A Message From Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of Americ

Seen at Terry Karney's Better Than Salt Money.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to [email protected] so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Other examples of this sort of request: Snopes, Scambusters Federal Trade Commission Quatloos Sample Nigerian Fraud Letters

Comments

[isles]

This American Life did a story on internet vigilantes who hassle 419 scammers a couple of weeks ago - they write back and create the impression they're interested, then invent requirements for things the scammers need to do to get the money they're asking for. These are often long trips known as "safaris." They were able to get one guy to travel first to a city far from home with no money and no luggage, wearing a white robe with a bright pink sash; from there they sent him to a city just on the Chad side of the border from Darfur. Eventually they got bored with stringing him along and got him to go home by telling him his mother had died. Ira Glass wasn't too impressed with the ethics of it, but I couldn't help sympathizing with the vigilantes.

[Debt Consolidation]

Surely an interesting take and tremendously apprised insight.

[Debt Consolidation]

Emphatically a fundamental view and I concur.