"You are advise to seize your communication . . ."

Riches Mine for the Taking

(Image from Wikipedia)

I seem to be getting very popular these days. First, E-katerina wants to give me all her 'caress'. Now, someone wants to give me five million dollars! I say "someone" because the email offering this tidy sum doesn't state from whom the largess is coming. The writer claims to be a certain Mr. Anthony D. Loehnis, of InterPol Headquarters, in the United Kingdom, and he says that he wants me to contact a Mr. Robert G. Kean, Director of Falcon Bank Of London.

Ordinarily, I'd send this sort of email directly to the spam file, but five million is a lot of money . . . even if it is probably imaginary. The writer sounds friendly enough though:

Dear Friend

And trustworthy:

This message is from the United Kingdom InterPol Office.

But the message quickly grows baffling:

This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly Investigated by the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with some Imposters from Nigeria.

Aside from the unorthodox capitalization -- which might be British English, for all I know -- the information itself is odd. I'm apparently having a transaction that I knew nothing of, and it's illegal, too! Am I in trouble? Maybe not, since this sounds like a friendly warning:

You are advise to seize your communication with those people in Nigeria, they are not with your funds, they are only collecting money from you for their own benefit, but we are very glad to bring to your notice that your funds has been moved to the Falcon Bank of London.

That's a relief. I'd hate to be cheated out of my five million dollars through some obscure illegal transaction that I knew nothing about. But if those Nigerians are imposters, why am I being advised to "seize . . . communication" with them? They're out of the picture now, it seems, so why can't I just ignore them -- as I was already occupied in doing until this email informed me of their existence. But Mr. Anthony D. Loehnis seems intent on ensuring that I not trust these mysterious imposters:

The Chairman of InterPol and some other Top Officials in US and UK held a meeting concerning the Internet Scam and from our finding, we notice that 75% of the Internet scam are from Nigeria, so we have tag Nigeria to be a Fraudelent Country, and no payment will ever be accepted again from Nigeria.

A fraudulent country? Nigeria's no longer a real country? I've sometimes wondered about that, given its tribal and religious divisions. It still seems to exist, though, since the "Chairman of Interpol" and those other "Top Officials" have chosen to never again allow any payment from the place. I assume that InterPol got my five million payment out of Nigeria before this restriction was imposed, which would seem to be a fair assumption:

The US Government and Uk Officials has concluded that all payment should be made through Falcon Bank of London but every beneficiary has to contact the bank with their Fund Identification Code : FIC-446013..........Get intouch with the Falcon Bank on the below stated contact for your funds.

Bank name: Falcon Bank Of London
Bank Director: Mr. Robert G. Kean
E-mail: marklukas@post.ro
Office Line: (+44) 7024068986
Direct Line: (+44) 7011136663

Hmmm . . . Mr. Robert G. Kean, Director of the Falcon Bank of London, has an email address under the name "Markl Ukas"? Strange name, but the fellow apparently lives in Romania, where they perhaps have unusual names. Wasn't Vlad Drakul from there? Odd though, isn't it, to think that Mr. Robert G.Dean might actually be someone with a name like "Markl Ukas" and living not in London but in Romania. This could, however, explain the unorthodox capitalization since he might not be a native speaker of English. And also explain the ungrammatical sentence constructions. But why look a gift horse in the mouth? Especially when the five million in US dollars are mine for the taking:

Your $5,000,000.00USD has been deposited with the Falcon Bank of London, once you contact the bank above with your Fund Identification Code, they will quickly proceed and release your funds to you, and also make sure you seize your communication with anyone from Nigeria, because no payment is allowed from Nigeria again, and if anyone contact you that your funds is with any bank from Nigeria, kindly delete the email, because it is another means of collecting money from you.

That must be one very powerful email if it can actually collect money from me. I'll be sure and delete it promptly so it'll lack time to collect more than a few cents. Okay, anything else?

You are advise to stay away from any other office different from the Falcon Bank, it is only the Falcon Bank that can pay you the funds, since they are the mandated bank.

I'm advised to stay away from any office other than Falcon Bank, but that pronoun shift from "it" to "they" worries me a bit. Will I be dealing with several branches of this Falcon Bank of London? But 'they' sound quite happy for me:

Congratulation !!!

So . . . maybe everything's okay. After all, InterPol is guaranteeing this:

Yours Faithfully
Mr. Anthony D. Loehnis
From: InterPol Headquarters, United Kingdom

Sounds legit . . . unless . . . unless the sender is secretly one of those "imposters" and this message itself one of those emails I'm warned against as being simply "another means of collecting money" from me -- and which therefore needs to be deleted right away!

So . . . delete . . . or not? What a baffling dilemma!