The Nigerian Way

This story arc was brought on by an email my friend Justin forwarded me. Here are some choice excerpts:

This is to bring to your notice that our bank (FIDELITY BANK PLC ) is delegated by the ECOWAS/UNITED NATIONS in Central Bank to pay victims of scam $150,000 (One Hundred And Fifty Thousand Dollars Only). You are listed/approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this amount.

...

In other to compensate victims, the ECOWAS/UNITED NATIONS is now paying victims of such scam $250,000(Two Hundred And Fifty THOUSAND DOLLARS EACH) in accordance with the UNITED NATIONS recommendations.

The payments are to be remitted by FIDELITY BANK PLC NIGERIA as corresponding paying bank under funding assistance by CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA. Benefactor of this compensation award will have to be first cleared by FIDELITY BANK and confirmed as a victim from Africa Scam before scam payment can be effected. We shall feed you with further modalities as soon as we get response from you on how you can receive your compensation payment award.

Send a copy of your response via email or call your remittance officer quoting your PAYMENT CODE NUMBER (FDB//06654).

1 Your full name::

2 Your home address to send the atmcard::

3 Current occupation::

4 Age::

5 Your current home telephone number/mobile phone number:: ::

6 A Copy of your identification::

Send me your Response: rev-johnpeter@hotmail.com

Rev John Peters

At first the email says that we are to receive $150,000 as compensation for scams. It then decides that $250,000 is a more appropriate amount.

This email is full of grammatical and spelling errors, but we can forgive Reverend John Peters if English is not his native language. On the subject of the good reverend, a quick internet search of common names in Nigeria reveal such things as Iman, Hadi, Faisal, and Zaytun. John Peters must feel quite out of place in his homeland. Also unfortunate is that he wasn't able to get an email address with his full last name. Good thing he got the "rev" in there though.

I suppose there could be little harm is sending this man your information:

Nigeria has an astonishingly high population of 155 million people; this number is even more astounding when you consider that roughly 50% of them are royalty with money problems. But maybe all those money problems are behind them now, now they are trying to turn a good deed on the American people, and with the help of the United Nations, give back some of the money they have accidentally acquired from people abroad.

I've wanted to do something about the Nigeria situation for awhile, but couldn't focus, once I received this email the comics basically wrote themselves.