Split to Africa, Amusing Spammers
Every once in a while I reply to the spam e-mail that I receive. For example, I just received this:
MR. WANG QIN
HANG SENG BANK LTD.
SAI WAN HO BRANCH,
171 SHAUKIWAN ROAD,
HONG KONG.
Dear Sir,
Although you do not know me but I have a lucrative business proposal of mutual interest to share with you. Firstly, let me start by introducing myself. I am Mr. Wang Qin,Credit officer of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd Hong Kong. I have a concealed business suggestion as below;
A long time ago, just before the U.S and Iraqi war,one of our numerous clients named Major Fadi Basem who was with the Iraqi forces and also a business man based in Iraq made a numbered fixed deposit for 18 calendar months, with a value of Twenty-Four Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars(US$24,500,000.00)in my branch.Upon maturity several notice has since been sent to him, even during the war early last year.Again after the war another notification was sent and still no response came from him or any member of his family. We later found out that the Major and his family had been killed during the war in a bomb blast that hit their home.
After further investigation it was also discovered that Major Fadi Bassem did not declare any next of kin in his official papers including the paper work of his bank deposit. And he also confided in me the last time he was at my office that no one except me knew of his deposit in my bank. So, Twenty-Four Million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars (US$24,500,000.00) is still lying in my bank and no one will ever come forward to claim it.
What bothers me most is that according to the laws of my country at the expiration of Five (5) years the funds will revert to the ownership of the Hong Kong Government if nobody applies to claim the funds. Against this backdrop, my suggestion to you is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand as the next of kin to Major Fadi Basem so that you will be able to receive his funds.
All the modalities has been set in motion to see that this transaction is 100% safe,timely and risk free. If you agree to this business proposal, it will consume about 8-10 working days to conclude this transaction.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
I want you to know that I have had everything planned out so that we shall come out successful. I have contacted an attorney that will prepare the necessary document that will back you up as the next of kin to Major Fadi Basem, all that is required from you at this stage is for you to provide me with your Full Names and Address so that the attorney can commence his job. After you have been made the next of kin, the attorney will also fill in for claims on your behalf and secure the necessary approval and letter of
probate in your favour for the movement of the funds to an account that will be provided by you. There is no risk involved at all in the matter, we are going to adopt a legalized method and the attorney will prepare all the necessary documents. Please endeavor to maintain utmost secrecy and confidentiality at all times during and after the conclusion of this transaction.
Once the funds have been successfully transferred to your nominated bank account, you will be given 25% of the total funds for your assistance, 70% for myself while the balance 5% will cover all incidental expenses incurred during the course of this operation.Should you be interested please send me your Full names and address and I will provide you with more details of this operation. I will prefer that you to reach me via this email(wangqin147@primposta.com) for security purpose.
Your earliest response to this letter will be appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Mr. Wang Qin.
In reply, I sent the following:
Per your inquiry, the requested information has been provided. Please keep this information in the strictest confidence, inasmuch as I am in hiding (presumably dead since 1971) and require the additional funds to preserve my anonymity. My full first name can be provided upon completion of mutually acceptable identity verifications.
J. Douglas Morrison
1971 Anifowoshe St.,
Victoria Island,
Lagos, Nigeria
oemperor.blogspot.com
In case my younger readers don't get the joke, let me quote from this account of the life of James Douglas Morrison, better known as Doors lead singer Jim Morrison (emphasis mine):
So much has been written and speculated upon surrounding Jim
Morrison's life, death and after-death that it is no longer
enough to address just the facts....
On July 3, 1971, rock and roll wunderkind James Douglas
Morrison was supposedly, reportedly, found dead in a Paris,
France apartment he had sub-leased as a writer's studio. His
'wife', Pamela Courson, was the first to discover the body in the
bathroom. Jim lay in the bathtub, naked and half-submerged. At
first she thought that "Jim was pretending", noticing that he had
"recently shaved".
What immediately followed was a series of bizarre and
convoluted events, probable conspiracies, strange coincidences
and surreal news reports surrounding the death of James Douglas
Morrison....
The LA Free Press and several wire service reports described
someone in 1973 appearing on several occasions in San Francisco.
There Morrison was involved with business and banking
transactions with the Bank of America of San Francisco. The
employee that handled the transactions, Walt Fleischer, confirmed
that someone resembling Morrison and using that name was indeed
doing business at the Bank of America. He did add that he "was
far from sure that this was the 'dead' artist" as Morrison showed
no identification. Could this be because a photo ID was already
on file at the bank, with the name James Douglas Morrison? Yes,
it is still on file....
An LP record called Phantom's Divine Comedy was released also
in 1974. This was rumored to be Jim Morrison singing with an
anonymous band with the names of "drummer X, bassist Y, and
keyboardist Z". The music reportedly resembled Jim Morrison's
sound quite well. All this again added and sparked the rumor
mills, and stirred public fascination.
However, in a 1992 press released from the Zeppelin group, it
is revealed that Morrison pal Iggy Pop was actually doing all the
singing and helping the "hoax" along. This added more fuel as to
how many people were actually involved in maintaining his "death
hoax". Up until the 1992 press release, the record company that
had released Phantom had refused to divulge the names on the LP,
or the singer's name -- which was indeed Iggy Pop.
Regarding all these rumors, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek
stated: "If there was one guy that would have been capable of
staging his own death -- getting a phony death certificate and
paying off some French doctor... And putting a hundred and fifty
pound sack of sand into a coffin and splitting to some point on
this planet -- Africa, who knows where -- it is Jim Morrison who
would have been able to pull it off."
Jim Morrison's best friend Tom Baker, writing in High Times
(June, 1981) had this to say: "I was very tempted to believe the
rumors that Jim had faked his own death."
A group of fans actually went so far as to try to get
Morrison's dental records, apparently to try to get permission to
dig up his body and match the records to the remains. This was
immediately blocked both by Morrison's parents and their
attorneys -- at least for the time being.
It is known that Jim Morrison had repeatedly planted the
seeds which would lead to this sort of speculation -- that he had
somehow faked his own death and dropped out into a new identity.
At the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1967, Jim started suggesting
that he should pull a "death stunt" to bring national press
attention onto the band. This was when he came up with the "Mr.
Mojo Risin'" anagram which would be used after he "split to
Africa" and wished to secretly contact friends....
POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to mention that the choice of a Nigerian address for Mr. Morrison only compounds the joke, since the letter itself is just a variant of the Nigerian scam. Should you provide your real name and address for a message such as this one, bad things could happen:
Should you agree to participate in this international bail-out, something will go wrong. Paperwork will be delayed. Questions will be asked. Officials will need to be bribed. Money from you — an insignificant sum, really, in light of the windfall about to land in your lap — will be required to get things back on track. You pay, you wait for the transfer . . . and all you'll get in return are more excuses about why the funds are being held up and assurances that everything can be straightened out if you'll just send a bit more cash to help the process along. Once your bank account has been sucked dry or you start making threats, you'll never hear from these Nigerians again. As for the money you've thrown at this, it's gone forever.
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