In Continuum.

Just a few days ago, I received a similar e-mail in which I almost dismissed as just any other spam. However, a curious little thing happened - I took some time off to read this spam, and I was greatly amused at the amount of entertainment value a worthless e-mail provided me. It was sent to me by a certain Mrs Esther Prakash from Kuwait, and I am supposed to have inherited 2.6 million dollars from her dying husband. So, that is supposed to make me take off my clothes and dance around my room naked like a mad man, right? Not quite, because I know the devilry at work here, and taking apart the e-mail was pretty interesting indeed. The funniest part of the e-mail was probably how she addressed me as "Dearest In Christ". I am not sure if that is how they typically address a Christian in Kuwait, or is there some glaring grammatical mistake here. Either way, for the rest of this entry, I shall address myself as "In Christ". Here's the actual e-mail I received:

Mrs Esther Prakash
P.O.Box: 20581, Safat
13066 Safat Kuwait

Dearest in Christ,

Greetings in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I am Mrs Esther Prakash. I am married to Mr Prakash Anderson who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for many years before he died in the year 2006.We were married without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

So, dear Mrs Esther Prakash, I think by now we have already established the fact that you are both a con-man (or woman) and a person who is incredibly bad at her job. I am assuming that this e-mail was sent to me to obtain my personal information which you have so kindly asked for, although that is exactly what you are not going to get. However, since you have taken some time off to write this rather moving e-mail of yours, I have to reply something back to you. It's the law of reciprocity, I don't suppose you understand the nature of such a human condition because you have obviously not gotten a hang of persuasion at all. In return, I shall point out the mistakes in your e-mail, and thus, aid you in future cons and I wish you all the best with your personal information gathering venture. Best of luck! 

Anyway, to begin, you don't make assumptions about your victims - or, someone you intend to send an e-mail to to con them. You don't assume that both our "lords" are the same, because your Jesus Christ may be the lord, but to me he's no more real than Gandalf the White from The Lord of the Rings, or the pointy ears of the Hobbits. So, rule number one in conning, you'd want your victims' sympathy I would assume, which is probably why you made up a fictional husband and killed him off after some deadly disease that wiped out his organs in a mere span of four days. Well, if you want to have us sympathize with you, I am afraid you'd have to try much harder than this. Come up with a real terminal illness or something, or fake a name for all I care. There are a dozen different terminal illnesses out there anyway, nobody is going to know everything I am sure. Maybe his allergy to pubic hair got to his brain at last, or perhaps he choked on his own vomit and died. Whatever the case may be, come up with a convincing story. Don't just say "He died after a brief illness". You can do better than that. 

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (($2.600.000.00) Two million six hundred thousand Dollars in a Bank in Ivory Coast. Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next Eight months due to cancer problem.
I Have decided to donate this fund to you so that you will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct you. I want you to use this fund for orphanages, school and, widows, and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians.

I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision.

I wonder what position your husband used to work as at the Kuwait Embassy in the Ivory Coast, because 2.6 million dollars is a lot of money we are talking about here. So your husband's profession has already been put into doubt here, failure number two. It is tragic to hear that you are dying from a "cancer problem", although that's not how we'd usually phrase it on this side of the world. We just call it "cancer", plain and simple. The word itself is serious enough to convey numerous amount of dread and horrors, so the word "problem" is really pretty redundant I must say. You are making your illness sound like a knee problem, or a problem with your ear, or something much less trivial relatively. It's not a "cancer problem", it's just "cancer". Get that part right, so that we can start pitying you. 

So you are going to instruct me on what to do with 2.6 million dollars that your husband passed to you? Honey, you are making yourself sound like a person who is really good with money, and that you are trying to give me some advices by instructing me. You sounded somewhat like a professional there, I give you that one. However, if you have just received 2.6 million dollars from your dead husband, wanting to transfer that money to a stranger in Singapore, like myself, is in itself the dumbest financial move you could ever make. Even the most idiotic homeless man on the street knows how to keep a free nickel to himself, and I suppose he is a lot more qualified to instruct me on what I have to do with my money, not you. Failure number three, you are running out. 

So, Mrs Esther Prakash, you want to help the orphans and the widows out there, right? Sympathy points, very nicely done. Everybody sympathizes with orphans and widows, that is sure to convince a couple of goons out there with half a brain. What I cannot figure out, however, is the reason why you cannot donate to the orphanages in your own country. Iraq attacked your country in the late 1980s and the early 1990s if I remember correctly, I am sure that alone has provided enough orphans in your own country for you to donate this amount of money to. The orphans here in Singapore are well taken care of, we really don't need your money when people from your own country probably needs it way more than us. By the way, what is wrong with being non-Christians anyway, I am sure your relatives are good people in their own rights. Not believing in the same God does not make them worse people, or is that what you have been brought up to think? Let me get this straight: you do not trust your relatives to handle this amount of money in an "ungodly" fashion because they are not Christians, and yet you are willing to send this money to a complete stranger overseas. Guess what, I am not a Christian. In fact, I am everything a religion is pretty much against, so too bad to betray your trust there, failure number four.  

I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health and hence the presence of my husband's relatives is around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank in Ivory Coast.

I await your soonest response with your full information, example.
Your full name.......................
Address......................................
Age............................................
A copy of your int'l passport or ID card.............

So, Mrs Prakash, you don't need my telephone number because, according to you, your health is failing like your persuasive power in this e-mail. By extension, that probably also means that you cannot talk in proper, which is strange how you managed to type this e-mail all by yourself. Maybe you had some kind of help, from your own relatives perhaps? Or maybe your dead husband guiding your hands over the keyboard, like that creepy scene from Ghost, if that movie ever reached your Persian shores. It is amazing that you, a sick and dying woman from a "cancer problem", has somehow gotten your hands on my e-mail out of all the billions and trillions of e-mails floating about out there, and yet you are too weak to talk to me on the phone to make a monetary transaction. Perhaps you are afraid to give yourself away on the phone, maybe you are not from Kuwait at all. Maybe a Chinese woman in China trying to con my money like your other colleague who tried to call me the other day about my fifteen million dollars. 

It is a little fishy don't you think, if someone asks for your full name and address and promises 2.6 million dollars. I'd rather you pay me ten dollars up front, instead of you promising 2.6 million dollars if I send over my personal particulars. It just doesn't seem right at all, it's way too easy. If you are going to con money from people, you don't use a biblical number like 2.6 million dollars, it's way too huge for us to take you seriously. If you ask for ten dollars from the twenty thousand e-mails you must have already sent, you might get quite a handful of money in return. In this age and time, not a lot of people are going to believe in free cash, because there isn't such a thing as a free lunch out there. If religion is so important to you, then why isn't my religion asked? Is it not important all of a sudden, or are you just assuming that we have a shared Lord, and that I am a Christian as well. What if I am your husband's relatives, are you still going to trust me? If I am a Christian stranger, does that make me more trustworthy? Not all Christians use money in godly ways, unless you haven't heard. Just look at our current Pope and the amount of branded goods he wears. Tell me that's ungodly, and I'd give you even my shoe size. 

I will use the above information to obtain an authority letter that will prove you the new beneficiary of this fund from Royal Court of Kuwait. Any delay in your reply will give me room searching another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply with the above information.

Take care,
Your Sister in Christ,
Mrs Esther Prakash.

Oh, so now we have a time limit. Reply to this e-mail as soon as possible, or else you'd not be able to get the 2.6 million dollars! I should act fast now, no time for critical thinking! No time to analyze the situation now, better provide my information before it's too late! At least that is what you'd like me to be thinking right now, am I correct Mrs Prakash? You'd like me to be a stupid and mindless person from Singapore, who'd somehow act on impulse and send out all my personal particulars to you just so that you'd, I don't know, make a fake passport with my name and address? That is very smart, but not quite. I don't suppose my name is going to go very well with your Arabian face, that doesn't work very well. You see, I am a Chinese, a Taiwanese to be exact. The picture and the particulars aren't going to check out, so failure number five. 

In truth, I am not going to reply to your badly constructed e-mail, because your lack of persuasive power is simply too disappointing and amusing to me. You are not my sister in Christ, you are not my sister in anything. Hell, you might not even exist at all. As much as you are willing to trust me with your fictional cash, I am sorry to say that I cannot trust you with my personal information. Because seriously, you could have done way better just to convince me into doing something as stupid as that, perhaps a little more effort from you would have garnered a number or two - who knows, I might feel generous. You have been officially labeled as a junk mail in my mailbox, and please do not attempt to con me again. You are only going to make a fool out of yourself, and expose the obscene amount of stupidity that you possess. I hope these failures I have identified for you is going to help you in your future cons. In the mean time, however, good luck with the "cancer problem" and, better luck next time.