Legend Of The Bloody Scammer

They never take a hint. The spammers and scammers, of course. They try to infest our posts with spam comments for crap that we wouldn't buy. Sometimes they make it past the spam filters and their comment is published. But not for long.

And of course they email us occasionally, along with hundreds of thousands of other people emailed at random, with variations on the businessman/ prince/ preacher/ widow scam with millions of dollars to offer some sucker who's dumb enough to buy into the scam. Such is the case with the following, emailed in the last few days. It turns out that this fellow's name has been used for quite some time in the realms of the typical Nigerian scammer, and a copy of this letter has been making the rounds for some time.

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE - STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

I am Chiedu Boglo the son of a retired General in the Nigerian Army and a former minister. I came to know of you in my search for a reliable person to handle a very confidential transaction, which involves the transfer of a huge sum of money to a foreign account. There were series of contracts executed by a Consortium of Multinational for the ministry in which my father was minister in our country. The original values of these contracts were deliberately over-invoiced to the tune of forty-one Million United States Dollars (US$41,000,000.00). The over-invoiced sum he purposed to acquire for himself after retirement.

Unfortunately, things took another turn.I will explain more to you when you show your interest to assist me. Consequently, I am looking for someone who will help us ( my father and I) to receive the money on our behalf. Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20% of the total transferred sum. While we shall take 75% and the balance 5% has been set aside to take care of any expenses you shall incure in the process of the transfer of this fund.

You must however NOTE that this transaction is subject to the following terms and conditions; (i) Our conviction of your transparent honesty. (ii) That you wound treat this transaction with utmost secrecy and confidentiality. (iii) That the funds would be transferred to an account over which you have absolute control. Modalities have been worked out at the highest levels to make for the immediate transfer of the funds within 10 working days, subject to your satisfaction of the above stated terms. Our assurance is that your role is 100% risk-free. To accord this transaction the legality it deserves and for mutual security of the funds, the whole approval procedures will be officially and legally processed with your name or the name of your company you may nominate as the bonafide beneficiary. Kindly, respond to this mail with a view to my giving you more information. Please, do send your acceptance via my E-mail address. Also, include in your mail you private/confidential telephone and fax number to enable me reach you as soon as I get your response. Thank you very much as I anticipate your response.

Yours faithfully,

Prince Chiedu Boglo.

Where do we begin? Well, with the end- he signs off by calling himself a prince, which he doesn't remark about in his opening comments. Instead those opening comments say he's the son of a retired general in the Nigerian army and a former minister. 

He writes in that overly formal complete BS style of the typical scammer, capitalizing words that don't need to be capitalizing, omitting other words (Multinational what, dumbass?) He claims over-invoices were made to the tune of 41 million American bucks (writing it out, as usual, in both letters and numbers in case the gullible rube he's targeting isn't bright enough to notice it once). 

He claims Daddy wanted to set that aside for retirement, but ran into some difficulties and needs help getting that money out of the country on his behalf. Which means twenty percent for me from the total. The totally non existent total that this scamming scammer would have me believe is out there just waiting for me- to "wound treat this transaction with utmost secrecy and confidentiality." Wound? Is it that hard for you to spell would? Though to be honest, wounding you does come to mind.

Nice try, Prince Boglo. Totally fake Prince Boglo. Sorry to say that you're not scoring an invite to that big shindig with Prince Harry and his blushing bride, but we know you're not a real prince. You'll just have to find someone else to try to sucker. Perhaps someone on that list of 500 000 (five hundred thousand) email addresses is dumb enough for you to manage to scam.

The only thing you're good for me is to ridicule.

In an ideal world we could see to it that you'd meet the end you deserve.

If only a certain movie wasn't fiction.

We could introduce you to an old trail boss named Curly.

And let him use you for knife throwing practice.