Spam Observations #42

An anonymous feiend of MR JAMES wrote to me today to let me know that I have won $200,000 dollars (USD) for my ‘prompt claims’ of a cheque to this amount.

As Cow readers are no doubt aware from my rapidly accumulating Internet Fortune (see counter in the sidebar), this is really small potatoes given the grand scope of my past lottery windfalls. But this one could be quite handily reimbursed, so I know you will be all interested in what MR JAMES’ representative has to say:

CONGRATULATIONS

We are hereby happy to inform you that you emerge as one of the winners in the lucky pick of email address on the web. The cheque won is used as a compensation to the numerous internet users, and gotten from the non-claims of winning check of last years lotto winners in the UK lottery international promotions.

Wha? Sorry MR JAMES’ Friend (do you mind if I call you, oh, Mr Oyinbolowo?), but this is utterly incomprehensible. What on earth do you mean by ‘compensation to the numerous internet users…’? Compensation? For what? Compensation for using the internet?

God knows, we could all certainly use some compensation for putting up with idiots like yourself.

To that effect, We had to organise a lucky dip of all e-mail addresses on the web and sectioned them into zones such as the europe, asia, america, africa and the rest.

Ah the ol’ ‘lucky dip’. Such a quaint and somehow provincial term. Not so much something we might expect from the UK Lottery department as from, say, a church fete. May I suggest you change the term to something a little more sophisticated such as… hmmm… chocolate wheel, perhaps.

And what is this ‘and sectioned them into zones such as the europe, asia, america, africa and the rest’? I can visualize the map on your wall right now: Europe, Asia, America and Africa marked with nice printed names and then everything else just ‘the rest’ scrawled in biro. And curious that Africa makes a big appearance there among the named zones. Not that I’m inferring anything by that.

Did you ever see Gilligan’s Island, Mr Oyinbolowo? It was a television show about people marooned on a tropical island. The theme song originally featured these words:

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle
With Gilligan
The Skipper too,
The millionaire and his wife,
The movie star
And the rest
Here on Gilligan’s Island.

Did you notice the ‘and the rest’ in there, Mr O? The Professor and Maryanne didn’t take to kindly to being just lumped together as ‘and the rest’, and eventually the theme song was altered (at the great cost of the proper scanning of the lyrics) to include their names. I think you should learn a lesson from that. In fact, I suggest that you could learn quite a number of valuable Life Lessons from sitting down and watching Gilligan’s Island. At the very least it would fill up some of the time that you might otherwise use to annoy me.

Under these zones are the regions e.g under europe, we have london ireland, scotland, holland and e.t.c. same applies to every other zone

Uh-huh. So ‘and the rest’ would include a pretty long list of other regions, I guess.

So to that effect, your winning fell under the african zone and west african region.

Completely illogical, but go on…

So therefore, your winning had been sent down to the compensation agent in charge of that region in the person of Mr JAMES. You will have to make contact with him, and follow due procedures to effect the claims of your package which contains a winning check of $200,000dollars(USD) for your prompt claims.

OK, so presumably MR JAMES is in Africa, which, while completely failing to surprise me, is inconvenient because I don’t really want to have to travel to Africa to get this all sorted out. And you know how it is dealing with this kind of stuff over the internet. There are a lot of fraudsters out there Mr Oyinbolowo, and I really would rather do this kind of transaction in person, even if it is for such a paltry sum.

At the moment, I am very busy at Sydney,Australia because of numerous
assignments which I have to carry out. To that effect, I dont think you will have the opprtunity of communicating with me anymore. All you need do is reach the compensation agent Mr JAMES through this e-mail

Wait! Mr Oyinbolowo! Au contraire! What a serendipitous piece of fortune! I LIVE in Sydney Australia, so your schedule has made our meeting almost too easy! Name your place Mr O, and I will be there to pick up my cheque (and maybe I could slip you a little something for your trouble, eh? MR JAMES need never know ;-)

– Mr Oyinbolowo goes on to give me some more advice, mostly about how important it is that I get in touch with MR JAMES as soon as possible because MR JAMES is about to go on leave for a long holiday. MR JAMES evidently hasn’t had a break in three years and does a lot of overtime… Mr O’s concern with MR JAMES’ wellbeing is heartwarming bordering on toadying. He eventually signs off…

My sincere advice to you as a christian is that you should endeavour to pay your tithe to a bible believing church when you get winning check .

Mr Oyinbolowo, my sincere promise to you as an atheist is that I will do everything in my power to see that not only a tithe, but the entire sum of my winnings will go to a Church! Now you can’t ask for fairer than that!

So, I look forward to your contact while you’re in town. I hope you’re enjoying the lovely weather and that your numerous assignments aren’t keeping you from regular attendance at prayer meetings.