The Nigerian Government Scammers

They are a plague upon humanity. They are devoid of conscience. They have no scruples. And they can take no hints. To this, I refer of course to that vile and loathsome pack of con artists and general wastes of space known as homo sapiens spammeritis irritatingus. The internet scammers and spammers who can't take a hint and just die already. They infest our email and our blogs with ads for things we don't want, with generic comments that prove they're not actually paying any attention to what you might post, and with get rich quick schemes that they hope someone will actually believe. Such as the following bit of nonsense, which came through my junk mail shortly after the new year.

Dear Friend


My apology for sending this unsolicited mail to you; I actually got your e-mail contact through my online exploration for proficient business persons and l decided to contact you directly about this business venture. I was assigned by my colleague to seek for a foreign partner who will assist us in providing a convenient foreign account in any designated bank abroad for the transfer of us$75,500,000.00 pending on our arrival in your country for utilization and disbursement with the owner of the account.

This amount results from a deliberate inflation of the value of a contract awarded by our ministry, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture (F.M.A)to an expatriate company.the contract has been executed and payment made to the original contractor, remaining the over-invoiced amount of us$75,500,000.00 million, which we want to transfer the funds out the country in our favour for disbursement among ourselves. The transfer of this money can only be possible with the help of a foreigner who will be presented as the beneficiary of the fund.

As government officials, we are not allowed to operate foreign accounts, and this is the reason why we decided to contact you. We have agreed that if you/your company can act as the beneficiary of this fund (us$75,500,000.00 million)18% of the total sum will be for you for providing the account while 2% will be set aside for the expenses incurred during the cost of transfer of the fund into your account while 80% will be reserved for us.

We hereby solicit for your assistance in providing a convenient account number in a designated bank abroad where this fund would be transferred. We intend coming over there on the completion of this transfer to secure our own share of the money.

Please note that we have been careful and have made all arrangements towards the success and smooth transfer of the fund to your account before you. For security reasons and confidentiality of this transaction, we demand that you should not expose this proposal and the entire transaction to anybody.

We are putting so much trust in you with the hope that you would not betray us or sit on this money when it is finally transferred into your account. Be rest assured that this transaction is 100% risk free. If this proposal is acceptable to you,indicate your interest by sending a email to us including your bank name & address, account number,telephone number.

Note that the particular nature of your company's business is irrelevant to this transaction. if this transaction interests you, your urgent response will be appreciated.

Yours faithfully,



Mr.George Emeka Emerah
Director, Finance Mini of Agriculture.
Email:mrgeorgeemerah@gmail.com
My Cellphone:+ 234-911-815-7020
Text Massage:+ 234-911-815-7020

Ah, yes, the standard Nigerian Government Ministry Scammer. One of the tell-tales of internet scams. We've seen these before, we'll see them again. He starts off by calling me friend (I'm not your friend, dumbass), and says he got my email by searching for business persons (I'm not a business person and have no interest in becoming one). He then proceeds to spin his tale, saying he and his colleague are trying to move over seventy five million dollars out of the country into an offshore account (oh, sure, what could go wrong with that). He keeps repeating that figure throughout the email.

He promises 18% for the gullible rube who actually believes this, while the bulk of the rest will go to he and his fellow conspirators.... otherwise known as dignified government ministry officials. All in the hopes of getting someone dumb enough to believe this form email bait.

There are warnings throughout. The overly formal style that suggests it's not actually written by someone who's got a natural grasp of the English language. Punctuation, capitalization, and spacing issues that are the hallmark of the internet scammer. Misspelling of a basic word here and there (text massage, really? What is this, a brothel? Well, to be fair, whoever's behind this probably also runs a brothel in some sleazy corner of the world).

They "demand" that I should not expose this proposal, which of course I've just done, and then add that "we are putting so much trust in you with the hope that you would not betray us or sit on this money when it is finally transferred to your account." 

Well, dumbass, if this were real, which it is not, trusting me would be a catastrophic mistake, because if that money transfer was real, I'd be completely betraying you inside of thirty seconds.

But it's not real. Because the only money changing hands is that administrative fee that you'll get out of of the one or two suckers dumb enough to believe this crap from that list of five hundred thousand random email addresses you sent this crap to. And then you'll disappear. And when they realize that the few thousand bucks they sent out as an administrative fee has vanished along with you, they'll realize they were scammed.

Of course it'll be too late. Because you'll be onto your next scam.

Sigh. I'd tell you to stop wasting oxygen, but you're too dumb to even do that.

Instead, might I make a suggestion? 

I'd like you to take some of that money you've scammed off a stupid person.

And go skydiving.

And end up just like this fellow.