Thu 12 Jun 2008
Can Someone Get Me Another Kofi?
Posted by anaglyph under Spam Observations, Stupidity
[10] Comments
Spam Observations #48
Acowlytes! I think you can understand the great honour I felt this morning when I received a personal correspondence from Kofi Anan at the United Nations:
From: kofianan111@yetanotherspammer.com
Subject: Good News
Date: 12 June 2008 8:04:09 AM
Well, sure, not the Kofi Annan, who spells his surname with an additional ‘n’, but a Kofi from the United Nations nevertheless:
UNITED NATION COMPENSATION UNIT,
IN AFFILIATION WITH ZENITH BANK.
Send a copy of your response to official
Email: zenith_bank3000@burnyourcash.com
OK, OK, so that’s Kofi Anan from the United Nations Compensation Unit, as opposed to Kofi Annan ex Secretary-General of the United Nations…
ATTN: Sir/Madam,
How are you today? Hope all is well with you and family?,You may not understand
why this mail came to you.
Kofi, you know what? I think that I probably have a pretty fair idea why someone from Nigeria pretending to be Kofi Annan of the United Nations is writing to me…
This email is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the
world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$
150,000.00
OK, so to clarify, the UNITED NATIONS is offering to compensate ‘all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world’ to the tune of $150,000 each? Even without doing much research I think that’s gonna be a pretty hefty figure. Quite honestly, Kofi old mate, I would have thought that the United Nations had much more important things than that on which to spend its money.
Or maybe what you mean is that the $150k has to get divided among everyone. In which case, I don’t think it’s going to stretch much beyond buying them each a Tic Tac. If that.
(Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars)
Whoa there boy. It’s suddenly $500,000.00 in the space of a line break? That’s better, sure, but I still think you’re underestimating your commitment.
This includes every foriegn contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc.
Yeah. ‘All the people that have been scammed in any part of the world’ pretty much covers the bases. Prolly didn’t need to single anything out in particular.
We found your name in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have
been agreed upon and have been signed.
Hang on there sport. What’s been agreed upon and signed? with whom? What list? A hit list? Honestly, it’s all just been in good fun here on The Cow! Isn’t that right Cowpokes? (Everybody nod!)
You are advised to contact Mr. Jim Ovia of ZENITH BANK NIGERIA PLC, as he is
our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your Cheque/
International Bank Draft of USD$ 150,000.00
Dang. Back down to $150k again.
(One Hundred fivty Thousand United States Dollars)
Yep. Definitely 150 now.
This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose ok? so he will send it to you and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. (Oh it’s all so dreary after attempt number two million..)
Why do these people persist? How can it be that there is anyone left on the planet that still falls for these things? Now, in what must be surely a parody of the new trend in Hollywood to make remakes of remakes*, we’re getting scams about scams!
Seriously, think about it: just saying you bought one of these Nigerian scams in the first place, and lost all your money, how STUPID would you need to be to fall for THIS ONE? Kofi Anan must have set his sights on the most moronic of the dimwitted. Surely he’s narrowed his potential victim base beyond all reasonable hope of success. Are there actually people in the world with control of any proper money who are that cretinous? Really? Name one!‡ Oh. Right.
Making the world a better place
Regards,
Mr. Kofi Anan
Kofi, I sincerely doubt that.
___________________________________________________________________________
*What is with that? Re-remakes of Batman? Re-remakes of The Incredible Hulk? You know, someday someone’s going to re-remake Flash Gordon and ruin it! (That’s a joke of a form that maybe only Cissy Strutt will understand)
‡I read somewhere the other day, that for the amount of money that George Bush has cost the USA with the invasion of The Iraq, a 500 person colony could have been established on Mars.
___________________________________________________________________________
I would be laughing, except for the fact that I find Kofi’s second sentence chilling.
“Hope all is well with you and your family?”
That question mark … brrrr. Because my answer is, “Yes, I do hope so – why do you ask?”
Yes, yes, I see what you mean. It’s the part that a smiling-yet-totally-evil James Earl Jones would play in The Film of My Life.
Is that the great scene where James Earl Jones confronts Bad Bob Balaban in the whiskey distillery as you cower behind a cask of amontillado?
(The writers originally had you cowering behind a butt of malmsey, but the producers feared that Americans wouldn’t know a butt was equal to two hogsheads.)
Yes, that’s the scene. Just before he bricks me up in the wall with my black cat.
(The main problem is that most Americans – present company excepted of course – don’t know their butt from their jeroboam)
Wow, I got the exact same email from Robert Mueller and the FBI, we gonna be rich brother!
I woudnt a-figgerd you for a Sir/Madam, Revrend.
Is that only wif yer clothes on, or also wif yer clothes off?
I mean … not t get TOO prsonal …
Malach: Yeah, and I bet the ‘FBI’ that sent your letter has a mailing address to its branch in Nigeria, right…?
Joey: Yeah. Well, as we already know spammers have a lot of problems figuring out their gender. It evidently carries over into figuring out other people’s gender as well…
Atlas: Well, not unless Phoenix hits an oil seam.
I guess it coulda been worse. It could’ve been a PORN spam mail. You know, the guy coulda been pushing you to drink cream with your Kofi.
Oh dear. Lowering the tone much?
I got one of these emails myself. I immediately started a search to see what I could find that would expose this as a fraud. The first indication was that there is a listing for an official UN Compensations Commission, but not for a Compensations Unit. The only thing I wonder is how the scammers managed to use the un.org suffix on their email address. I would have thought the “org” would be limited to official organizations, though I may be wrong there. I’m sure they would have tried un.gov, if they thought they could get away with it.
I agree; could there be anyone left online who is fooled by these transparent congames and how senile would they have to be? I am 65 myself and didn’t find this message at all convincing.
With love under will,
Bob, aka Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville