The African Lawyer Scam Gambit

They are the bane of my existence. And yours. They never stop, no matter how many times they've been ridiculed, no matter how many times they are not replied to. They can't find an honest way to make a living. They infest our spam email, and infest our comments with spam. And it never ends. I speak, of course, of that foul subspecies of humanity we call homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus, the internet scammer and spammer. Such is the case with the following, which came through to my email recently.

Hello Friend,

I am Mr. Eric Kabanda, Lawyer by Profession, however this correspondent is private. I am a financial consultant to an investor from a Mineral-Rich Africa Country with a political background who wants to invest outside his Country.

As stated above, my client had approached me with a mandate to seek for a firm or reputable well-established individual that has the experience in investment management that can help him channel some funds into a profitable investment outside Africa, where he can get good yield for his money.

Due to the sensitive position he holds in his Country and the unstable
investment environment. My client has decided not to retain any of his assets in his country. Kindly let me know your acceptance of this offer and furnish me with a comprehensive draft of your terms and conditions.

Yours Sincerely
Eric Kabanda

Oh, sure, right. That's believable. About as believable as any other scam email I receive. We see the standard over formal tone, the capitalization of words that don't need it, and the third world setting involving an official who wants to move some money abroad and needs help.

Uh huh.

All that's missing is the usual money amount that's meant to entice the gullible.

You want my terms and conditions, friend? Okay, here they are.

Terms are as follows: eat dirt. Conditions: die.

Does that clear it up for you? Or was that too blunt for you to deal with? Because in some ways, I can be fairly blunt, especially in dealing with people I really don't like. 

And I really don't like internet scammers or spammers. 

Where's a well aimed lightning bolt when you need one?

Return Of The Cancer Widow

It is a universally accepted truth that they never know when to quit, when to give up, when to go away and find an honest line of work. They persist in sending us emails with get rich quick schemes or tug on the heartstrings scams (note: I don't have a heart). They send us spam comments in our posts. I speak, of course, of that vile lot of humanity (barely) that I call homo sapiens spammeritis irritatingus. The internet scammer and spammer. Back in September 2023, I featured one from a typical Cancer Widow scammer, Debbie Grant, with the following sad story. After the bloated Orange Tumor, who is a scammer all on his own.

May the peace of God be with you and your family. I know it will be a great surprise reading from me today but consider this a divine intervention as a pastor explained to my understanding. My name is Mrs. Deborah Grant, a widow from the United State Of America Married in Turkey, and am writing you from my sick bed because I have been fighting cancer and the doctor says I have only a few weeks left. I want to entrust my money (USD 8.5 million) to your care for charity purposes to help the less privileged as my late husbands' relatives want me dead so that they will claim all my late husband and I worked for.I will tell you more about myself and what you need to do with the money once you receive it. Please write me soon as my health is pretty bad and my doctor says I will be moved to the intensive care unit anytime soon. Have a blessed day and please pray for me. God bless you.

Yours Mrs. Debbie Grant

Sad, isn't it? If it was real, which it is not. I received comments recently that Debbie Grant is still alive. She's still sending that same email to random strangers trying to get some poor sucker to send the inevitable 'administration fee' of a few thousand dollars that would come up if someone was dumb enough to believe it. Even to the point of featuring a photograph of a sick woman in a hospital bed. That they probably acquired through stock photos. For a woman dying of cancer like she claimed nearly two years ago, living this long is astonishing.

But there's no cancer. Because it's just a story. A bad one at that. Written by a scammer whose real name isn't Debbie Grant. Because the name Debbie makes one think of a kind grandmother- I should know; I know a Debbie who's exactly that. Whoever they really are is someone at the far end of a daisy chain of email accounts that probably ends somewhere in Russia, or another dark corner of the world, sending this crap out there and hoping someone is gullible enough to believe it.

Cancer isn't a joke, and it's wrong to wish it on someone. But there are exceptions. I would say that the sort of person who is so amoral as to use cancer for their own benefit- the sort of person who weaves this kind of lie, for instance- more than deserves it. They deserve the kind of cancer that leaves them in agony until their last day, that no painkiller is effective against, that utterly destroys their body systematically. Pure hell, before they end up in Hell.

As someone who's lost too many people to cancer, that is the level of my animosity to someone who uses the Cancer Widow scam, "Debbie."

It's sad to see that this person is still trying to scam people with this fake story, but hardly surprising. Scammers and spammers do not change, not even their story and their modus operandi. But time will tell, and one day, sooner or later, they'll meet the bad end that they more than deserve.

And on that particular day, they'll be escorted straight to Hell by this not so friendly fellow. 

An Old Death Insurance Scam

They have never heard of just going away and not bothering us anymore. They have no moral compass, and nothing to do with their day but do the thing that annoys everyone but those gullible enough to buy the con. I speak, of course, of the vile horde of homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus, aka the internet scammers and spammers. They send random emails to us with promises of money, or infest our blog comments with spam. The following came my way recently.

Hi there,

I trust you are doing great and well. I am reaching out to confirm that this email address is active, as I have important matters to discuss regarding a payable on death policy related to your late relative.

Please feel free to reach out at your earliest convenience at the email address (chenjieofbc@gmail.com) to discuss the details. This information may be valuable to us both.

Best regards,
Chen Jie

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE: The information contained in this transmission is intended only for the persons or entities to which it is addressed. It may contain privileged and confidential information, including Protected Health Information (PHI). If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified that any revision, dissemination, distribution or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you receive this communication by error, notify the sender immediately and destroy this message.

Sigh. They never learn, do they? Yes, I received it at my email, which in fact is fairly active. But it was received for what it is- in the junk folder. Because at least the filters recognize junk as junk. They say they have important information regarding a payout for a dead relative. That's nice.

I haven't had a relative die in the last year and a half, actually, and that was my father. And the inheritance was settled last year, as is usually the case. So I know for a fact that this is nonsense.

Our unfriendly neighbourhood scammer (by way of Beijing, or wherever this nonsense is really coming from) has the gall to bring up that confidentiality nonsense as a conclusion as well. They say that any "distribution or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited." Well, I've just duplicated it in this post for the sake of ridiculing you. What are you going to do to me? Do you really think that worries me?

Nice try, numbskull. But there's no dead relative, there's no such policy. Because I know better. I know your type. Maybe someone else you send this crap to will buy it. Somebody by the name of Jethro, perhaps, whose grandpappy disappeared twenty years ago without a trace.

But I've seen your sort before, and I know your games.

Do us all a favour and spend a little time on the Death Star. And try this nonsense on the guy in black who wheezes a lot.

The Cute Bat And The Angry Muppet

I have an image blog today. Enjoy!

Straight Out Of The Facebook Cooler

A note in advance: there's a bit of foul language involved in what lies ahead. Justified in this case.

Of course it happened again. 

It was inevitable. 

Yes, I was in Facebook Jail again for thirty days.

And as usual, no matter how many times I tried to complain that I didn't agree with this and I thought it was wrong, the system said, 'we're sorry, this isn't working, try again later.' And as usual there was silence from Facebook. If it was possible to post in their Help Center (it isn't when you're under suspension) there wouldn't be answers from there. Because nobody from Facebook actually works there, or is held accountable in any way. And so I was stuck, not able to like, comment, or post birthday wishes. I resorted, as usual, to using my shadowy alter ego for the month.

Where did it all start? Late in September I was scrolling through Canadian media pages on the site. Municipal election campaigns were underway in the province of Ontario. Mayor and city council posts were being contended. In Toronto, the mayoral election included the incumbent, who won, and a series of other candidates. One of whom happens to be a white supremacist.

Faith Goldy is the white supremacist in question. A former contributor for a right wing 'media' website, (if you want to call it media; the site pretty much can be summed up as Angry Old White Guys Yelling), she had a checkered past in terms of her media assignments, contributing for a variety of publications before that website. Finally the site owner, a snivelling little spineless bastard with a mad-on for the world, even had enough of her when she made an appearance on a neo-Nazi website and fired her.  She mocked counter-protestors at Charlottesville, claimed that the police were biased against the tiki torch polo shirt wearing alt right marchers at Charlotteville (the very people who were screaming 'blood and soil' and marching like something out of a Leni Reifenstahl propaganda film).

She's used white supremacist slogans, said things that fit right in with that extremist mentality, and refused to back down from that world view. She's made it brutally clear where her sympathies lie- with the conspiracy theorists and the white power groups and the manifestos of dirtbags like Richard Spencer,  So yes, her own record establishes her as a white supremacist. Call her what you want- white supremacist, white nationalist, alt right, far right. Either way, she's a hate mongering bigot. Who has a following of hate mongering bigots.

And so she ran for mayor of Toronto. Three percent of voters in the city actually voted for her, which means there are a lot of bigots in Toronto. Enough for a few thousand votes her way. And it gave her the attention she so desperately craves. She behaved as you'd expect- disrupting a debate she was not invited to, complaining about the media who would not give her a platform for her right wing views, and inspiring a pack of hate mongering jackasses just like her to follow her like a pack of rats following the pied piper.

Where did I get in trouble for all this? In late September, one of those followers was persistently posting Faith for Mayor hashtags in multiple Canadian media pages on Facebook. I get it, fine. She thinks the way you do, says the things you say to your bartender every night about how 'those people' are getting ahead and you're not (note to the average Faith supporter: it's not them that's the reason your life is such a clusterfuck, it's you), and she's easy on the eyes, right? That's the draw for you.

So I did what I tend to do when dealing with idiots, assholes, and bigots. I treat them with ridicule, scorn, and the contempt that they so richly deserve. That's my go to response. I see a supporter of a woman who's an avowed and established white supremacist and peddler of hatred and racism, and as far as I'm concerned, that supporter is a white supremacist too. I see no reason in being polite or civil to a white supremacist. Ever. 

What did Facebook do to me? Well, for a comment that didn't come anywhere near to violating their community standards (they never do, but that doesn't stop Facebook from going to the same response), they turfed me for thirty days. This time they actually gave me an option- to write a response as to why I felt this was incorrect. I stressed that Faith Goldy was a well established white supremacist in Canada, and that by extension her supporters were as well. I noted that in protecting the individual I heckled, Facebook was protecting a white supremacist. Taking the side of a bigot as opposed to taking the side of someone standing up to a bigot.

Facebook's response? We don't care, go to hell, thirty days in the hole.

And so from that point on, total silence from Facebook. No appeals, nothing. No posting in the Help Center, no likes, no comments, nothing under my regular name. The only thing I could do under my regular name was to report things that supposedly violate their community standards. Which I did on occasion. And I can tell you that 99 times out of a hundred when I do that, the same response always comes back. "This does not violate our community standards." I've reported things that constitute hate speech in the past. I've repeatedly reported an immigration consultant of all things (once based out of Britain, now apparently in South Africa) for things that are vicious, vile, and hate mongering bigotry. Facebook claims he's fine. I've reported people threatening death or harm on others. I've reported remarks about musing on raping a woman. All perfectly fine as far as Facebook is concerned. And yet they slap me around with thirty day suspensions for things that never come anywhere near to that. It's two faced fucking hypocrisy.

During this latest stint in the cooler, one of the things I reported was a series of comments from someone  with a serious grudge against police. His comments included a series of hashtags- save a life; kill a cop. Death penalty for cops. That sort of thing. Obviously a problem just waiting to happen, the sort of person who ends up on the news someday for all the wrong reasons.

It's one thing to criticize the police. You can point out the statistics about a disproportionate number of young African-American men getting killed by police. Many of them doing nothing that would warrant getting gunned down during a routine traffic stop, for instance. You can point out the fact that so often the response of police to any accusation is to circle the wagons around their own- good cops protecting the bad ones who don't deserve protection. These are legitimate concerns that I have, and that many people would have.

It's quite another to post death wishes repeatedly about the police.

But no, Facebook thinks that's just fine. "This does not violate our community standards." As usual, that's the response I got for flagging it.

So, as usual I got put into a time out for treating a bigot the way he more than has coming. While the bigots just routinely get away with everything. And as usual there's never a response out of Facebook. It's not as if complaining about this in their Help Center will ever lead anyone. No one from Facebook actually goes there. There's no accountability, no appeals, nothing. Facebook just silences you. 

Congratulations, Mark Zuckerberg. You've created a monster. Or maybe the monster is you.

Maybe both. 

Because as long as you give a free pass to hate speech while treating people standing up to hate speech like the way I've been repeatedly treated, as long as your site refuses to actually deal with the public in a meaningful way, as long as your community standards remain persistently two faced and hypocritical, this problem is only going to get worse.

In closing, Mark, someday when you find yourself passing from this world into the next, I mean this from the bottom of my heart.

Give my regards to hell, you bastard.