I have some amount of awesome to post. I'm putting this in the Blog because I'm going to comment on it a bit, but if I was to post only the letter I received, I would put it in the Writings section. It is a wonderful bit of fiction. Anyway, without further ado (what the hell is 'ado' anyway?) here it is: The "Anti-419 Scam" Scam (paragraph format, grammar, and spelling have been left exactly as I found it):
ATTN: SIR/MADAM,
SCAMMED VICTIM/£350,000.00 GBP BENEFICIARIES.
REF/PAYMENTS CODE: 08813 £350,000.00 GBP
This is to bring to your notice that I am delegated by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Gordon Brown) and the Cabinet (consisting of all the most senior government department heads) to pay 100 UK-419 scam victims £350,000.00 GBP each and incidentally, you are listed and approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims. You are advised to get back to this office as soon as possible for the immediate payments of your £350,000.00 GBP compensations grant.
On these faithful recommendations we want you to know that this deal came at a summit of G20 countries in London, United Kingdom, where Leaders of the world's largest economies met and reached an agreement on plans to beat the economic slump and tackle the global financial crisis with measures worth US$1 Trillion (£681bn GBP).
During the meetings, it was alarmed so much by the rest of the world's largest economies in the meetings on the loss of funds by various foreigners to the scams artists and syndicates operating all over the world today. In other to retain the good image of the country, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet deemed it fit to reimburse 100 victims of this operators £350,000.00 GBP each, due to the corrupt and inefficient banking systems in UK, these payments are to be paid by BARCLAYS BANK PLC. as corresponding paying bank under foundling assistance of the NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK LONDON, HSBC Bank and a few other reputable banks in UK.
According to the number of applicants at hand, 78 beneficiaries has been paid, half of the victims are from the United States and we still have more 22 left to be paid the compensations of £350,000.00 GBP each. As earlier mentioned, your particulars were mentioned by one of the syndicates who was arrested in London as one of their victims, so you are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to him/them for any reason whatsoever, the US secret service is already on trace of the criminals.
For more vital information, you are advised to contact the payment compensations coordinator in charge of your payment schedule/release immediately.
Name: Dr. Gordon Pell
Email:dr.gordonpellprivates@gmail.com
Tel/Fax: +44 871 211 3565
USA Office
Tel/Fax: +1 2063507931
You can receive your compensations payments via any of the options you may choose; DRAFT PAYMENTS or WIRE TRANSFERS or ATM CARD for more info contact the payment compensations coordinator.
Yours faithfully,
Dr. (Mrs.) Sarah Wilson
Financial Service Authority, UK
For
The Prime minister
This woman is obviously English, due to her poor command of the language. And there is no reason I can think of that the United Kingdom would not choose to give 30+ Americans $500,000 each. What's fifteen million dollars between friends? foreign governments and ignorant users of the world wide web? In fact, it would be irresponsible for them to not give us that much money. Added to the fact that it's speaking out against 419 scams, I'm positive that this is legit. So I have no reason to believe that this is anything other than what it claims to be.
Okay, that's enough fun. Do they think people are stupid enough, after being told "Don't believe the emails that say you are due to receive thousands and thousands of dollars, don't believe the emails that say you are due to receive thousands and thousands of dollars, don't believe the emails that say you are due to receive thousands and thousands of dollars..." to believe an email that says they are due to receive thousands and thousands of dollars? The people who actually were scammed by a 419 email may actually believe that the United Kingdom (for some reason) is willing to pay back some of their losses (because they're already gullible and stupid? Sure...) but no one else. It seems like such a stretch to change their MO like this. Has word circulated the globe enough that people are not believing that deposed Nigerian royalty are contacting them? Has the collective consciousness really become that intelligent and full of -- dare I suggest -- common sense? Awesome!
Unfortunately, I don't believe it. As I remarked to my wife the other day, "The more people you get together in a group, the dumber they become. As a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, groups of people are only as smart as the stupidest contributor." Unfortunately, it's actually considerably stupider. There seems to be some sort of "intelligence latency" where the more a thought or remark gets passed around, the more it loses any semblance of insight or credulity. And as the intertubes is comprised of the sum population of the entire planet there exists a lot of weak, stupid links, and a lot of latency in the connection.
Screw it, I'm going to go post on twitter about Kanye West. (Woo! I jumped on the Kanye West train! Featured next month: Balloon Boy comments!)
Note: if I actually send an email to dr.gordonpellprivates@gmail.com, am I going to get anatomically-correct and clinically-accurate porn in return? E.g. "Your reproductive organs are very healthy and create a physiological reaction in mine. We should attempt the first step towards procreation." If so, count me in!
