I’ve received the most curious scam e-mail the other day. The message body was a brief one-liner: “Open the attachment and I will be glad to hear from you soon.” Not exactly the best way to start a scam, since in this day and age, most people know (you’d hope) not to open attachments coming from strangers.
I opened the attachment anyway. Well, I’m allowed to. Dare I say, I’m qualified to. I opened it because it was just an ordinary plain text file and I was curious. And yes, I had ways of knowing that it was safe even before I opened it.
Here is what the attachment contained, in its entirety:
Dearest With Due Respect and Humanity, I was compelled to write to you under a humanitarian ground. My name is MRS. JULIE BRYANT; I was married to late Dr. ADEL BRYANT, a contractor and diamond dealer for Thirty-two years before he died in the year 2005. He died after a brief illness that lasted only four days. Since after his death, I decided not to marry again. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $3.8 Million in a Bank in Spain and the money is still there. Recently, My Doctor told me about my condition due to my cancer problem and having known my condition. I have decided to handle over this money to a honest and god fearing Individual, group organization that will utilize this fund for the services of mankind, helping the motherless homes, orphans, widows, as desired by my late husband when he was alive. I want you to always remember me in your daily prayers because of my upcoming Cancer Surgery, although I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply, I shall give you other information’s on how you can receive this money from the bank. I will be glad to hear from you soon. Yours faithfully MRS. JULIE BRYANT Reply me at mrsjuliebryant@btinternet.com Rosemaira Romero TICKET No: 20511465463-7644 REF No: 5687SPL876 BATCH No: SPYU6868 You have just been awarded the sum of 950,000,00 Euros Only which was won by your E-MAIL Address in our EUROMILLIONES de la Primitiva Lottery Promotions here in spain madrid. Do get back to this office with your requirement via (Lottery Trusi Agent) Name: Eduardo Daniel Email address: eduardo.daniel@btinternet.com Email: mr.eduardodaniel@gmx.com Names :............ Address :................ Country :................ Phone No :.............. Occupation :.............. Age :..................... Sex :................. Mrs. Anita Perez , (Lottery coordinator Angel Sharon angelsharon@rediffmail.com Dearest With Due Respect and Humanity, I was compelled to write to you under a humanitarian ground. My name is Mrs Angel Sharon; I was married to late Dr. ADEL BRYANT, a contractor and diamond dealer for Thirty-two years before he died in the year 2005. He died after a brief illness that lasted only four days. Since after his death, I decided not to marry again. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $3.8 Million in a Bank in Spain and the money is still there. Recently, My Doctor told me about my condition due to my cancer problem and having known my condition. I have decided to handle over this money to a honest and god fearing Individual, group organization that will utilize this fund for the services of mankind, helping the motherless homes, orphans, widows, as desired by my late husband when he was alive. I want you to always remember me in your daily prayers because of my upcoming Cancer Surgery, although I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply, I shall give you other information’s on how you can receive this money from the bank. I will be glad to hear from you soon. Yours faithfully Mrs Angel Sharon Reply me at angel.sharon@btinternet.com
Yes, that’s three scams in one e-mail. Or rather, two scams, but one repeated with two different names. The e-mail purportedly came from a “Mrs Angel Sharon” so presumably, the last of the three was the scam that they intended to send. (Note though that in this last variant, they changed the name of the widow but neglected to change the name of the husband to match). So what am I supposed to do now? Reply to all three, in the hope that I get twice the $3.8 million inheritance in addition to the €950,000 lottery win? Or perhaps I’m better off spending my limited amount of time answering some of the other e-mails I got, like the notification from a Peter Olu telling me that the government of Nigeria is ready to send me my contract payment of $4.5 million, the note from a Dr. Robert F. Johnson letting me know about a consignment briefcase of $2.5 million, the e-mail from Sgt. Tom Kennedy in Iraq who wants to give me $8 million out of $20 million that he’s trying to smuggle out of the country, or the notification from no less a personage than Robert Muller from the FBI, letting me know about the $10 million I am about to receive from Nigeria?
Do people still fall for these dumb scams? They must, otherwise they’d no longer be in circulation. And sometimes I am inclined to think that those who are greedy or stupid enough to become victims of these scamsters deserve what they get. Now, is there a way to tell scamsters that an e-mail address that has been in circulation for over 15 years does not belong to a likely victim? Guess not…