Go Widda Flow

Short hiatus, eh?

Before I get to the subject material here, I recently found myself where I suppose some internet and other writers occasionally find themselves: thinking that I'd pretty much tanked on the humor reservoir, particularly on responding to 419 Nigerian email scam letters. There was this gnawing feeling that there was no humor left to wring from these idiot letters, whether or not I was really wringing any in the first place.

In all seriousness -- for at least a moment -- it is staggering and incomprehensible to me when I hear the statistics about folks who fall for and are bilked by the kind of 419 scam letters online that I've been receiving this past 6 years. Individually, the amounts run from a few hundred dollars to as much as ones' life savings in extreme cases. And it's worse, when one realizes that even when the perpetrator can be brought to 'justice', the victim has a worse than slim-and-none chance of ever recovering anything lost. In the cases where the victim lost thousands and more, it's a sad story for them and their families.

When you read the letters that I've shared here, along with the responses I get as I string some of these clowns along, it really makes you wonder what kind of person can actually allow themselves to be bilked by these transparent, "if it's too good to be true, it almost always is too good to be true" letters.

It's funny, and not so much so, how many otherwise intelligent, well-educated people fall victim to these scams. Most of which are, believe it or not, located in two of the generally more well-educated parts of the world: the US and Europe. Collectively, it is claimed (a claim I can't completely verify) that the income generated by these scams amount to the second leading revenue generator to Nigerian national coffers (after oil).

Anyway you slice it, that translates to one helluva lot of duped 'mugus' (the Nigerian term for "fool", applied by 419ers to those they dupe).

So much for analysis. Anyway, just as I came to believe I'd scraped the bottom of the humor barrel with these letters and found myself pondering the future of this blog -- and if there was one -- I received two more scam solicitations that suggested to me that I wasn't done yet. And being as how, after a few weeks of pondering it all I've come back to the inevitable conclusion that I yam what I yam (and I still hate yams, but I digress), I shall now depart the 'serious', and return to thence wherein the Skunk seems most adept at dwelling: goin' widda flow, wherever it leads.

In Part I (one), I (me) do one of my (un) patented faux "quick wit, cut and slash' responses to a particularly inept 419er who's trying to sound well-educated and articulate, and flops like a carp on asphalt in the July Georgia sun. This one you gotta read to believe. First, the 419er's ploy:

DEBT RECONCILIATION COMMITTEE (payment-info@winners.org)
RE: FINAL PAYMENT RELEASE

Dear Winner

We Apologies, for the delayed of your payment and all the Inconvenieces and Inflict that we might have indulge you through. However, we were having some minor problems with our payment system, which is Inexplicable, and have held us stranded and Indolent, not having the Aspiration to devote our 100% Assiduity in accrediting foreign payments (huh?).

We apologies once again from the Records of outstanding winners due for payment with {ONLINE CYBER PROMOTION} your name and particular was discovered as next on the list of the outstanding winners who have not yet received their payments (I think I understood this part, sorta kinda).

I wish to inform you that the square peg is now in square hole and can be voguish for that your payment is being processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this letter. Also note that from our record in our file, your outstanding winning payment is US$950,215.00 (NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN DOLLARS).

Payment will be made to you in a certified bank draft or wire transfer into a nominated bank account of your choice, as soon as you get in touched with (yeah, I'm sure they can't wait to touch me for this 'un...).

Mr. Fred Kumar
Email: fundremit_cen@yahoo.es

Provide him with the following details, as this will enable him to process and release of your cash prize without any delay.

Your Full Name
Telephone and Fax
Residental Address

Your urgent reply Mr. Fred Kumar via email: fundremit_cen@yahoo.es will effect the speedy release of your cash prize to you within 48hours.

Yours sincerely,
Mrs. Jane Philips, Vice President (of what?)

You'll pardon my overusage of a cyber expression suggesting a light (or lite) bulb going off, but *TOING*:

Dear Ms Jane Filledup and Fraud Kunar:

First off, allow me to compliment you not on the opening two paragraphs of your leading missive to me; it was as crystal clear in clarity as the run-off from Mt. St. Helens after it blew up in 1980. What in Hell's outhouse were you saying?

Oh, never mind. I do tend to nitpick about such things; like on the fine line between assiduity and assinity, a line you crossed with the finesse of a runaway Kenworth, but I digress.

Once I got past the bloating and syntaxial dystension accompanying your email, I was nonplussed to learn of your inexplicability in payment dysfunction. It is a leading economic indicator of colorectal excrement flowing at a rate that exceeds that of your average sub-Saharan bovine of aquatic variety. And being stranded with an indolent is rather annoying in a fireants-in-your-crotch kinda way, too.

Personally, I don't give a spiral dildo for much things voguish, but would be eminently satisfied if you'd kindly take your square peg and forcefully insert it in that square hole that you multi-task with (thinking and othering). If your square peg has slivers, mores the better.

I do have an issue with the amount of money you are saying I am a winner of: US$ 950,215? WHAT IN THE ELEPHANTFEATHERS IS THIS PITHY, PATHETIC $215 BEING ATTACHED TO THE MUCH LARGER, MORE LUCRATIVE SUM? DID YOU THINK ME AN INATTENTIVE DOORKNOB? DID YOU REALLY THINK I WOULDN'T NOTICE THIS OBVIOUSLY BOGUS AMOUNT THAT SOILS MY ALLEGED WINNINGS? WHICH ONE OF YOU PROJECTILE VOMIT BYPRODUCTS RAKED OFF MY OTHER $785?

Incidentally, Jane and Fred -- in a more cordial, totally non sequitur aside -- I have a pet rock named Seymour; he dates and knocked up an ear of corn named Jane. Per chance, do the two of you share some peculiar genealogical lineage? If you think so, I'm sure my Jane will deny it vociferously.

And yes, that's a real word.

At any rate, I have written you as you desired, though perhaps not entirely in the manure that you were contemplating before the spell check and thesaurus on your computer blew a nut and went syntax daffy. I must be off now; it's my week to slay mufflers on Yugos. So must yugo too, to self gratify yourselves with someone elses' barbed wire. Pull it through one extra time for me, soonest with sincerity.

Tataa,

Moi

If I get a follow-up reply from Jane or Fred, I'll be sure to let you know. I still want to know what in Hell's outhouse they were saying in those first two paragraphs...

Next up in Part II: thoughtful concern and solicitations from the Nigerian Investigation Department's Anti-Fraud Unit.

No kidding...