Gute Stories und das Englisch wird auch besser ...

Greetings My Dear Friend,

before I introduce myself, I wish to inform you that this letter is not a hoax mail and I urge you to treat it serious. This letter must come to you as a big surprise, but I believe it is only a day that people meet and become great friends and business partners. (...)

My name is Mr. Mahama Baye, from Burkina Faso, West Africa. I am about to retire from active Banking service to start a new life (...). It has been 10 years now that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers.  Most of the funds which they transferred out of the shores of Africa were gold and oil money that was supposed to have been used to develop the continent. [wie wahr...] Their Political advisers always inflated the amounts before transferring to foreign accounts, so I also used the opportunity to divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers were being closed after transfer. [Das beruhigt ungemein...] I acted as the Bank Officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they were using me to succeed in their greedy act; I also cleaned some of their banking records from the Bank files and no one cared to ask me because the money was too much for them to control. [! wirklich prächtig] They laundered over $5 billion Dollars during the process.

I have already diverted ($10.5 million Dollars) to an escrow account belonging to no one in the bank. The bank is anxious now to know who the beneficiary to the funds is because they have made a lot of profits with the funds. It is more than Eight years now and most of the politicians are no longer using our bank to transfer funds overseas. The ($10.5 million Dollars) has been laying waste in our bank and I don’t want to retire from the bank without transferring the funds to a foreign account to enable me share the proceeds with the receiver (a foreigner). (...) There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I secured everything. I only want you to assist meby providing a reliable bank account where the funds can betransferred.

You are not to face any difficulties or legal implications as I am going to handle the transfer personally. If you are capable of receiving the funds, do let me know immediately to enable me give youa detailed information on what to do. For me, I have not stolen the money from anyone because the other people that took the whole money did not face any problems. [! Weil die anderen nicht bestraft wurden, hab ich es auch nicht gestohlen...] This is my chance to grab my own life opportunity but you must keep the details of the funds secret to avoidany leakages as no one in the bank knows about my plans.

Please get back to me if you are interested and capable to handle this project, I shall intimate you on what to do when I hear from your confirmation and acceptance. If you are capable of being my trusted associate do declare your consent to me. I am looking forward to hear from you immediately for further information.

Thanks with my best regards.
[Name der Redaktion bekannt ;)]
Telex[!] Manager
Bank of Africa (BOA)
Burkina Faso.

Euer/Ihr ergebenster MediaWatch-Redakteur hat schon unzählige solcher Mails im Spam-Ordner verschwinden lassen. Dieses ist jedoch ein besonders prächtiges Exemplar - sowohl, was Stil als auch, was die Gedankengänge angeht. Hier wird exemplarisch sichtbar, wohin Straflosigkeit führt. Und wer glaubt, unsere Banker seien alle ganz bestimmt seriöser, täuscht sich da sicher weit häufiger, als es uns allen Recht sein kann.

Wer Appetit auf mehr bekommen hat und weitere Einblicke sucht, dem sei die hier abgebildete, bei Ginko Press erschienene Sammlung ausgesuchter Scam-Mails mit tollen Illustrationen empfohlen.