This isn’t the first scam email response I’ve done, and I’m also not the only one doing it, but responding to the scam emails I get is a favorite pastime of mine. Recently, a nice individual named Iruka Ogwugwu emailed me, and I encourage all of you to email him or her to discuss “exploiting the available investment opportunities” in your own country.

—–Original Message—–
From: Ogwugwu [mailto:irukaogwugwu@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:04 PM
Subject: Your connection

Hello,

I am a chief consultant, I have some interested partners who want to invest in your countrys economy. As a matter of trust you are expected to guide us to exploit the available investment opportunities, we need your business knowledge and connections to invest in your country, can you handle it?

I wait your response to provide you with more information.

Mr Iruka Ogwugwu
reply to iruogwugwu@gmail.com

Hello Iruka,

Thank you for your email. Yes, I am very interested in helping you invest in my country. Just so you know, I actually live in the country of Gorceylon. In case you haven’t heard of it, it is a small island nation off the coast of Madrid and a former Burmese colony populated by Dutch explorers who took it over from Indians that displaced the indigenous Eskimo/Macedonian population. There were also a few Jews and one Jehova’s Witness, but he didn’t like how hard it was going door to door handing out flyers in the unrelenting Gorceylon heat so he moved to Baltimore which is remarkably affordable.

Anyhow, thank you very much for trusting me, it is nice that someone has finally realized my outstanding achievements in the field of trust. Hey, I have a question- who would you trust more, the guy from Seinfeld who played Elaine’s boyfriend or Captain Crunch? I think Captain Crunch cause you don’t get promoted to Captain without doing some pretty cool and trustworthy things, even if you are fictitious and animated.

But, back to Gorceylon. How do you propose we exploit the available investment opportunities? My cousin Steve works at Foot Locker here and I bet he could jack like $30-$40 a week from the registers without anyone knowing. This is a great investment because it doesn’t require any start-up capital. Steve says he’ll do it for $37.50 per week, so I think we’re ready to make this plan actionable. I am already thinking about what I will spend the money on, and I’ll give you a hint, it starts with a “P” and ends in a “rostitutes”. Prostitution is legal in Gorceylon and I know this because I am both the President and the Secretary of the Exterior, which is a position I made up because I am President. The nation’s legislative branch tried to block my creation of the position of Secretary of the Exterior and the 7-weeks of mandatory mourning I instituted when the guy from “Crowded House” hung himself back in 2005, but I tricked them into agreeing by  promising the Secretary of the Exterior would appear to them in their dreams and reveal the winning numbers for the country’s lottery, but I never did it cause I didn’t want to.

Anyway, other investment opportunities include electric-powered big wheels which we have been investing in heavily as part of our commitment to sustainable resources and the undeniable demand for such a product in the free market. Anyone can make a Prius or a Tesla Roadster, I mean my cat basically craps out things that are more technologically advanced but that’s probably cause I feed him nothing but Amazon Kindles. Seriously though, if the release of the Segway proves anything it’s that there will always be a market for things people aren’t going to buy. Further, electric bigwheels are great because:

1. You can pedal them
2. Way less gay than having a Harley
3. Environmentally friendly except for all the ones we make that are powered by sulfur oxide.

Hey, we should plan a trip together sometime too. I am thinking either Orlando or Branson, but get back to me with your thoughts on that. Well, that’s pretty much it for now. Have a great summer and K.I.T.

Best regards,

David

Although we all had some fun with the Nigerian Scam email response template, it is unfortunately not the only type of spam most of us receive. If you’re like me, you get regular solicitations from exotic women in foreign lands only to find out that you aren’t the only one. I compare the disappointment to Inspector Gadget’s failure to ever put a face on Dr. Claw. I find it entertaining to write back to them nonetheless, so here’s an email to my dear friend “S.B.”, preceded by the text of her initial contact.

Privet, my friend

Give me a chance to become your Destiny, believe me that I can change your life, because I am Woman, I am passionate, I can give you love and care and you will forget about loneliness with me.

You may wonder why such confident and pretty woman looks for her soul mate into matchmaking agency?

The answer is very simple, I used to make the first step into relations and I want to do it now toward you.

I noticed something special in your personality and it left me not indifferent.

You are enigma for me and I am going to open your heart and to become a part of it.

If you don’t mind to feel my care and to know my love, find me right here

http://ukrbrrride.info/?idAff=182

Good-bye

S.B.

Dear S.B.,

Well hello there, S.B.! I’d like to thank you for taking the time to write to me, and I shiver to think that I almost didn’t see your message as it somehow ended up with 108 other emails in my Spam folder. I’ll have to re-configure my Microsoft Outlook privacy settings so that this doesn’t happen again, how do I do that, do you know? I’m thinking I can right-click on it and then identify your message as “safe”, however, I am also wondering if it is somehow possible by accessing the “File” menu. Probably wouldn’t happen if I was using a Mac, huh? Yeah, I know…”PC’s are pc’s of shit”. Ha, get it? I just made that up right now while I was contemplating your affections for me. That’s called multi-tasking in my country, but for you multi-tasking probably involves drinking homemade moonshine while affixing more aluminum foil to the rabbit-ear antennas on your 13″ television set.

Anyhow, judging from your email, I gather that you are either not a native English speaker, or a graduate of USC. I noticed that you greeted me with “Privet”, although I’m sure you meant “Privyet”, the Russian word for “greetings”. Is this a typo, or do you have an aversion to the letter “Y”? I’ve had it out for the letter “P” since it sponsored a segment on Sesame Street I didn’t care for as a child, so I can kind of relate if you do. The number 4 has also raised my suspicions under similar circumstances. I think it’s great that we have things in common already.

You are correct in that I was wondering why such confident and pretty woman looks for her soul mate into matchmaking agency, although when I wondered, it was grammatically correct. That’s beside the point. The point is that my personality left you “not indifferent” which took me a while to get my head around, kind of like you and the merits of free market economies. Did you learn about my personality through this funny blog of mine? I had no idea you were one of my subscribers, but I suppose that means I should check my Feedburner account more often. My bad.

Seriously though, why am I enigma to you? Is it because I am mysterious just like the reasons why people still use hotmail? Did you know that “image” is an anagram of “enigma”? Yeah, I didn’t get a 470 on the SAT English for no reason, S.B. I could go on and on, but it’s tax time and I’d rather itemize my deductions than enigmatize your seductions, so I’m gonna put it all back on ya and just say do svidaniya.

I have taken to writing back to the various Nigerian email scam emails I get from time to time, and some of you have seen the responses I have sent. Those responses may or may not be a little less politically correct than I am willing to go on the record with so I have created another email any of you are welcome to use to respond to the various spam mails you receive asking you for your assistance to help the widow of a former oil tycoon receive her money. Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to make this better by posting them in the comments section, and perhaps I’ll write some other templates in the future.

Dear (insert name of Nigerian scam artist),

I am sorry to hear about your loss, but I would like to address the appalling rate at which the former heads of oil companies are dying off. It seems that 3, possibly 4 times a day, I receive news of another of these esteemed individuals passing away. Were they perhaps eating the oil, or using it as a syrup substitute on their pancakes? What kind of syrup do you like anyway, Kirkland? I like pretty much anything Costco makes cause stuff always tastes better when you buy it in 50 lb. increments. Instead of money, can you perhaps deposit an equivalent amount of syrup into my account instead? If you go to Western Union, you can fill out an electronic syrup transfer form and do it that way. Just ask the guy at the counter for one, he’ll know what you’re talking about. I would very much like that.

Also, are you on LinkedIn or Facebook? If so, please add me as a contact/friend so that we can review eachother’s resumes and possibly compare music and movie preferences. That way I can introduce you to my friends in case you have other accounts you can’t access like your BevMo club card. If one of my friends helps you re-activate your BevMo card will you share a six-pack of something nice with them (not that Libyan shit they had on special the other week)? I hope so (insert name), I really, really hope so.

It amazes me that your husband’s peers all seem to have had the intelligence to climb to the highest levels of their industry, and yet not one of them seems to have had the financial foresight to put their money in an account that their family could access. Perhaps you spent too much money on Little Debbie snack cakes, and could not be trusted to have access to it, or perhaps you couldn’t remember the 4-digit pin number because you lost the parchment you wrote it on in chicken blood.

Regardless, I feel honored that you have chosen me as a trustworthy partner. Personally, I would have picked someone more trustworthy like Aaron Neville for this because then you could get your money and meet an influential singer/songwriter at the same time. It’s killing two birds with one stone, and I’m sure you know a thing or two about how many stones it generally takes to bring down a bird of any meaningful size. It’s usually more than one, unless you find a nest of them at the bottom of a cliff and you roll a big stone off the top of the cliff and manage to get them all with it, which doesn’t happen that often, but brings a lot of joy to my heart when it does.

Well, I guess that pretty much sums it all up. Before we progress with our financial/sucrose heavy transaction, I would like to meet you in person and perhaps buy you a grande iced soy sugar free vegan peppermint mocha with room for milk and discuss this. I have included a link to my location on google maps here. My house is where the green arrow is pointing and there’s a Starbucks across the street. If you get to the Applebee’s you’ve gone too far.

Thank you,