Not long ago I got one of these e-mails and decided to reply.
It goes as follows -
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:53:04 -0800
From: inf0123y2355@live.co.za
Subject: From Mr. Karium Amadou
To:
From Mr. Karium Amadou
Hello Friend, I am Mr. Karium Amadou , the director of account/audit department in the Bank of Africa Ouagadougou Burkina Faso, West Africa . I got your contact from a Yahoo Tourist Search When I was searching for a foreign partner. I assured of your capability and reliability to champion this business opportunity when I prayed to the Almighty about you. In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $22,000.000.00 million US Dollars in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer Mr. Alan Williams, A British National who died along with his entire family in (20 Oct 2005) in a plane crash. As followed in this link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/tanzania/1501084/Tycoon-dies-with-family-in-Tanzania-safari-plane-crash.htmlSince I got the information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund.
The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and I cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner since I am from this country. I agree to offer you 45% of the total sum as foreign partner in respect to the provision of an account, 55% will be for me while we aboth will take care of the expenses incur during process of the transfer.
There after I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where the money will be remitted.
Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by email the text of the application which you fill and send to our bank. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.
You have to keep everything secret as to enable the transfer to move very smoothly into the account you will provide to the bank. Don't hesitate to furnish me with your private telephone for easy and effective communication. Also send me your personal information as followed ,
THIS MY PRIVATE EMAIL karium_amadou@sify.com
(1) Your full names
(2) Your age and occupation
(3) Your nationality
(4) Your private telephones for easy communication
(5) A copy of your international passport or recent photo for me to know you in person.
Below is my residential address and email contact.
Siege social: 01BP 452001 Ouaga 01, Ouagadougou Burkina Faso.
Anxiously waiting for your urgent response
Thanks and God bless.
Mr. KARIUM AMADOU
My reply, Its nowhere as imaginative as Cody's but I wanted to be honest.
Dear Mr Amadou
I have to ask, Has this approach ever actually worked?
Seriously I ask because I'm very interested. Not only do you ask for a leap of faith to obtain every piece of information you need to successfully steal someone's identity but you start with the incredibly unbelievable sum of 22,000,000,00 Million US Dollars. Are you aware that this sum would be sufficient to buy approx five tenths of the worlds landmass?
I await your reply
Yours
Wooberman