A lot of people want to give me money.
Just in the last 24 hours, I’ve had an offer from Alexander, who is working under the “directive of Mr. Mikhail Khodorkovsky to source for a partner abroad who can accommodate 50M & 150M USD for investments”; Dr [M]atti [L]ahteenma, minister of finances, who wants me to contact Mr Luis Zima about the $7,500 being sent to me via Western Union as part of the “mandate to transfer [my] full inheritance payment total sum of USD1.4million”; and Kwabene Donkor, the “Branch Manager of a Financial Institution” in Ghana who is writing to solicit my assistance to transfer $12.5 million.
I can add these folks to a list of others: the family members of Nelson Mandela, another branch manager at a financial institution in Ghana, several people from the Benin Republic (one by way of the FBI’s “Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division” that takes a kind of meta approach to the art of scamology), and a British-sounding military officer seeking my assistance “On a Project Proposal Worth Millions of Dollars and a box full of diamonds.”
And I thought the chivalry of Nigerian princes was dead.
What’s interesting about these offers is the level of detail they go to and the level of detail they leave out. Alexander doesn’t give me his last name, but he’s willing to give up Mr. Mikhail Khodorkovsky for a price. Dr Matti Lahteenma and others don’t tell me which financial institutions they work for, but they’re awfully precise about the numbers. And Sgt. Andrew Chandler, the supposed Brit, is happy to tell me he’s been assigned to the “782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division[3]” but leaves that box full of diamonds dangling like a poster kitten.
Sergeant, you had me at “Kindly accept my apology for sending you this email without your consent,” but I want specifics about those diamonds. Are they GIA graded? Could I put them in a pendant or a tennis bracelet? Did you get them from Cartier? Tiffany? Harry Winston?
The ingenuity of these scams is often betrayed by their sloppiness, not just in the lack of pertinent detail (and the overcompensating TMI) but in the typos, as well as the failure to localize their copy for American audiences. Clearly, these financial wizards need copy editors and proofreaders.
Which is why I am hereby offering my services. If you’re in this game, for a small percentage (or a box of diamonds), all you have to do is send me your pitch and I’ll gladly give it the once-over. Just include your SSN, your bank routing number, your passwords, your first dog’s name, and any offshore account information pertinent to this or other business transactions.
In short, there’s simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering than here in Scamalot.
Warmest Regards,
The King