The South African Banker Scam

They are a plague on the universe as a whole. Nostradamus never saw them coming. Though no doubt some version of them existed in his day. They infest our email with pointless spam and scam messages They leave comments desperately trying to draw attention to themselves (Rajani Rehana, I'm looking in your direction, you jackass) while proving that they don't actually read the blog post in question. I speak, of course, of the vile, loathsome lot known as internet scammers and spammers, otherwise known as homo sapiens spammeritis irritatingus. The following came through my email recently.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Mike Ondra  assistant to Mark Stewart who is a advisor and former director BDO South Africa.  I write to you with regards to one of my late clients who left a huge amount in a private institution unclaimed.

The amount involved is USD$18,000.000.00. My client next of kin is very young and a girl who is looking for a foreign investor to assist her re-invests this fund into a lucrative business venture.

Your kind response will enable me to give you details on how this transaction will be finalized.

Yours truly,
Mike Ondra
( Advisor BDO )

Oh, yes. That old unreliable banker scam ploy. This one from South Africa this time. He spins the story of unclaimed funds (in the ballpark of 18 million bucks) from a "late client". He tells us that the next of kin is a young girl who is "looking for a foreign investor to assist her re-invests this fund into a lucrative business venture."

First- re-invests? Shouldn't that be "in reinvesting"? I would think so.

Second, bankers are unscrupulous and would be looking for ways to line their own pockets, not reaching out to random people on the other side of the planet.

Now that I've insulted bankers (they deserve it), I should also add that this is, of course, nonsense. This is shorter than the usual Cancer Widow/ Beloved Former Tyrant email scam, but has the same hallmarks. Because a real situation involving a real person of a minor age involving a real substantial sum of money would not be in limbo. This would have all been arranged well in advance. 

But this is not real. This is the work of a scammer. And I know all of your tricks.

Because I know all of your tricks, I wish you well (actually, no, I don't, I wish you to go to hell) with some name on that list of half a million random emails you've sent this to. Maybe someone will be dumb enough to believe it, buy into it, and send off the "processing fee" you'll bring up after they've bought the bait, and only realize they were scammed after their ten grand disappears forever along with you. 

Point is, I'm not dumb.

Look, I get it, it's impossible for you to make an honest living. You're a scumbag, and scumbags have to resort to being scum. So you're going to do crap like this. It's your nature. It's just tedious for the rest of us who have to put up with you.

It's in that spirit that I wish you would run into one of these guys. It would make our lives so much easier.