Windfall

This appeared in my spam folder yesterday. Clearly a variant on the Nigerian 419 scam, but interesting.

I have so many questions:

Who is Captain Stephen Laurence, and how did he get involved? (The email address is apparently one reserved by domain registries for 419 scams. Search on it and you’ll see what I mean.)

Does he—or Armet William—not think that a Gmail address looks just the teensiest bit skeevy for a United Nations account?

I understand that English is a second language for these guys, but investing in a bit of editing might lend an air of verisimilitude to their efforts. Perhaps they could hire all the copy editors that WaPo apparently laid off? That could be a good investment.

That first paragraph-as-run-on-sentence is quite the doozy.

What if I don’t have a cell phone? Does that mean I don’t get my $15M back? What if I don’t want to give them my cell phone number because I don’t want them texting me spam after I’ve received my $15M? Can I delay my reply long enough to buy a burner phone? One I’d only use for collecting $15M from the UN, Nigerian princes and others?

What’s their definition of nearest airport? Is it commercial? Or civil aviation—would that do? Do I give them IAD, which is close to home, or DCA, which is close to work? If I gave them BWI along with the burner phone number, would it make any difference? I’d be willing to drive to Baltimore to collect the ATM card to my $15M.

Actually, Union Station is the closest to me. Could the courier come to Union Station?

What’s the tip for the courier who brings you the ATM card for $15M? I don’t want to seem cheap, but I just don’t know.

Where’s an ATM that will disburse my $15M in one withdrawal? Please do not tell me I have to make 30,000 trips to the ATM to get my $15M.

Hope it’s not too tacky to ask, but how much, exactly, is the “delivering fee”? I mean, I’m sure it’s nothing in comparison to the $15M, but I’d still like to know.

Apparently Ban Ki-moon was sleeping on the job, and I didn’t even know this. Really glad that António Guterres is stepping up to the plate on making things right, and hope the atrocities are over.

I'm really relieved I'm finally getting my $15M back. I've really missed it.