Nigeria Writes

Nigerian money. Apparently, I should be expecting some somewhere down the line. Image credit: Online Nigeria.


I'm going to have to put a big map on my wall and start putting pins in it for all the places that are sending me money:

From: Government of Nigeria <xxxxxxx@optusnet.com.au.invalid>
To:
Subject: MATTER OF URGENT ATTENTION
Date: Feb 21, 2009 4:36 PM
The Nigerian government in agreement with the directive of the IMF, World Bank, Paris Club and the G8 has through the federal Ministry of Finance and Federal Ministry of Justice handed over your payment file to the United States Consulate. In seeking for outright debt cancellation from the above world bodies, they have directed that due to so much fraud and scams perpetrated against foreign beneficiaries, and the bureaucracy in paying you and others involved, that the United States Consulate should take charge of your payment.

However, I, Umaru Musa yarAdua want you to note that your file is presently with the USA Consulate and you should contact them. As the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal republic of Nigeria, I want to inform you that there is no other office(s) or person his/her position in the government notwithstanding that is presently directly in charge of your payment. Therefore you are advised in your own interest to desist from making further contact with anyone or office with regards to your payment. We have instructed all bank, government offices previously involve of your payment to stop forthwith and you are ask to stop conversation with them as well.

We do have so many persons that there fund is still not transferred to them, and due to mix up, a lot of data from some files, so you will have to provide your complete data to the Consulate. The Nigerian people and government are not going to be liable to any money you may lose should you defile this Presidential order. It is also very important to inform you that anyone informing you that they are in charge of your payment outside the United States of America Consulate must be doing that to defraud you, so continue communication with such person(s) or office(s) is at your own peril.

Here are the contact details of the American Consulate in Lagos; you are advised to contact them.

Mr. Mike Philip
Debts payment Unit
United sates Consulate
No: 2 Walter Carrington crescents, Victoria Island
Lagos-Nigeria
Email: xxxxxxxxxx@aol.com

Do not say that you were not warned to stop further communication or contacts with anyone. If you required further explanation, do get back to us.


Yours faithfully

Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi
Media Sec. to the President
Federal Republic of Nigeria
nowhere@nohow.com.invalid

Apparently, I need to be patient with these folks ...

Recall that, as always, this came to my Cujo359 e-mail account. I never use it to transact financial business.

While I've removed the e-mail addresses, I left the domains on two of them just to show why this is an obvious fraud. The second one is the e-mail for the "U.S. Consul". It's an AOL address (I've added the .invalid to prevent automated software from using it.) People who work in U.S. consulates will have Department of State addresses (state.gov). I doubt that someone from an African government would be using an Australian e-mail address, either.