We all get from time to time those emails purporting to be from people who have stolen loads of money and wish to launder it, if we only hand over our bank account details. Until today, my favourite was last year when I received one claiming to be from the widow of Sam Jonah, ex-chairman of Anglo-Ashanti Gold. That amused me because Sam is a good friend of mine and I had just spent the early evening drinking with him!
But I just received possibly the most hopeless effort yet, claiming to be from…David Trimble! Can anyone beat that?
Well I didn't get it personally, but I thought the scam mail puporting to be from the family of a stranded Nigerian astronaut was pretty special!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/16/cosmic_41…
Some find it a little unkind looking at the fake emails as an entrepreneurial way to create money in a third world situation but this site looks to scam the scammers and frequently is very amusing.. http://www.419eater.com/
I received one a few months ago allegedly from the head of the FBI.
I despair of any hope for Africa because many Africans appear to have become corrupted right to the bone. From chronic corruption among African officials to the fraud rackets run by Africans abroad, of which Nigerians have become most notorious, the comprehensive rejection by Africans of honesty as a norm and dishonesty as an aberration appears to lie right at the heart of the continent's problems. See:
http://tinyurl.com/5njmhy
I loved the Patricia Hewitt example, but I can't beat "from someone I was drinking with" for pure insanity.
http://www.twodoctors.org/2008/04/where-did-all-n…