What in the hell is this!? (Otherwise known as, This is one weird email!)

I got this yesterday, so here ya go…

**ATTN: Brent Lumkin ,

Due to my careful search for an honest, reliable and
sincere business partner, i got your contact from the
internet and i ask if you can be trusted not to break
an agreement? Still, it took me time to make up my
mind to contact you and to offer you this proposal of
mine of which my whole life depends on.

Dear, my name is BANGOURA B.KABILA the son of the late
president DR.LAURENT KABILA,the former president of
ZAIRE (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO). I am 24 years
old and presently residing in DAKAR-SENEGAL in West
Africa under political asylum.

My mother happens to be a nurse whom the late
president had an affair with during his life style as
a play boy,and the affair resulted to my birth,but it
was unfortunate that the late president did not marry
my mother legaly and as a kind of settlement, for my
mother and i,my father deposited the sum of
Eight Million one Hundred thousand US cash( 8.1
million US.
dollars cash) to my mother for my life inheritance.

my father stashed these sum of money and deposited it
in a financial house in Europe and my name appears as
the next of kin.

After my father was killed by his body guard ealier
last year 2001, and my mother died also ealier this
year just two months after my father’s death, and at
the age of 24 years old,i am left with this huge sum
of money ,and i need a partner who will help me
transfer this money oversea for immediate investment
as i have made up my mind to invest in your country.

Your compensation for your immediate assistance is 5%
of the total money as soon as it arrives your country
while 2% will be for any local and international
expences that will occure during the transfer.

I will like truth and honesty to be our watchword in
this business.

You can contact me through my personal e mail address or via this telephone

Yours sincerely,

BANGOURA.**

…and I replied giving them a line of shit, and they sent me this…

**ATTN: Brent Lumkin,

I write to confirm the reciept of your mail and wish
to thank you very much for making ou time to write me
. I also thank you for accepting to assist m in
transfering my money to your country for investment
which will be to our mutual benefit.

With regards to your response, I wish to state here
that this transaction is real and is 100% risk free.
The money as i told in my first mail, belongs to my
father who lost his life during the war in my country.
I am now here in dakar-senegal where was deposited. I
have been able to re-establish the ownership of the
money with the security and finace company with the
documents that my father left with me.

Now, I am asking you to please, do your best and try
to come here to assist me in depositing this money
into a bank account here for futhrer transfer to your
account in your country. This is because, my statue
here as a refuggue does not permit me to open or
operate a bank account here. Your coming here will
also afford us the opportunity to see ourselfs face to
face and discuss in details on the area of investing
this money when it is finaly transfered to your bank
account in your country.

please sir, I will apprecieate you send to me, your
telephone number in your nest mail so that I can
contact you from here to enable us have a breif
discussion.

I await for your urgent and prompt response.

Best regards,

Bangura Kabila.**

…now, let’s see a raise of hands of all of those who got this also. What in the world is this just about anyhow? Is it an attempt at a virus, or what? It obviously isn’t any type of chain letter, as most of these are, so it has me confused, and freaked the hell out of me. So tell me, who else has ever got something like this before, and even better…

…have you ever recieved a weirder email than this?

This seems like an updated Nigerian Scam to me.

What is the scam though? Would someone actuall be stupid enough to GO to that country?

You got a fine little example of the “Nigerian Letter” It’s a scam. You respond and they tell you, in one form or another, that you’ll get a share of the money if you help. But there’s always a hitch, some government employee that needs to be paid off or something like that. They’ll keep it up until you quit sending them money.
I get 2-3 a week. Just delete them.

Yeah, do a search on “Nigerian Scam” and you’ll get lots of previous threads. You can also check out Snopes.

I’m surprised you haven’t seen it before. I get about one or two a week. And before e-mail I used to receive them by fax and regular mail.

Yes. I’d be careful.
http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Nigerian/lotteries.htm

Wait, so some people would actually send money!?

Yes, actually about a week ago, an old woman called up the Howard Stern morning show about a similar scam. The scammer gave the lady his number, after she had given him 1000 dollars.

Think about it this way, if you send out 1 million worms into the ocean, you are bound to get a fish or two. And that’s all you need…

This is very true, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine that someone would be so foolish…

…ok, that’s a lie, but still.

BrentLumkin wrote:

Evidently so. There was a program about this on PBS, or the History Channel, or something a few days ago. As much as 12 million had been taken in by this one scammer and his gang, IIRC. The average loss by responders was $200K. Hard to believe.

** Meatros** – Sadly, the crimes-of-persuasion website seems to have disappeared.

BrentLumkin – Yes, millions of dollars are lost each year to advance fee fraud scammers. I read an article a few weeks ago about a bookkeeper who actually embezzled money from a law firm to pay to these people.

You can read all about these scammers at Snopes, or check out Scamorama for a humorous take on the whole thing (plus an archive of hundreds of different scam letters).

Hey, do any of you know that website where the person actually “played” along with the scammers? He sent a picture of Rudy, from Survivor, to the scammers. The scammers actually sent him pictures and stuff-it was funny…

Hmmm, you have given me an idea and have inspired me…

wheels begin to turn in head

Scamorama, which I linked in my previous post, is the site where people have posted their attempts to scam the scammers.

These sites also came from a previous thread on this board. I found them beyond funny:

http://www.geocities.com/scamjokepage/
This guy plays himself as “David Lee Roth”. Somehow never actually manages to get to Nigeria though.

http://www.geocities.com/steerp1ke/
This one has a couple personas in his anti-scams. The H.P. Lovecraft one is brilliant.