Friday, July 31, 2009

I felt a great disturbance in the 'net...

...as if millions of scammers cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Apparently the SAT-3 cable, which is Nigeria's main 'net connection to the outside world, has been cut, crippling the country's economy, which is almost entirely based on email confidence schemes.

In internet cafes all over Lagos, scammers continue to dutifully type their daily quota of emails, not realizing that the zeros and ones are running out the end of the pipe and bobbing to the surface of the Atlantic, where they are forming a scummy slick of "Hello, I am honorable secretary, to finance minister, Joseph Mbuto. You are the beneficiary of..." and fouling the feathers of unlucky seabirds.

The suspect list is a long one, consisting of everyone who has both an email account and SCUBA certification.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

The tubes are leaking??!!

ZerCool said...

Nigerian spammers and scammers, foiled by Nigerian copper thieves ... there's some irony here somewhere...

Turk Turon said...

What a delightful visual metaphor! Yes, schadenfreude; and I see you have a whole category for it, too!

ZerCool: yes, it's like Ourbouros, the mythical serpent whose head devoured his tail until there was nothing left.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, well. About time I got a rest. I used to have such fun with these idiots, yanking their chain & stringing them along.

I used to have such fun, when I was selling some items on the 'net. I'd get the offers to buy, they'd send me an exorbatent check, with a request to MoneyGram back the rest. NOT! (string along, string along, etc), until I cut them off. I ended up with quite a collection of fake & stolen checks & M.O's.

B Woodman
III

Anonymous said...

Tam, in your example you forgot to use the caplocks key for that authentic look....

Themadlemming said...

I had a somewhat original one last week. Evidently, some "American Soldiers" found caches of American money in one of Saddam's old palaces. Now, if only they could find someone stateside to send the money to. They would pay a percentage, straight to you bank account, of course.

Weer'd Beard said...

"The suspect list is a long one, consisting of everyone who has both an email account and SCUBA certification."

FUCK! Well I have an alibi!

nbc said...

Can you get a spam filter for telex?

staghounds said...

Dere Miss Tammara;

I am Attorney Randolph Ndoba, chief Barrister of the Royal Bank of Nigeria.

As you may have read, the Internet cable serving Nigeria was damaged, and the Royal Bank of Nigeria was unable to meet its obligations to its customers.

Although this problem will soon be corrected, the accumulation of undisbursed funds has created a large windfall of interest payments...

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Too funny.

staghounds said...

What, people with boats, cable, and grappling hooks are off the suspect list?

Or shovels- that thing has to come ashore someplace.

Or even just a clever idea...

"Look, villagers! Giant Mamba comes from west, from under the sea, from America!! It is angry maize serpent, has come for his sacrifice! Will eat up all maize in Nigeria! Kill now!"

Anonymous said...

They must have fixed it this morning 'cause there's a check for 25 million waiting for my response according to the email I just got.

Anonymous said...

I got one from Russia from a young widow who's child needs chemo and of course she doesn't have the money and all she needs is a little could I please send just a few dollars? All that's required is my bank account number to ensure that the finds get through . . . Right - you're asking someone with a college e-mail address for money? HAH!
LittleRed1