All Hail The Dying Cancer Scammer

They are the horde of the utterly damned. They never give up, never give in, never take a hint, and never go away. They will send us random emails and post things in our blogs that have nothing to do with the subject, but are meant to draw attention their way. They tell us sob stories and get rich quick scenarios that sound too good to be true- because they are nothing more than lies. They are homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus, otherwise known as the internet scammer and spammers. The following came through my email recently, from someone claiming to be dying of cancer.

Dear Beloved,

I am Fabio Antonio, A Portuguese national, I was browsing and I saw your email, So i decided to write to you if your email is real, I have been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment , and right now I have only about a few months to live. I am very rich, but was never generous; I have given most of my assets to my immediate family members.

I have decided to give alms to charity organizations. I cannot do this myself anymore because of my health. I once asked members of my family to give some money to charity organizations, they refused and kept the money. I have a huge cash deposit of Eighteen Million dollars with a security firm in America. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatch it to charity organizations. You will take out 30% of these funds for your assistance.

I would like you to acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail as soon as possible and treat it with absolute confidentiality and sincerity.

Nice fake name, by the way, Fabio. Because when I think of that name, I think of a Eurotrash male model with little brains and long hair who ended up in many adds and on many romance novel covers back in the way, before he took a seagull to the face during a roller coaster ride, and was never heard from again. 

You know. This guy.

In the spirit of the Cancer Widow, who is still alive and sending the same email about having a handful of months to live after a decade or so, Fabio here claims he has cancer. Not just cancer, but cancer that has "defiled all forms of medical treatment." Okay then. Defiled. Yeah, that tracks with the bad English of your usual internet scammer.

He spins the story of wanting to give his remaining fortune to charity, promising thirty percent of it to me for helping him. Right. Because that's believable. Because a guy who was actually this wealthy wouldn't have an accountant or lawyer who could do it for him.

But of course he's not this wealthy. Nor is he dying. Nor is he Portuguese. He's an internet scammer somewhere out in the dark corners of the web, sending this email out to random people. Hell, he could be the same one sending out the classic Cancer Widow storyline, and just took it in a different direction. And for the one person out of half a million who might fall for it, they'll learn better when they pay a few thousand dollars in an 'administration charge' and never hear from him again. But by then it'll be too late, because he'll be onto his next scam.

Nice try, ace. Really. But I know better.

What we need to do is take you out to this place.... and push you off the side.