smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

After receiving yet another nigerian scam email and being in a particularly less tolerant mood than normal¹- I decided a response to a reasonably well put together email was in order.

Now, I fully expect the email to bounce, but given the recent turn of events, it was somewhat cathartic to reply to a nameless individual who has likely sent the same email to several thousand people.

So, with that in mind, here’s the original email:

Attn sir,

My name is Master Titi Odara 17yrs old son of Late Mr. Titi Peters, My father
left the sum of U$15Million Dollars in his account before he diead.

Please i want you to help me to receive this money in your account as the
eldest person of My Father, late Mr. Titi. Please this is not a joke
or game, if you are willing to help, to prove to you that I am not playing
games, you must first of all fly me to your country so that we can
contact the bank here with the vital information.

Thanks
Yours one.
Master Titi Odara
House-phone: 2348024336966
Email: titiodara@indiatimes.com

Short, to the point and certainly far less voluminous than what usually tends to arrive. Indeed, as mentioned above, I felt I just had to respond - so here, for your reading pleasure, is my response:

Dear Master Odara,

May I call you Titi? I wish to correspond with you, in regards to both the
shocking use of grammar and the apparent lack of understanding of the
world’s various monetary systems - I also wish to assist in rectifying your
conundrum.

Firstly, when referencing the dollar value for the United State of America,
it is generally accepted practice to refer to as US$, USD$ or at a stretch
$value USD - as far as I am aware, the “U$” isn’t a known monetary value
- so please do feel free to provide the corrected sum in your response.

You should also consider a spell check, as it’s “died”, not diead - as in “some
one has passed on”.

I also note it’s highly irregular and surely quite pointless seeking to access
a bank account from outside your native country, as I am not entirely
convinced we have a branch of the bank (which bank was it again?) here
for you to contact.

Perhaps if you could be so kind as to forward the ‘vital information’ so I
may start the proceedings on your behalf - you would, obviously, have to
provide all the pertinent details such as account number,name, security
information for access, so I can indeed confirm that the specified funds
are available and accessible from this country, thus permitting me to send
you your flight information and tickets.

I look forward to confirming the funds balance for you and arranging the
tickets accordingly.

Your humble servant,

Brendan Borlase.

Of course, nothing will come of it - but for a brief moment it caused some smiles where none had been, which in of itself made the whole thing worth the effort.

1. .. receiving a AUS $500+ bill for my vehicles ‘basic service’ will do that (↩)