gesture.
During the negotiations, offer to drop your percentage exchange for one of her daughters.
I’ve gotten these scam spams in all sorts of languages including Esperanto, and yet somehow they all look the same. Weird use of capitals (often all-caps), long paragraphs, odd overly-polite phrasing… is there some sort of “Advance-Fee-Fraud Message-Writing School” somewhere? Is the English style indicative of some particular culture or school system? Are they all written by the same three people?
I’d only get worried if they started coming from George Bush’s widow…
That bitch! She offered me the same deal! Well, I’m not gonna share, no sirree and so I’m gonna withdraw my support!
Don’t trust her.
I went to school with that bitch!
She’s age 20 years and moved to S. Africa…but I can tell it’s her. :dubious:
On second thought, the letter is too well composed.
What I always find interesting in these emails is that you are the one “specifically chosen” to be the helper. My international connections start and end at Pier One imports, really, so the author’s ability to know me well enough to offer me several million is pretty exciting!
Here’s a web site that lists the “most outrageous” of these kinds of scams. Pretty funny, actually.
And if you want to read something exciting,
this group here played along with one of these scams and got the scammer to do some pretty outrageous things.
I had a coworker receive one of these emails and she came over to my desk very concerned. “What if they really need my help? Should I help them? And why is there email address say, “yahoo.com?” Are they serious or a bunch of yahoos? What should I say?”
I tried very hard to answer her with a straight face. I didn’t succeed once I discovered she was being serious.
Dear Dopers—
I know this mail will come to you as a surprise, nevertheless I am Czarina Alexandra “Cindy” Fedorovna, aged 46 years, the wife of the Emperor, Nicholas II of all the Russias. As a result of the on-going problem in my country, I am saddled with problems of my ill-health of protracted diabetes and high blood pressure, which is getting of increase in the recent times, more importantly getting a trustworthy individual abroad to receive the Crown Jewels of the Russian Empire on our behalf. Due to this war crises presently in my city St. Petersburg our home town, I managed to sneak myself and my son Tsarevitch Alexis of Russia and four other of my daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia, out of St. Petersburgh to Ykaterinoslav for safety.
We were sneaked into Ykaterinoslav by the help of some government militant group. After the killing of my husband by the Communists, we decided to come down here to Ykaterinoslav to secure the Crown Jewels deposited here by my husband and to further look for a trustworthy individual abroad to receive them, before he was eventually killed by the heartless rebels. I feel confident therefore to introduce myself to you based on this problem and our present condition as all our foreign contacts and connections got lost during this crises, all properties burnt by the rebels, and the dog ate Rasputin.
I am desperately in need to move and re-locate this huge deposit to your country for safe keeping as this is the only wealth remaining for the future survival and well being of my large family. For your percentage for assistance, a negotiable percentage will be discussed as soon as I receive your response based on this plea for your assistance as our lives are highly in danger due to this problem. I pray and plead for your help. You can email me back for further clarifications. God bless you as you respond to my plea for assistance.
Sincerely yours.
Czarina Alexandra “Cindy” Fedorovna, Empress of All the Russias
Czarina, your letter seems a bit off, as your English is a bit off from personal letter of yours that I have read.
Nevertheless, I am willing to help you, however, there is an issue at hand for you to help me with.
I am the former Governor of both Hawaii and Rhode Island. Both states are investigating me for fraud, accusing me of stealing funds from the state treasury.
What I need you to do for me is to provide testimony as to my character, confirming that I would never do such a foul deed.
Will you?
- Gov. Firstname M. “The Mighty” Quinn
Oh yay! It’s been far too long since the Mangetout/Austin Wemba/Dick Dastardly fun. (And believe it or not, that’s all from memory.)
I can’t share in the good-natured humor that the rest of you are enjoying in this thread. I’ve lost over a dozen relatives in Africa over the past year, all perishing in car accidents, along with their spouses and children. Luckily, each of my relatives was loaded with cash and I’m currently in the process of claiming these funds before the government swoops in and steals it forever. I’m hoping that this money will help ease the pain of my overwhelming loss.
I’m the next of kin to the latest and greatest Mr. Jonas Savimbi! I am too!!!
First thing I’m gonna do with my wad of cash, is buy my best friend **Koffi **a computer with a functional Caps Lock key.
So, being visited by the Koffi Nana is even better than being visited by the Tooth Fairy?
It would appear so. When dealing with **Koffi Nana **, everything is 100% risk free. With the Tooth Fairy…well… you’ve pretty much got to lose teeth!
Daizy Savimbi
In my 10 years or so of being online, I’ve never received one of these. I count myself lucky.