I’m still receiving letters from Nigeria with offerings of wealth beyond my wildest dreams. Of course some are legitimate, I cash my cheque and thank them for thinking of this grateful stranger as the sole recipient of their multi-million dollar estates. Of others, I am cautious before mailing the non-refundable $5000 cheque to cover shipping and transfer fees.

Yesterday, I had an intriguing proposal from a Mr. Goodluck Jabulani. How could this be anything but a pleasant experience? He brings good luck and a Nigerian form of jubilation.

For $45,000,000.00 United States Dollars, I simply had to send my name, address, occupation etc. to his personal email address, as to hit reply to bigscam@nigeria.com would be detrimental to our exchange. His personal address is goodluckjabulani1@gala.net. I guess he needed to add the 1 in his address because it’s a popular scam email and an easy way to disperse the funds between the goodluck families, numbers 1 thru 789.

My only scepticism in entering this process (and I do mean, only) is that they ask for my name. For $45 million United States Dollars you might assume they would already have a name in mind.

I also liked Mr. Jabulani’s note because of the no-nonsense closer.

This transaction is not a Child’s Play and should not be treated as such, if you are
capable then reply, if not delete from your inbox.

I believe you mean,my junkmail folder but that harsh tone doesn’t sit well with me Goodluck. It felt a bit like the next line was going to read, “or off with your head.”

Surely there is a business opportunity for an ESL teacher to instruct a school of scammers. It could be an eighteen month course entitled The Nigerian To English Guide To Bilking with the following elective course credits; 1) Naming yourself—as Goodluck has proven, a catchy name with a happy twist really draws the reader in and gets him one step closer to my banking passwords. 2) Phraseology—you see Goodluck, a child’s play is very different from child’s play, 3) The Art of the Close—so you’ve hooked your fish and perhaps reeled them in but where Goodluck1 failed was in his snarky albeit no nonsense close.

I think just this once I’ll pass and spread the wealth a little.

Until next time, goodnight and Goodluck.