Technical Assistance, Commentarama Style

Sometimes a relationship goes stale. The chase becomes tedium. The challenge is gone. You’ve said everything you have to say. Those little things you once found charming. . . they become annoying. That’s how I feel about Nigerian Scammers. Who did you think I was talking about?

I, for one, am sick of the low quality garbage these Nigerians keep sending to my inbox. They’re dull, pointless, and about as see-through as the latest Obama jobs claim lie. Blech. I miss the old days, when you looked at your inbox and you weren’t sure what was real or what wasn’t. Now it’s nothing but Spanish Lottery winners and rich widows trying to leave Africa. Come on people! You’ve got to step up your game.

So I’m going to offer some free advise to my friends from Nigeria. . . or Kenya.

The crux of the problem is this. Nobody believes that you would pick a “trusted friend” from a random e-mail. Not happening. BUT. . . people will believe that they stumbled upon something. So start with this: “Dear Harry, I have the money and am ready to send it to your account. But I need to act fast. If you were unable to open the account, then find me someone who can do this instead of you. I’m willing to share with whoever it is.”

Notice the advantages here. First, you don’t need to know who you’re talking to because your target thinks you were sending the e-mail to “Harry” and they will just assume you sent it to them by mistake. That means no more awkward e-mails to “Dearest Mr. Commentarama” or “My trusted friend flamingasshat7”. Secondly, this is believable because the target will think they’ve stumbled upon a scheme, not that you’ve offered them one. Trust me, humans are suspicious of offers that sound too good to be true (except from Congress), but they’re suckers for sneaky schemes.

Next, stop talking about lottery winnings. Everyone knows that nobody wins the Spanish lottery, not even the Spanish. And calling it the British lottery doesn’t help either. You need a better angle for where you got the money. I would suggest playing on the current strain of angry populism: “Harry, I got the TARP money from that rich greedy bank.” This has many advantages. First, banks aren’t people, they can’t feel pain so people feel no qualms about stealing from them. Secondly, some politicians reinforce this by telling us that it’s ok to take things from banks, because they’re evil and greedy. . . and foreign banks are the worst!

But if that isn’t simple enough for you, take a page from the frat party ad book. Send the following: “I’m going to shoot this panda if you don’t support ObamaCare send us $100.” Just make sure to include the picture of the panda. If you need to, substitute a baby.


Finally, get yourself an English speaker on staff. Seriously, the investment will pay for itself in days. If you’d like us to help you, just send us your account information and we’ll get right on that.