The Night Of The Spamming Dead

Well, I am back up and running at Facebook, though this is not the end of it as far as I am concerned. Norma wrote about the Facebook debacle as a follow up, as well as something new this morning done in the style of our fake newspage The International Intruder. My blogging friend Shelly has now been suspended by Facebook, hence the whole not the end of it as far as I'm concerned. And yesterday was a Friday, so Parsnip had a Square Dog Friday post, one that left me rather bothered.

Now then, let's get to it, shall we?

The common scammer and spammer (homo spammeritis annoyingus) never seems to take a hint. We don't care about knockoff Gucci bags or time share vacations. We don't believe their assurances that their get rich quick scheme out of some corner of Africa is absolutely above the board. And yet that doesn't stop them from infesting our spam comment folders, or turning up in junk email. Below we have two such examples, one very short, and another a classic variation on Ye Olde Nigerian Spammer.

Today, while I was at work, my sister stole my iphone

and tested to see if it can survive a thirty foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is entirely off topic but I had to share it with someone!

With due respect to your person and much sincerity of purpose, I make this contact

with you as I believe that you can be of great assistance to me. My name is Mr. Mr.Abdoul Aziz ibrahim, from Ouagadougou Republic of BURKINA FASO , West Africa . Presently I work in the African development Bank as telex manager. I have been searching for your contact since you left our country some years ago.

I do not know whether this is your correct email address or not because I only used
your name initials to search for your contact .In case you are not the person I am
supposed to contact, please see this as a confidential message and do not reveal it to
another person but if you are not the intended receiver, do let me know whether you
can be of assistance regarding my proposal below because it is top secret.

I am about to retire from active Bank service to start a new life but I am sceptical
to reveal this particular secret to a stranger. You must assure me that everything
will be handled confidentially because we are not going to suffer again in life.

It has been 10 years now that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to
launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers. Most of the funds
which they transferred out of the shores of Africa were gold and oil money that was
supposed to have been used to develop the continent. Their Political advisers always
inflated the amounts before transfer to foreign accounts so I also used the
opportunity to divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official
trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers were
being closed after transfer.

I acted as the Bank Officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they
were using me to succeed in their greedy act; I also cleaned some of their banking
records from the Bank files and no one cared to ask me because the money was too much
for them to control. They laundered over $5b Dollars during the process .As I am
sending this message to you, I was able to divert thirty five million united state
dollars ($35m) to an escrow account belonging to no one in the bank. The bank is
anxious now to know who the beneficiary to the funds is because they have made a lot
of profits with the funds.

It is more than Eight years now and most of the politicians are no longer using our
bank to transfer funds overseas. The ($35) Million Dollars has been LAYING waste but I
don't want to retire from the bank without transferring the funds to a foreign account
to enable me share the proceeds with the receiver. The money will be shared 60% for me
and 40% for you.

There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I secured everything. I only
want you to assist me by providing a bank account where the funds can be transferred.
You are not to face any difficulties or legal implications as I am going to handle the
transfer personally. If you are capable of receiving the funds, do let me know
immediately to enable me give you DETAILED information on what to do.

For me, I have not stolen the money from anyone because the other people that took the
whole money did not face any problems. This is my chance also to grab my own but you
must keep the details of the funds secret to avoid any leakages as no one in the bank
knows about the funds.

Please get back to me if you are interested and capable to handle this project

I shall intimate you on what to do when I hear from your confirmation and acceptance.
If you are capable of being my trusted associate, do declare your consent to me.

Waiting for your urgent response.

Yours Faithfully,

Mr. Mr.Abdoul Aziz ibrahim

And I'm back again. Let's see, as to the first, what can we say? Having your phone (or is it an ipad? You said both iphone and ipad) dropped and destroyed by your sister isn't off topic. You wouldn't go share that with a total stranger, you'd be annoyed, and rightfully so. No, it never happened, you're just desperately trawling for anyone to click on the link that came after that comment. Note that I didn't actually include your link, spamming spammer.

As to the second, well we have the standard horrible grammar, wrong punctuation, and bad wording of your average Nigerian spammer (by way of Burkina Faso). At least this one doesn't pull the "doing the good work of the Lord" charitable cause angle. Abdoul seems to think I left his country a few years ago. Abdoul, I hate to tell you this, but that would imply I was ever in your country. Or that I would ever want to be. While there are parts of Africa I would love to see, somehow Burkina Faso doesn't make that list.

He's playing off the greedy politician angle hoping to rile up some outrage, and suggests our partnership can screw them over by diverting some of their money to us (in united state money). 35 million bucks, split sixty forty. Uh huh. Sure. Yeah. Right. I'll believe whatever you say, Abdoul.

And if you believe that, Abdoul, or whatever your real name is, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. It goes nicely with the ocean front property in Saskatchewan. Where you'll be served cocktails by our good friends the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. The Abominable Snowman is taking the winter off.