The Idea Of Progress Strikes it Rich!

(Text in bold actually received on Tuesday. Text in bold has been reprinted exactly, with all spelling and grammatical errors preserved)

Attention Sir,

My Name is Dr. Fouad Mazen,I am the chief accountant with the Nigeria Mines and steel co-operation(NMSC) After due deliberation with my colleagues and the official of The U.S Federal Reserve Bank in Nigeria, we decided to forward this proposal to you.

This guy sounds serious. He's a doctor. He and his colleagues have been discussing me? The official of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in Nigeria knows who I am? I must be more important than I realized.

We actually want a reliable person who could assist us to transfer the sum of Eighteen Million Five Hundred United States Dollars (US$18.5m) into his account.This fund resulted from an over-invoiced bill from contract awarded by Nigeria Mines and Steel Co-operation under the budget allocation to the ministry and the bill was approved for payment by the concerned ministries.

The contract has been executed, commissioned and the contractor had since been paid the actual cost of the contract.We are left with the balance of US$18.5m as part of the over-invoiced amount,which we have deliberately over estimated for our own use. I am contacting you to be our custodian of this fund.

1) 30% for you (Account Owner)
2) 70% for us.

Soooo...that's not $18.5m, it's $18.0005m. I understand Dr. Mazen will be hooking me up with 30% of that ($5,400,150 (my math) or $5,550,000 (his math), so I guess I should stop complaining.

Phew! And it's a good thing that work actually got done, or I'd have felt guilty.

Upon reciept of this mail if you are intrested in assisting over this transfer you are hereby adviced to forward the following information inorder for me to start every other documentations in approving the payment of the fund into your account .

1) Your Full Names and Address.
2) Your Telephone and Fax Number
3)Your Bank Account Details.
4)Your Bank Address.
5)Your Bank Telephone/Fax numbers and Telex if available.



Ah, my Telex. I'll just send word back to you via Pony Express. Oh, and you say that I should just go ahead and give you my bank account details on this first communique? Not a problem, Dr. I'll send it to you by carrier pigeon.

As you may want to know and to make you less curious, I got your address from a business directory that portrayed your establishment in good light. This transaction is 100% risk-free and devoid of any Trouble from my Government. We have been exercising patience for this opportunity forso long and to most of us this is a life opportunity we cannot afford to miss.To get this fund paid into your account, we have to present a foreign establishment like yours.

Oh, so that's how they found me. I thought I had quite the reputation in Nigeria, but apparently not. At least this transaction is 100% risk free. Now I can sleep at night. And the Nigerians seem to be cool with giving me $5,400,150 or $5,550,000. And I can sure use the money. I'm ready to go into some sort of business for myself...I just can't figure out which one.

My colleagues in this deal and myself will come to your Country to arrange for our share upon confirmation from you that the money has been credited into your nominated Bank Account. Our intention is to go into real estate, and the intention is you take us along, since we are not indigenes.Upon your acceptance of my proposal, do confirm your sincere interest by mail through my email to enable me give you the detailed procedure for the transfer.It will surprise you why we chose and trusted you for this transaction as we believe that good friends can be discovered and business like this cannot be realized without trust.

They're going to trust me to hold the money until they get here? That's a lot of responsibility. And they want to get into real estate? Maybe I can finance giant new condo buildings with my new friends, Dr. Mazan and Colleagues!

And they're right. This can't be done without trust.

However,it is pertinent to note that Honesty,sincerity and confidentiality must be our watchword.
We look forward to doing business with you.
Best Regards

Dr.FOUAD MAZEN (CHIEF ACCOUNTANT).
DIRECT LINE+234-808-277-1977

Dude even gave me his phone number. How does he know I won't call him up drunk one night to complain about my ex-girlfriend, or ask to crash on his couch? Trust, that's how.

He asked me to keep this a secret, but since I view all readers of The Idea Of Progress as colleagues, well, it's only right to share my good fortune with you.

I'll let you know when my condos go up for sale.


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I've thought about emailing this guy back. I got he idea from a play that was performed in Chicago called Nigerian Spam Scam Scam. An actor named Dean Cameron got a letter like I did, and decided to start emailing the guy back, adopting the persona of a sexually ambiguous eccentric Florida millionare that dotes over his cats Mister Snickers and Joe Joe the Dancing Clown. He took the actual transcripts of the conversations and performed them as a two person show (The transcripts are available on the site). Unfortunately I missed the show, but it sounds really funny.

Maybe I can have a show with Dr. Mazen.