with Palestinian cause and Islamic target
September 15, 2002; Almost everyone in the US with an Email address has received an offer from some corrupt official in Nigeria (or some other country) offering a multi-million commission if you will help them move some stolen or mislaid government funds out of their country through your bank account. Such offers are, of course, a scam, and result in the "foreign official" draining any bank account he is told about and begging for just a few hundred more dollars for fees and bribes. But the story now has a new twist. The Nigerian scam artists are sending their Emails to people in Moslem countries (first to identified businessmen in Saudi Arabia and more recently to anyone in many Moslem countries). Their new offer is that these forgotten or stolen or lost millions are being routed to the Palestinian Authority for use in feeding their people and buying guns to continue the struggle (minus a few hundred thousand paid as a commission to any helpful Arab businessman). Reportedly, the scam is enjoying some success from such efforts, as many Moslems are more interested in profiting by helping a good cause than in profiting by helping criminals smuggle their loot out of their country.--Stephen V Cole
http://strategypage.com/fyeo/howtomakewar/default.asp?target=HTIW.HTM

And then there's the wonderful parodies of Nigerian spam that have started to make the rounds, including this one:

Nigerian spam meets... H P Lovecraft?
http://www.geocities.com/steerp1ke/David_Ehi.html

Enjoy!

(I could actually talk about scams, but they have been a hobby for a very long time, and we would be here all night.)

One of the disgraceful things about the current US legal system is how much is not illegal, or is illegal but has such small risk that it's effectively legal.

*Not all scams are confidence scams. I believe that a "confidence game" only refers to a type of scam which entices the mark with an opportunity to take illegal or unscrupulous advantage of others.

(Mark gets a series of letters offering free samples of investment advice: stocks X, Y, Z will go up next week -- and they do! After a few such letters, one comes offering to invest the mark's money, or simply to sell him the next prediction. The con artist has, of course, sent out hundreds or thousands of letters with different predictions, and followed up on the ones that happened to be correct.)

Seems to me it's not quite the same as #7, although it's related, and it has a large range of possible variations.

Dead-on target, that.

Teresa, this analysis deserves to be an essay published someplace mainstream and serious.

When I was in college, I did my senior thesis on confidence games in literature and film. What I came away with was an understanding that a really superior con game implicated the victim (as greedy, irresponsible and often criminal) while elevating the perpetrator... all stated much better as, "You can't cheat an honest man."

I'm not sure exactly what that has to do with effigizing the money machines of the wealthy (something about breaching the social contract by having aspirations above your station.) But con games and scams all seem to mine into the great themes of fiction (class, greed, truth) because they are, in and of themselves, stories.

And don't get me started about IPOs....

Cheating at cards is Not Done of course (the prevailing ethic is that only someone who is a bad player would need to resort to such a desperate measure), but other scams are fair game.

Here's a rather tidy version of the Wire, ensmalled into a single cab ride. What's truly entertaining about this story is that it appears in a magazine whose publisher is devoted to "cleaning up poker," doing away with its seedy back-room reputation.

http://www.geocities.com/acidtestgpts/

The late William Read Woodfield, who with his writing partner Allan Balter was an early story editor on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (and heavily responsible for its recurring con-game aspects) noted that at one time, Maurer's THE BIG CON was almost required reading among screenwriters.

Another book worth looking up in this literature is Jonathan Kwitny's THE FOUNTAIN PEN CONSPIRACY,* about ah informal ring of swindlers who were highly active in the Sixties. Among many other things, they created a phony bank on the Channel Island of Sark to provide bona phonies for their operations. Kwitny used to work for the WSJ, and has the level of detailed reporting one would expect.

More anon, really -- just perching between days of World Fantasy.

*As I've traveled this world over,
I've met lots of funny men;
Some'll rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.
-- Woody Guthrie

DEAR friend.

I AM PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA ONLY SURVIVOR OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF ALDERAN (ALDRN).

I AM MOVED TO WRITE YOU THIS LETTER, THIS WAS IN CONFIDENCE CONSIDERING MY PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCE AND SITUATION.

I WAS FALSLEY IMPRISONED UPON THE IMPERIAL BATTLESTATION ("DEATH STAR") WHEN MY PLANET WAS HIDEOUSLY DESTROYED AND ENDED BY THE BVERY BAD SITH LORD VADER.

I ESCAPED ALONG WITH THE AID OF BRAVE REBELS AND WOOKIES, AND AM NOW I AM LYING LOW DUE TO THE SITUATION IN THE 4TH MOON OF YAVIN TILL WHEN THINGS GETS BETTER.

I HAVE CONTROL HERE OF THE SUM OF $25, MILLIONNN IN IMPERIAL CREDITS DEPOSITED WITH A SECURITY COMAPNY FOR SAFEKEEPING ON TATOOINE.

THE FUNDS WERE SHIPPED BY A COURIER SERVICE AS DIPLOMATIC ITEMS OF HIGH VALUES TO PREVENT THEM FROM KNOWING THE CONTENT.

WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO friend IS TO INDICATE YOUR INTEREST THAT YOU WILL ASSIST ME BY RECEIVING THE MONEY ON OUR BEHALF ON TATOOINE AND ASSIST IN INVESTING THIS MONEY IN ANY LUCRATIVE BUSINESS LIKE MOISTURE FARMS AND STOCK IN MULTI-PLANETARY COMPANIES AND OTHER SAFE LUCRATIVE INVESTMENT IN YOUR SECTOR.

MAY I AT THIS POINT EMPHASISE THE HIGH LEVEL OF CONFIDENTIALITY, WHICH THIS BUSINESS DEMANDS, AND HOPE YOU WILL NOT BETRAY THE TRUST AND CONFIDENCE WHICH I REPOSE IN YOU.

IN CONCLUSION,IN THE EVENT YOU ARE INTRESTED TO ASSIST ME I WILL LIKE YOU TO CONTACT MY LAWYER WHO I HAVE STATIONED IN MOS EISLEY TO WITHNESS THE TRANSACTION TO IT'S CONCLUTION.

YOU CAN REACH HIM ON HIS DIRECT LINE VIA MAIL [email removed for protection], HIS NAME IS WATTO THE TOYDARIAN, I HAVE THE FULL TRUST IN HIM.

FINALLY, I HAVE SET ASIDE 15% OF THE TOTAL SUM OF THE FUNDS FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE,AND 5% FOR ANY ESPENCES THAT SHALL BE INCURED DURING THIS TRANSACTION.PLEASE BE FREE TO DISCUSS WITH MY LAWYER.

I SINCERELY WILL APPRECAITE YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

HELP US, friend, YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE.

BEST REGARDS,
PRNCSS. L. ORGANA

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/wendywillcox/

http://www.mmfhoh.org/?target=columns

I'm not seeing so many Make Money Fast letters anymore. Either people are getting smarter, or the spam-filters are getting better.

Chuck
Vulcan Senator
Ambassador Plenipoteniary to Earth
Federation of Sentient Planets

What initially surprised me was that some of these fools responded to me.

Once, when someone asked me for a picture of Vulcan, I sent him one of my pieces of SF art (see http://home.att.net/~chuck.divine/sfart/).

2. Before they did pass from this life, these our parants did reveal unto us the location of the Tree of Life, which is like unto an antioxidant and Botox in the selfsame fruit.

3. Be aware that your name was shewn unto us by the Knowledge of Good and Evil, nor is this Spam; and verily do we hope that with your good aid, may the Land and the Trees thereon be restored unto us.

4. Please delay not, as time is short, and I fear some falling out with mine brother, who is not an Arborist, that should bring your efforts to nothing, a woeful outcome indeed.

The idea of a comedy featuring a con artist goes back at least to 1610 and The Alchemist by Ben Jonson. If you can get past the archaic colloquial speech of some of the characters, this is a truly rich comedy. Jonson's comedy is very much like the confidence trick comedies of the present day, with the exposition of the nature of the tricksters followed by a series of expositions of the scams in progress and the corruptness of their victims.

The climax comes about, as in modern comedies, as the conspirators' greed continually increases the pace and number of scams and as the gambler Pertinax Surly tries to get his friend, the fat knight Sir Epicure Mammon, out of the Alchemist's clutches and snap up a loose widow (Dame Pliant) to be getting on with.

It is a nice, compact caper comedy which ends by pointing out that we are less than outraged by fraud (at least when perpetrated on others or to ourselves to a degree that's easy to ignore) because we find the variations of the fraud mechanism as irresistably funny as the seventeen modes of slip-and-fall humor.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/lustig/

Cheers,

SL

Jordin, I'm not sure where to file the half of half of half market-prediction scam, but I've always admired its elegance. ... Yeah, I think you're right, it belongs in Category 7.

Stefan, from your mouth to God's ears.

Jeremy, I'm inclined to believe that the existence of the superior con game that implicates the victim and elevates the scammer is a self-justifying hero-tale told by the grifter tribe. It's not true that you can't cheat an honest man. Sure, tax-avoidance schemes only work on people who're trying to avoid paying their taxes. But look at the Omega bank debenture scam. People who fall for it think it's a legit investment mechanism that's normally inaccessible to persons of moderate income. Given that setups like the one Kevin Maroney describes actually exist, where's the dishonesty in falling for it?

I'm an American. We don't believe that having aspirations above one's station is a breach of the social contract.

I agree, absolutely, that con games are a variety of microtheatre -- a characteristic they share with magic tricks. It's what makes them interesting.

Alan, the rich are not just as vulnerable as everyone else. When was the last time you saw one of them selling Amway? The rich have access to professional-quality advice and money management services. They may have occasional episodes where they're overpowered by greed and throw caution to the winds, but that's only a fraction of the pattern.

Jim, thanks for the links. I've incorporated some of them into the original post.

A flag with a gold fringe is an indoor flag.

"An Undertaking of Great Advantage, but No One to Know What It Is."

He spent a day collecting, then left town in a hurry.

When I'm in the mood, I send the 419 scammers the following letter in reply:

From: laura419@hotmail.com

To:

Subject: REQUEST FOR CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION

ATTN: President/CEO

I am the widow of the late President George W. Bush of the United States of America. I am writing you this letter in confidence regarding my current circumstances.

I escaped the United States ahead of death squads with my husband and two children Jenna and Frank, moving first to England and then, when my husband's political enemies took power there, to Austria. All of our wealth, obtained legitimately through baseball, oil drilling and insider trading, was seized by the new government of the USA under the despotic regime of (Dr.) Noam Chomsky, except for the contents of a few Swiss bank accounts. These bank accounts, which contain social security lock-box funds and the bulk of the 2001 budget surplus, could not be accessed by me or my children, due to agreements made between the socialist government of the USA and Swiss bank regulators. They seized our ranch in Crawford, Texas and now use it to teach homosexualist propaganda to schoolchildren!

When my husband died during a visit to the Mr. Salty factory here in Vienna, I decided to lie low, changing my identity and communicating only through Mrs. Peggy Noonan. However, now that Chomsky is dead of apoplexy, my advisors suggest that the time is right for me to transfer some of these funds. I will wish to deposit $1,250,000,000 in a bank account for certain purchases, investments and other safe and reliable business opportunities. Please respond to this letter and indicate your interest in receiving the money for us. I will stress again how important confidentiality is; my husband's political enemies would like nothing better than to see me made penniless and our hard-earned retirement funds turned over to Tom Daschle.

Please respond with your contact information, including fax and telephone numbers, to signal interest in this mutually beneficial transaction. I will provide an introduction to my son (Frank), who will work with you in determining the logistics of the transfer and the method and amount of your remuneration. I would contact you via phone directly, but a spot of trouble in my youth has made me doubt myself around heavy machinery.

In sincere anticipation of a productive relationship,

Mrs. George W. Bush

But listen: Isn't that too a parody of the tax-payments of the rich and powerful? Who pays more taxes: Your Average Joe with a mortgaged house in the suburbs, or George W. Bush and his twenty closest friends combined?

While I'm at it, a few links for the Spanish Prisoner: Celtnet, Wikipedia, Marauders at the Silicon Gates, Snopes (as "Nigerian Scam")

Actually, the gnomes tell me that last b0rked link is the thing that made your comment stick in the Ingenious and Intricate Mechanism for the Publication of Opinions, Commentary, Light Versifications, Word-play &c.

Much though I prefer preventative contols to detective ones, I am afraid that in this case I am forced by circumstances to suggest that the best solution would be to check at preview.

Must dash now—

Punctuality is a virtue.

The case centers around Giordano's owner John Apostolou, who was forced to give up his control of the pizza chain, which he's owned since 1988, after his businesses fell into $45.5 million worth of debt. The chain has been under bankruptcy protection since February, but Apostolou only lost control after he submitted some court filings in the style of the sovereign citizen movement. One filing declared that Apostolous and his wife are "American Freemen, free inhabitants of the Illinois state, and we find it impossible to obtain State declared Legal Tender at Law." They also said they don't believe in U.S. currency or the legal system, typical beliefs of sovereign citizens, who generally consider almost all branches of the U.S. government to be illegitimate.

It didn't work.

As an academic, I frequently get e-mails from 'predatory publishers'--sites that purport to be online, open-access peer reviewed journals (here's an example). I've been thinking that it's cargo-cult academic publishing--that it takes a form that is nominally similar to real journals (editorial board, 'peer review', albeit with risibly short turn-around times, 'open-access'). So you can pay to 'publish' your work in these faux-journals, and all of the benefits of being a scholar will magically accrue to you without having to do the hard work of a) doing research and b) convincing others that it's worthwhile.