There’s a new scam email making the rounds. If you receive it, just ignore it and delete it. Don’t fall for the scam. Here’s the text of the email as I’ve seen it:
Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson
(Wil Wheaton deserves a hat tip for this one.)
Wow. So much is wrong with that letter. I don’t know, but I read it, and even if I didn’t have firsthand knowledge of this scam, I would have seen it for what its worth. It reads like a letter from a foreigner who knows nothing of the US political system, particularly its terminology. Thanks for the heads up though. 🙂
Actually, I’m pretty sure this was meant as a joke, satirizing the current economic situation with a Nigerian scam style email. 😉