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Letters to Nigeria the book |
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Somewhere between four and five years ago bogus, scam e-mails from Nigeria made their way to my in-box. You’ve probably received them yourself. If not there’s a great chance that someone you know has.
One day, out of boredom most likely, I responded. My goal was simple – to waste as much of the sender’s time as he/she/they had mine. I made little attempt to be taken seriously, but apparently it was enough.
The e-charade became habit-forming. I found myself writing more and more. Sometimes I’d get responses to my response. Most often I wouldn’t. I didn’t care. I started copying friends, and those friends seemed to like them. Someone suggested I put them all together in a collection. This is that collection.
Every message is real however some of the initial scam requests have been shortened to save space and (hopefully) avoid redundancy. Spelling and/or grammatical errors - and there are a bunch - were left unfixed. All photos, documents, forms, etc. are real. An arrow at the end of a message means additional correspondence with the same person follows. An X in a circle indicates the end of the chain. One of us has given up.
One thing to keep in mind: although this book makes light of these scams there is one reason they keep coming – they actually work. The last chapter contains links to web sites with information on the origins of these scams, what you should do if you receive one, etc.
One final thought – this book is in no way an attempt to make fun of the country of Nigeria. I’ve never been there. Perhaps one day I’ll visit and meet some of my new friends.
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Sounds pretty lame. Maybe the Table of Contents will change my mind... |