Pun Salad

Well, not really. I'm not in the habit of reading my spam, but this one kind of tickled me.

Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:06:35 -0700
From fbi.robertmueller@sbcglobal.net  Fri Jun 12 09:10:02 2009
From: "FBI Director Robert S.Mueller" <fbi.robertmueller@sbcglobal.net>
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: Approved By Fbi

I hear all you skeptics: Wouldn't Robert S. Mueller have an '@fbi.gov' e-mail address? Wouldn't he put a space between his middle initial and his last name? Wouldn't he (at least) capitalize FBI consistently?

Headers on this message, by the way, show that it was relayed to my mail server via smtp27.orange.fr [80.12.242.95], which (the headers claim) was relaying from the IP address 86.120.84.250, an IP address pointing to a hostname with a .ro (Romania) country code. And all you skeptics are asking: is that a likely source for Official FBI e-mail?

OK, all you skeptics may have a point. But let's keep reading, enjoying the random Capitalization, creative syntax, and oddball word usage:

Attn: Beneficiary,

This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we
have thoroughly Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring
Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors
claiming to be Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria,
Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of Oceanic Bank,
Zenith Banks, kelvin Young of HSBC, Ben of Fedex,Ibrahim Sule,Larry
Christopher, Puppy Scammers are impostors claiming to be the Federal
Bureau Of Investigation.

I was totally believing all those guys were the real deal. Even "none officials of Oceanic Bank". Even Puppy Scammers. Especially Puppy Scammers. Because if you were a scam artist, wouldn't you want to change your name to something different? Like "Robert S. Mueller"?

During our Investigation, we noticed that the reason why you have not
received your payment is because you have not fulfilled your Financial
Obligation given to you in respect of your Contract/Inheritance Payment.

So: even though the FBI is saying there's a transaction out there that's illegal, perpetrated by imposters, I still would have gotten a whole pile of money, had I only fulfilled my "Financial Obligation".

Therefore, we have contacted the Federal Ministry Of Finance on your
behalf and they have brought a solution to your problem by cordinating
your payment in total USD$10.5million in an ATM CARD which you can use
to  withdraw money from any ATM MACHINE CENTER anywhere in the world
with a maximum of $10000 United States Dollars daily. You now have the
lawful right to claim your fund in an ATM CARD.

Quick math note: even if you could find an ATM that would give you $10K at a daily whack, it would take 1050 days to get out all $10.5 million.

Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this transaction,
you have to be rest assured for this is 100% risk free it is our duty
to protect the You.

I believe this is in the FBI oath of office, to protect the You.

All I want you to do is to  contact the ATM CARD CENTER via email
for their requirements to proceed and procure your Approval Slip on your
behalf which will cost you $570 only and note that your Approval Slip
which contains details of the agent who will process your transaction.

Ah, a mere $570.

CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: Kelvin Williams
EMAIL: kelvinwilliams11@sify.com 

Do contact Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE with your details:

FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
TELL:
CELL:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:
BANK NAME:

Notes:

• I think the FBI's Intelligence Monitoring Network is pretty lame if it can't figure out that stuff on their own.

• They're very fond of the name "Kelvin": one of the "imposters" was "kelvin Young of HSBC".

• Sify.com is an India-based ISP.

So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment
informations which you'll use in making payment of $570 via Western
Union Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your
Approval Slip after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected
to your designated home address without any further delay. Please if you
know you cannot be able to afford the $570 for the delivery of your ATM
card via FedEx then do not bother to contact Mr. Kelvin Williams as we
are at the End of the year and he should be busy with some other things.

Well… if he's busy…

We order you get back to this office after you have contacted the ATM
SWIFT CARD CENTER and we do await your response so we can move on with
our Investigation and make sure your ATM SWIFT CARD gets to you.

Thanks and hope to read from you soon.

FBI Director Robert S.Mueller III.

What can I say? Bob needs to work on his English skills. But wait, there's a postscript:

Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices
claiming to be in possesion of your ATM CARD, you are hereby adviced
only to be in contact with Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE who
is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT
and forward any emails you get from impostors to this office so we could
act upon and commence investigation.

I'm going to start forwarding all my scam e-mail to Bob Mueller.

(Although I'd like to think I'm special, this scheme has been bouncing around for months. Norm Wilner was also amused enough to post his version of this mail last December; they only wanted $150 from him, and "Kelvin" had a Gmail address. They demanded the full $570 from Alan Zelchik. Wikipedia has a good article about the general topic of Advance Fee scams, including the variant where the scammer references a previous scam, often posing as law enforcement.)