It's Your Turn -- If Ya Wanna

A few of my readers have complained that they'd like a turn at scambaiting a scammer, but they never receive any scam emails, and/or don't know where to look for them.

Well, just for those of you in the aforementioned category, I have saved a few of these, just very recently received, and will post them here for you to follow up, if you really want to, or have the same kind of 'no-life' that allows yours truly to waste so much time on them.

With no further adieu (gesundheit):

1. From Mr. Ali Ahmed (mr_alhmed04@msn.com), a Read Carefully and Get Back To Me email that involves a fund left behind in a Burkina Faso bank, by a foreigner what died in one of those many falling planes from the skies of Burkina Faso. $15 million USD is up for grabs, and to help Mr. Ahmed out will entitle you to 30% of that total (which, of course, you'll never see). And Mr. Ahmed is a very pious sort, stating in his initial missive that "When I got your address i prayed and mediated fervently over it and i commited it into the hands of God that you should be the rightful person to help us out". Which, if true, just proves to me that God has a pretty off-the-wallclouds sense of humor, knowing me as He does, but I digress.

2. From Mr. Kavita Manju (k_manju006@msn.com), a Partner For Assitance plea, also from Burkina Faso, also for $15 million USD left behind by yet another foreigner what got hisself killed trying to ride one of them falling airplanes in the Burkina Faso air space, which is apparently more 'Bermuda Triangle' than the Bermuda Triangle. Mr. Manju is more generous, offering a willing foreign assistant 40% of the total, once you get over, in his words, "this message might meet you in (utmost surprise) however it's just my urgent need for foreign partner that made me to contact you". I'd be surprised, but after almost 9 years of this, I admit to a small degree of cyncism creeping into my 'surprise' reservoir.

3. For those of you who like mixing scambaiting with the likes of writing by folks like Stephen King, here's one: Barrister Frank Kujo (barr01frank_kujo@universia.cl), with yet another fund from Burkina Faso, courtesy of the failure of aerodynamics in the skies over same. This one's a bit disappointing: only $10.5 million USD, but he'll give you 45% of that to be taken by his offer to give you the business. He wants you to know how trustworthy he is, because, in his words, "I contacted you because it is against our code of ethics to own and operate a foreign accounts and your assistance would be needed to claim the money". The guy obviously went to the same business school as Barney Frank and Bela Pelosi.

4. And there's Ibrahim Kone (ibrahim_kone160@msn.com), a staffer (he says) at the ADB Bank in...*surprise*...Burkina Faso, with $15 million USD from a deceased customer (how the customer became deceased isn't revealed, but if you like to wager in Vegas, put your money on an air ship that fah down and go boom). You get 40% for playing along, and the knowledge that 10% of the funds will be used to "helping the less privileges, motherless babies home and charity organization in the world". Awwwww. How touching, in a "touched by an anvil" kinda way.

5. And here's Mr. Ben Hammed, who claims to be the director in charge of auditing and accounting for the Bank of Africa (benhammed2@terra.com), and has found yet another $15.5 million USD, left after another foreign schlep bought a plane ticket on Burkina Faso Kamikaze Airlines. He asserts that "I will not fail to inform you that this transaction is 100% risk free". He fails to square that statement with the assertion in the early part of the email that "due to the sensitive nature of this transaction, it is top secret, and you must treat it with confidentiality". I think he's been talking to Baghdad Bob Gibbs of the White House spin machine. At any rate, for playing the game, you get (the illusion of receiving) 45% of the $15.5 million USD. Happy happy joy joy.

6. Our cup runneth over from Burkina Faso, with this submission for help from Suleman Kajima (suleman_kajima@voila.fr), who is also the auditing/accounting director for the Bank of Africa in Burkina Faso. Fancy that. Apparently, Citigroup could take some lessons from BOA, what with all the directors of auditing/accounting they employ to handle all these multi-million dollar transactions from plane-crashed foreigners of descendent status. However, you might think twice about delving into getting the business from Suleman Kajima: he's only offering up $8 million USD, and isn't forthcoming about how much a 'cut' you gonna git for playing along as next of kin to a plane-crashed Floridian who placed all of his nest egg in BOA in Burkina Faso, before falling out of the sky in another faulty airliner there in '99. Y'know, and just as a digressive aside...the Rhodians collected all the scraps from left-behind Macedonian siege engines when Demetrius the Besieger (a successor of Alexander the Great) tried and failed to take Rhodes in the 3rd Century BC. And from all those siege engine scraps, they erected the 7th Wonder of the World, the Colossus of Rhodes (finished in 292 BC, and destroyed by an earthquake about 50 years later). Perhaps someone should start digging up all the airliner parts strewn all over Burkina Faso, and make the 9th Blunder of the World -- The Colossus Crash Site of Burkina Faso. But I digress. Anyway, Suleman's offer generally sucks, far as Burkina Fasoians go, but eh...it's your choice.

7. For something a little different -- and this guy gets the Brevity Award for his email -- there's Sun Ki Moon (dnwpomia@evertek.net), in which his simply titled email Business Preposition simply says, "I am a chinese national currently based in Nigeria and I have a business preposition. Regards". To get more details on getting the business from a chinaman in Nigeria, you have to show interest. Fortune cookies not incruded.

8. Other African nations don't wish to be left out here, as an email from Atiku Abubaka (atikuabubakar2008@yahoo.com) proves, who has an offer from Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, where he's a bank official and, quote, this is not joke. Sadly, Abubaka is something of a piker, having only 3.5 million EUROS to tempt you with, but on the other hand, he does assert that "i would want you to know that this deal is 100% legal and risk free, though it requires confidentiality". Abubaka doesn't say how the foreign engineer became deceased, but I'll bet it wasn't slipping on a bar of soap in an airplane restroom.

9. Last but certainly not least, I had to save the tear-jerker: Stella Moses (stella_ms20091@yahoo.co.th), from the Ivory Coast, "an orphan that being I lost my parents", one to assassination, and the other to possibly falling out of the sky on one of them darn fool aeroduhnamic things with a hitch in its 'git-it-up-and-keep-it-up-thar", though that isn't said outright. She has only $9.5 million USD to tempt you with, but the mere fact of her orphan status -- and that she's only 19 -- will woo your sensitivities, like a Sally Struthers infomercial.

There ya go, folks. Wanna play? There're your choices. Go git 'em. Oh, and a brief PS: a thanks to a former "follower" of my blog, for routing these to me, after getting POed at me for recognizing him/her as a scammer. Despite his/her hope that I'd find this annoying, it's proven to be just more fuel for scambaiting fools ;-)