Snail Mail Scam from South Africa? Is it 1990 again?


I am used to getting all sorts of preposterous e-mail scam messages in my various electronic mail accounts, but I was amazed one day recently to receive an actual Air Mail letter through the old U. S. Postal Service from South Africa. My name and address were hand written on the envelope with the incorrect middle initial, so I was quite curious what it was:


Wow, someone actually went through the trouble of mailing this letter all the way from South Africa to me in the hopes I would contact them so they could pay me some portion of that $8.5 million. Do they not realize these scams have been around forever, and that modern day scam artists use this wonderful medium known as the Internet? This mailing cost them real time, effort, postage and paper to send this to me, not just a bulk e-mail burst from some mailing software. I hope they do not think the little "MEMO" line at the bottom added anything to their letter since that does not look very impressive at all (no real letterhead?) and just looks like something added to the bottom of their document before they laser printed it (and the other 5000 copies of it.) The signature is even just a printed scanned signature of "Patrick". So this all powerful attorney, Patrick Nguema (Esq), signs his name to some unknown person in the United States simply with a scanned image saying, "Patrick"? Sorry, I do not think most real attorneys sign anything that way!

I do love how they are going to pay me that money simply because I have the same last name as the late "Mr. Jia Chou, a national of your country." Do they realize how many people there are with the last name "Chou"? Even though more recent immigrants spell the same Chinese name as "Zhou" now, there are still plenty of us with the "Chou" spelling in the United States. I wonder how many of there letters they sent out and how much of a response they received? 

I noticed they did include an e-mail address of "dr.patricknguema@minister.com". I almost want to find some other scam e-mail message I received and forward a copy to that e-mail address. For some reason that seems appropriate.

Comments

Unknown said…
I too received this letter only it was to Pia D Forte I could see that is was a scam so I sent him a e-mail and told him, since he has the assets he should come to the US and come and meet us in our Attorney's office along with the check, LOL he then sent me a e-mali requesting a certified copy of passports, proof of address, Power of Attorney (right it's on it's way) phone number..etc. This guy is good, his e-mail had a lot of mombo jumbo legal talk. I can see how some can be victims of this scam when all they see is the $$$$ signs. people beware...
6:07 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMI & BMR Calculator (Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate)

Image
My wife has been researching type 2 diabetes and recently checked a book out of the library which included a body mass index (BMI) chart much like the one pictured here. Whereas it is fairly easy to follow, I, of course, think it must be converted to an online calculator! However, when I checked the Internet, there were already a billion of them so I had to make one that was different. So my lovely BMI BMR calculator accepts either inches or centimeters for your height and pounds or kilograms for your weight and calculates not only your BMI, but also your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which determines how many calories you should consume! So I made a spiffy "all in one" healthy body indicator calculator which not only determines how underweight or overweight you are, but also tells you how many calories you should consume to maintain or improve your ideal weight. 
Read more

Trying out the L'Ecole Culinaire Presentation Room restaurant

Image
We had been seeing the ads for the restaurant at L'Ecole Culinaire and since we live so close by we thought we would try it out. We had always enjoyed dining out at cooking or hotel schools like the CHIC in Chicago and the Statler at Cornell where we went to college. Since we still love to go out and eat here in St. Louis , we ventured over to their restaurant on the first day they were open for lunch. The first thing we noticed is that they do not have much parking! They really need to let patrons know where they are supposed to park. The restaurant itself is small but very well attended. There was one fellow who kept straightening all the centerpieces and place settings on the tables, and we always saw one or two student workers milling about. The lunch menu was small and the choices did not appear overly "gourmet". The special of the day was a bison burger stuffed with cheese, and other choices picked by my group included a club sandwich, a "margherita" pi
Read more

Not all Frosted Window Films are the same!

Image
We live in an older home with a lot of issues and one of them concerns our back door to our patio from our sunroom. The door has double paned glass on it, but unfortunately the seal has broken so you can see moisture collect inside of it. We decided the easiest way to "remedy" the problem was to cover the window with some "frosted" film so we did not have to see the moisture condensing between the panes. But the question was, what film? There are a bunch of them available so we had to select something to try on the door. The first place we tried was our nearby Lowe's store which had a bunch of Gila brand film. We selected what seemed like the typical adhesive based door sized  film that cost about $25 after tax. We thought it could not be that hard to put up and look nice on our door. So one day my wife ran out and purchased it at Lowe's and we commenced to install it on our door window. We made our own soapy water solution and followed the directions
Read more