A kindly lawyer in Benin informs me that my recently-dead uncle has left me millions of dollars. I bite.
Text reads:
Dear Klerk.
I am Advocate David Amaugo. A personal attorney to Eng. Michael H. Klerk (my client), from your country who was Director of engineering consultant here in Republic of Benin. On the 5th of March,2010, my client lost his life as a result of Brain cancer, at Benin Medical Center. Since the death of my Client, i have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives until now, so i decide to contact you and need your urgent Assistance to present you to the bank so that the proceed of my client's fund valued about $10,7M (Ten Million Seven Hundred Thousand United Dollars.) can be paid Into Your Bank Account immediately before the funds will be confiscated by the Bank here.
After reading this message, reply me with your direct mobile telephone number... Your full address...Your age....and your occupation so that i can send further details to you for better understanding and also tell you how we can legally proceed the claim. Upon the fund transfer into your bank account both of us will share it 50% for you 50% for me. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.
I am waiting your urgent response.
Yous sincerely,
Barrister David A
---Ends---
I reply.
Text reads:
Dear Barrister David,
I was heartbroken and yet grateful for your caring, kind-hearted and obviously not exploitative email. It’s a true tragedy that old Uncle Mike has passed away – to tell the truth, I never really knew him (not at all, not even that he existed, to be honest) and although we had our obvious differences (for example, our surnames) I always thought that if I’d just gotten to know him better, like what his favourite colour is, what his hopes and dreams and fears were, or even who the hell he is, we’d have gotten on famously.
Honestly, though, I was expecting this email. Just last week my best friend Eric got an email informing him that his unknown uncle in Nigeria had died of cancer, and the week before that it was my other good friend Jess. For years now, all my friends, family and work colleges have had to go through the difficult and harrowing process of getting an email from an East African Lawyer telling them of their unknown relative’s demise at the hand of dreaded cancer. Since I was a young boy, I’ve been 100% certain that, somewhere in the world, there is a family member I’ve never met who will die of brain cancer and will me, his last remaining relative, his millions. It was only a matter of time before my poor unknown uncle Mikey met this exact fate.
Of course, some idiots I know on the internet are trying to convince me that this is a scam – perhaps in a blackhearted attempt to take Uncle Mike’s millions for themselves, the soulless fucks. But we have to ask ourselves – if this is a scam, then how come you’re an experienced, trusted lawyer in possession of an internationally recognised degree that qualifies you to deal with the difficult intricacies of international inheritance laws and the complicated string of transnational tax policies that govern the transfer of wealth across national barriers?
If this is an attempt to “empty my entire bank account and leave me in crippling debt”, as these imbecilic nonbelievers claim, then how come you’re such a good, kind-hearted person who would move hell and high water just to fulfil the last will and testament of a lonely dying man. I mean, what kind of low-life, scum-eating, piece of shit, soulless asshat would take advantage of the trauma of the loss of a loved one in an exploitative, black-hearted attempt to cash in on someone’s lack of internet savvy and ruin their lives by plunging them into dire financial straits? Obviously not you.
Please find attached to this email all my personal banking details, three signed and police certified copies of my passport, identity, several telephone and utilities bills going back several few months, and my original birth certificate. No, not a copy – the original. It was tough forcing this physical copy of it into the internet, but if you can track down one man’s sole surviving relative across nearly 5000 miles, well, what is a little digital-physical barrier in comparison?
My best wishes. Please let me know as soon as you can send me the money. I’m writing a book about why Geocentrism is real and how vaccines cause autism and I desperately need money to fund my lifestyle while I cherrypick articles and discredited hack “research” to present as proof of my theories.
Yours sincerely,
Anti-vaxxer, Soothsayer, your loving friend and co-inheritor,
Matthew Klerk
