Spammers and their ilk

I believe that almost everyone with an email account must have, at some time or the other, received emails from utter strangers promising them huge sums of money for some "help" in transferring funds out of "XYZ" bank for whatever reasons. The email is generally written in poor english and contains the same basic plot: someone in a backward country has embezzled massive amounts of money and now is (a) dead, (b) incarcerated or (c) under scrutiny and about to be executed or incarcerated. The monetary assets gathering dust in some foreign country now need airing. The email recipient then receives the following commendation "you have been recommended to us because of your honesty, integrity, philanthrophy, bla bla bla..." with the plea "please help us and you shall get x%" of the amount.

Well, I tried to get in touch with some of these scamsters to see what they would come up with and how long I could string them along... I'll try post some of the responses and my emails in return. It's a lot of fun, provided they keep believing I am some money crazed goat, ready to believe any Tom, Dick and Abacha who wants to pump part of his fortune into my account!

--- Yukos - Contact : Cathrien Jin Tzou En ----
Email from the secy. to the Yukos chairman. I thought it was a Russian firm and so am more than a little puzzled by the Chinese name! I don't have the first two emails, but the later ones are as follows:

From the chinese lady (abbreviated as CL)

Dear XXXXX,

Thanks for your mail. Please do bear with me okay am very happy that you are willing to be of help towards this transaction. I will advise you to send you Private phone number? Fax, Nationality, Date of birth, Occupation and home address. With this information, I will prepare some good document, which I will send to you as the right beneficiary of this fund. I will advise you open an account in Netherlands Amsterdam. Please do let me know if this is okay by you, so that I can update you with the bank, which can be of understanding to accommodate such huge amount of fund. List I forget, do make sure you send your scanned page of your international passport or driving license. You do not have anything to worry about, do make sure you can keep this transaction more secretly, this transaction is 100% risk and hitch free,and 30% of this fund will be yours at the end of this transaction. I will be hoping to hear from you. Please I do count on you that I can trust you with all my life. Once this fund gets to the account you open, I will come over and join you over so that I can use my part of fund to invest in your country. Do get back to me as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

MS.Cathrien Jin Tzou En.

All friendly and nice isn't it? I get 30%, the female gets 70% and all is lovey dovey. It's so touching that she even trusts me with her life. All i have to do is open an account in Amsterdam, she will even tell me what banks offer such services, send her my *passport/driving licence copy* and some other less important particulars like phone number and the like. Here is what I had to say

From Me

Dear Cathrien, (may i call you cathrien?) ** I am trying to cozy up to her. Perhaps this would put her at ease!**

I am very happy to know you are taking steps to give me the money. I am not in netherlands and so it will be difficult to open an account there. At present I do not have a private phone or fax. All my phones and faxes are open to the thirty and odd members of my family who are constantly expecting calls from other strangers who want to give them money. So I ask you to use email as the mode of communication as I do not want to share the money with those greedy bast***s.

Excuse me for the question but why do you need my scanned driver's license? People tell me this is how scamsters use the information for identity theft. I don't want my identity stolen, I would not know who I was then. I am having enough difficulty holding on to my identity as it is. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched with sweat and afraid that someone has stolen my identity and now I am to be relegated to the very dregs of society, wandering with those poor misfits who've also had the same misfortune befall them.

Yes, please also tell me how i can keep this transaction completely risk free? Maybe you could send me a copy of your driver's license as a show of good will and then I could send you mine

Can I also become a partner in your investments in my country? I see this as a way of making more money and then I shall be richer than my brother in law. That bas**** received an email from some sheikh who promised him 40% of 120 Million US Dollars. I think it is a scam, but he says he has already received some money. My family bless you for your generosity. I hope to see the transaction ended soon.

Suffice to say, that was the last I heard of her.