The Very Unethical Banking Scam

No matter how many times they're told to go to hell (rather hot this time of year), they do not listen. I speak, of course, of the internet scammers and spammers, that vile lot of repugnances otherwise known as homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus. They keep at it all the time, leaving our blogs infested with random crap comments that have nothing at all to do with the post. They send us emails promising riches that will never come- because, well, they're scammers. 

The following came through to my email some weeks ago.

From: UBS Investment Bank (London)
1 Golden Lane, London.
EC 1Y 0RR, United Kingdom.
The Operations Manager,

Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics,however, this correspondence is unofficial and private and it should be treated as such. First. I am Mr. Gerald Johnson, the Operations Manager with the UBS Investment International Bank here in London. I am contacting you based on my personal interest in developing a mutual business relationship with you in your country. One of our accounts with a holding balance of GBP7,549,250.00 has been dormant for many years. Please I am asking for your partnership in re-profiling the funds. First of all I solicit your assistance to execute this transaction which will be covered up by me with my status here in the bank. If you are interested to know more, please email me back so we can discuss more about this great business opportunity.

Yours Sincerely,
Gerald Johnson

Sigh. Okay, where do we start? Well, there's some of the usual tell-tales of the internet scammer. Punctuation and spacing issues. Formality in the wording that seems too formal, and far too much like you'd expect out of the internet scammer that this is. He says that this is 'unofficial and private and should be treated as such'. Too bad I'm now making a point of making it public. 

Because it's a scam. Pure and simple. 

Because dangling 7.5 million pounds out in front of random strangers isn't done by real bankers. No, they're too busy figuring out ways to siphon money into their own secret accounts that nobody else knows about. Same as every other banker in the home office. They simply aren't going to be seeking out random strangers on the internet to offer a too good to be true deal.

Side note: I don't have much respect for bankers, but more so than I do for salespeople.

Because it's too good to be true. Since it's fake. There's no money.

The idiot, interestingly enough, uses the phrase "will be covered up by me with my status here in the bank". A curious way of saying it, because if the money was real and the banker was real (they're not), that would qualify as an admission of a criminal act. 

It is a criminal act- trying to rob the gullible blind with this nonsense. But it's not the crime of financial mismanagement that this 'banker' is proposing. Because, again, he's not a real banker, and his name isn't even Gerald. It's whatever the hell his real name is at the far end of a long line of email addresses leading to some nitwit, perhaps in a former Soviet republic.

Nice try, pal, but as I've said before, I've seen far too much of this nonsense, so I know when I see this kind of email that it's nothing more than a scam. Perhaps one of the five hundred thousand other people you sent this to might bite at the irresistible bait (at least until they realize they were robbed after paying an 'administrative fee'), but I know better. 

Now go away, or sooner or later, I'm going to suggest you spend some unpleasant time on one of these things.