Hey! I replied to one of those Nigerian Scammers

Can't believe I did it, though.
Here's the letter.
-----Original Message-----
From: ABDUL KADIR GAYA
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 7:33 PM
To: rwake@drs.ca
Subject: GREETINGS FROM DUBAI

Greetings from UAE,

Before I introduce myself, I wish to inform you that this letter is not a hoax mail and I urge you to treat it serious. We want to transfer to overseas account ($21,300.000.00 USD) Twenty One Million Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) from a prime Bank here in Dubai United Arab Emirates. I want to ask you, If you are not capable to quietly look for a reliable and honest person who will be capable and fit to provide either an existing bank account or to set up a new Bank a/c immediately to receive this money, even an empty a/c can serve to receive this money, as long as you will remain honest to me till the end for this important business trusting in you and believing in God that you will never let me down either now or in future.
I am Mr. Abdul Kadir Gaya, presently promoted to Auditor General in one of the biggest banks here in Dubai. During the course of our auditing last week, I discovered a floating fund in an account opened in the bank in 1996 and since 1998 nobody has operated on this account again,after going through some old files in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without a hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing. The owner of this account Mr. Morris Thompson an American and great industrialist and a resident of Alaska, who unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 which crahsed on January 31 2000, including his wife and only daughter leaving nobody to claim the money. You shall read more news about the crash on visiting this site; and http://www.alaskaair.com/E_latest.asp.

No other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that the account is a secret account.

The total amount involve is Twenty One million Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only <$21,300.000.00> and we wish to transfer this money into a safe foreigners account abroad. But I don't know any foreigner, I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this money can not be approved to a local person here, but to a foreigner who has information about the account, which I shall give to you upon your positive response. I am revealing this to you with believe in God that you will never let me down in this business, you are the first and the only person that I am contacting for this business, so please reply urgently so that I will inform you the next step to take urgently.

I need your strong assurance that you will never let us down, me and a key bank official who is deeply involved with me in this business. I guarantee that this transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. The bank official Will destroy all documents of transaction immediately we receive this money leaving no trace to any place. I will use my position and influence to obtain all legal approvals for onward transfer of this money to your account with appropriate clearance from the relevant ministries and foreign exchange departments.

At the conclusion of this business, you will be given 30% of the total amount, 70% will be for us. I look forward to your earliest reply. PLEASE, TREAT THIS PROPOSAL AS TOP SECRET.

Best Regards

Abdul Kadir Gaya.

And here's my reply:

This is good work. First of all, you didn't use an African name, people are starting to get suspicious of all this Nigerian stuff. And the link to the news story? Very novel.
And I like the angle about God. You know, statistically, very religious people often fall for this stuff. And the 70/30 split is very generous indeed. Some scammers are only offering 80/20. Can you imagine?
The level of detail is very convincing although the story itself is barely plausible. And your country domain is all wrong. Azerbaidjan? It's all wrong for a guy who's supposed to be in Dubai. There are plenty of nodes in UAE, Bahrain, and of course, Saudi Arabia. Try to pick one of those next time.
Oh, and another piece of advice. People with Arabic sounding names doing shady money deals aren't going to look good to intelligence authorities here in North America. It attracts too much attention. Why not India or Turkey? Very low key, and no religious fundamentalists.
All in all, a very good effort. You've made a good start, but PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS. I'd grade it a C+, keep trying.
Cordially yours,
Tom Delay

I'll let you know if I get a reply. (BTW, first post)

is better: http://www.donatacom.com/archives/00000351.htm

but what makes you think he/she was nigerian...there are other scammers

I should have said 'Nigerian type scammer'.

just cos the "nigerian" is more of a media creation than anything else

How so?

I get one or two of those a day and just about all of them say it's from a Nigerian widow. Seriously, at least 90% of them. That's not a media creation -- it's my personal experience in reading my own e-mail. :shrug:

And I thought it was interesting

It's a whole sub-genre of Urban Legend. This scam has been around for a long, long time.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/info/nigeria.htm

I doubt the 12 year-old you sent it to will understand the sarcasm, but you never know... you may have made a new cyber-friend.
Let us know.

:D

luminary such as yourself, ma'am.
Feel free to grab it, I am probably going to change it this week. I can't decide on what to have next.
Yours in Christ

I wish the avatars could be a little bigger (although I understand why they can't be). If they could be a little bigger than the current limit, I'd have many ideas. :evilgrin:

about six month ago.
My reply was "my mother didn't raise no fools.