Does The Scam Artist Rabbi Do Bar Mitzvahs?

Some links before getting started today. Norma had some news. Lena featured interviews with Norma and Lorelei. Parsnip had photos. Maria featured a TV show from the past.

They are the accursed pestilence walking the earth. They never give up. They never go away. They spam us relentlessly, even in posts titled All Spammers Should Be Dropped Into Sulphuric Acid. They try selling us Gucci bags, life insurance, death insurance, insurance against insurance agents, and toffee. They send us endless email pleas that end up in our junk folders trying to scam us. Yes, the spammers and scammers.

In recent days my photoblog and a number of photobloggers I follow have been subjected to a spammer trying to spam cars and car accessories. It's the exact same message over and over, with spam links embedded in the punctuation (the insufferable twits are learning new tricks). The spam somehow gets past the usual filters into my blogs... where of course I remove it and dump it into spam folders where it belongs.

And then there's this recent scammer message that turned up in my junk mail, from a scammer identifying himself as Rabbi Peters. It is as follows. Commentary afterwards.

Dear Sir,

My name is Barrister Saviour Peters. I was a personal lawyer to a gold dealer, who died as a result of a car accident few years ago, (May his soul Rest in Peace).

I have been searching for his family member or relation in overseas for so long after his demise but to no avail until I came across your contact on the internet during my continuous search bearing the same sure name as his which will help you stand in a better position as next of kin through my help as his then lawyer to make the claim without hitch or obstacles.

I hereby seek your consent to present your name to the security company, so that you and I can inherit this fund and the gold which was also  deposited  through my assistance. Note you will stand to be compensated with a handsome reward after every change of ownership and claim is successfully made in your name.

The  value  of the money was  Fourteen Million United Stated Dollars which was the  contract sum  deposited by him before his death. Kindly get back to me for  more details about this case.

Best Regard,
Saviour Peters

Well. Now this is a new trick from those pesky scammers hailing from certain parts of Africa (Nigeria, I'm looking at you. Why? Because you're the usual suspect in these things. Don't give me that look, mister! Do I have to come over there and get medieval on you?). Passing themselves off as a rabbi. Usually it's the daughter, widow, personal masseuse, mistress, congregation member, or concubine of the dearly departed resident government minister, general, warlord, deposed president, or witch doctor from whatever part of Africa we're not paying attention to at the moment. Instead we've got a rabbi.

Oh, right, a rabbi who calls himself by the title Barrister Saviour Peters. So the rabbi is also a lawyer, or so he'd like us to believe. Granted, I haven't been in many synagogues, but I somehow doubt a real rabbi would be referring to himself as a saviour.

So our not so good attorney-rabbi would like us to believe that his client, a former gold dealer who just happens to have my name, died in a car accident and may his soul rest in peace, blah blah blah. And what if I suggested that this fictional gold dealer (and that's what he is, fictional, because we all know there's no gold dealer in this story you're trying to pass off) was not resting in peace? Would that eliminate my chance at the millions you're waving in front of my face?

Yes, the fourteen million United Stated dollars you mention in this little scheme of yours (with lots of capital letters where one doesn't need them). If you were a real attorney (which you are not), you'd catch that little misspelling of the world's most powerful country, not to mention understand that this scheme, if it actually was real (and it's not, Nigerian scammer, it's not) would be in a word... illegal. Why don't you try this scam on some of the five million other people you've sent this to? Maybe somebody named Jethro will buy it.

Well, I have to give the scammers points for imagination. This is the first time I've seen them bring the fake rabbi angle into their scams. Too bad we can't go all Old Testament on the scammers and throw them into a fiery furnace. Come on, it would be a service to humanity!

Okay, if not that, can we give them all the Ebola virus?