Just got off the phone with “Dr. Francis.” It’s around 4 am in the morning there, so I think I woke him up. Oooh…wow. I just had a great idea. I have about 10 hours of Skype left to use. I should write a program to call him every hour. If each call were to last, say, 20 seconds. That would give me 1800 calls, or enough to call him for 75 straight days. At about 10 Euros for 10 hours, this could honestly be some of the best money I will ever spend! Ok…I’ll have to put some serious thought into that.
I digress. I called him up. I was sort of hard to hear what he was saying through his accent and 4am groginess, but I managed to convey that I will by stopping by Western Union tomorrow. Of course I won’t…or maybe I will and I’ll just send him a penny or something. Anyways. I plan on doctoring some of my own photos, level the playing field so to speak. I did get the conversation on tape though, well hard drive really. I used my iTalk on my iPod to record it. About 2/3 the way through, I had trouble hearing him, so I pluged my headphones in and put one in my ear and the other next to the mic. It actually worked pretty well and you can hear both sides of the conversation.
I was begining to worry that my new Nigerian friend was a Dodo. However, he sent me another email today, with another picture!
Attention:John Frank Ferguson
This is to inform you that the outcome of your contract payment verification came our satisfactorily. Your name and details corresponds with what we have in our payment system. Your payment is ready and will be made to you via a classified bank draft. I want you to know that your draft payment value US$25M is ready and will be delivered to your confidential mailingaddress as stated below:6422 NE 60th St.Seattle, WA 98115.
You are to be informed that we do not make use of public mails, FedEx, DHL, UPS etc because of high rate of stolen Bank Drafts which raises high tendency in double payment by the Federal Government of Nigeria so the President and chief of Armed Forces of the Federal republic of Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo introduced and assigned a new medium of Government Postal Services with a Private Owned courier service company namely (The Presidential Courier Company) they are in charge of all Bank Drafts that leaves the shores of Nigeria overseas,The courier company agents will be arriving your door step within the next 24hrs with your draft. So ensure that you are available to receive your draft in person and take it to your bank for confirmation after which your total funds will be deposited to your account or paid to you immedaitely.
The courier company that will deliver the draft to you is known as PRESIDENTIAL COURIER COMPANY) owned by the Nigerian Government. Under their policies with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Government of Nigeria/The Presidential Courier Company is that for every delivery to your door step any where in the world, their delivery charges must be paid to them here before they can pick up the draft for delivery to you. The charges is US$550.
You are required make the payment immediately with the bank receiver’s name via western union money transfer as stated below.
NAME: MRS. BUNMI ADEROGBA
LOCATION; LAGOS-NIGERIA.
TEXT QUESTION:WHO IS KING
ANSWER :GOD
AMOUNT:US$550 DOLLARS.
As soon as you make the payment, you should make sure that you send me the Money Transfer Control Number (MTCN) along with the sender’s name and address. Once this payment is receivce your tracking number for your bank draft will be e-mail back to you.Ensure that this is done as soon as possible so that we can meet up with the courier company time frame.
Also Attached is a scan copy of your bank draft..
Call me as soon as you receive this email on my Direct Telephone Number + 234-1-4346860
Treat as top urgent and congratulations.
Dr. James Francis
Accountant General of the Federation
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Contact Tel: + 234-1-4346860
Contact Fax: + 234-1-7594268
Wow, the guy wants $550 dollars, that’s quite a bit of money…and money that I’m obviously not going to pay. I suppose this is where the fun begins.
Some interesting things to note. “234” is the country code for Nigeria. The “1” following the country code is the city code, what we would refer to as an area code. In this case, the “1” is for Lagos, which corresponds to the information in the letter. I happen to have some minutes on Skype, so I’m going to give this Dr. Francis a call. The plot thickens! (wow, what a cliche.)
Where were you ten years ago when the Oklahoma City Bombing occurred? I was in the 3rd grade. I don’t remember the actual event, however I do remember making these little teddy bears in class and sending them to Oklahoma.
Brian Bollon, one of the admissions counselors at BJU sent me a response a short while ago:
Andrew,
I’m glad to know of your interest in a Christian education. I will be glad to answer any questions you might have, or send you a profile of a major you are interested in. You can call me at 800-252-6363, or email me at bbollon@bju.edu.
You can also find some information on our web site (www.bju.edu).
Brian Bollon
Admissions Counselor
Bob Jones University
First off. I honestly get sick to my stomach just going to their website and I would have to say that if I were going to BJU I would either kill myself or commit atrociously funny pranks all day long…hopefully the latter.Second, I’ve done some more research and turned up something that explains alot: BJU is in Greenville, South Carolina. Even furthur reinforcing typically sterotypes of the South…and perhaps even some peoples hatred of. I responded:
Brian,
Most of my questions revolve around the Residence Hall Life rules.
Why must I live in the halls until I’m 23?
Can you elaborate more on the “check out” policy?
What is the extent of the room inspection? I can appreciate keeping my room clean, but I don’t want to feel violated either.
I have an existing email account (the one I’m emailing you from) that I’ve used for years. I get all my email from everybody at this account. Do I really have to use BJU’s email system exclusively?
If I bring a wireless router and connect that to the campus network so that my connection is filtered, would that be a problem?
Can you explain the cell phone etiquette?
Why are posters of movies and musics starts banned?
Why is jazz, rock, and “contemporary Christian music” not permitted?
Why can’t I have a DVD/VCR?
Why can I not watch movies rated higher than G? What if the movie is not rated? What are acceptable ratings for TV?
I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.
In Him,
Andrew Ferguson
I’m counting on their naivety to prevent them from finding this blog. The picture is of Dr. Bob Jones III. Stay tuned for more updates. I’m going to go puke now.
We’ve all gotten them, SPAM sent to us from some random person in Nigeria (Why is it always Nigeria? Why not the Republic of Congo or something?) saying we have US$25,000,000 waiting for us and we just need to email them back and we can get our long lost money. Well, being a bored college student with really nothing else to do, I’ve decided to play along and have some fun. First, here’s the email I received three days ago:
Attention!!!!!!!
Dear Sir/Madam
During the auditing and closing of all financial records of the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN) it was discovered from the records of outstanding foreign
contractors due for payment with the federal government of Nigeria in the year
2005 that your name and company is next on the list of those who will received
their fund.
I wish to officially notify you that your payment is being processed and will be
released to you as soon as you respond to this letter. Also note that from the
record in our file, your outstanding contract payment of USD$25,000,000.00
(Twenty-five million United States Dollars) will be made to you out of your
total sum immediately.
Kindly re-confirm to me if this is inline with what you have in your record and
also re-confirm the informations below to enable this office proceed and
finalize your fund remittance without further delays.
1) Your full name.
2) Phone, fax and mobile #.
3) company name,position and address.
4) profession, age and marital status.
As soon as these informations are received, your payment will be made available
to you via an international certified bank draft which will be delivered to
your door step for your confirmation. You should call my direct number(+
234-1-4346860) as soon as you receive this letter for further discussion and
more clarification.
Also get back to me on this e-mail address( paymentcenter103@hotmail.com)
Best regards,
Dr. James Francis
Accountant General of the Federation
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Contact Tel: + 234-1-4346860
Contact Fax: + 234-1-7594268
The email was from Dr.James Francis @ *******@cenbankng.biz. A quick look at http://www.cenbankng.biz shows that the domain name was “recently registered.” A more through check revealed that the site was registered the same day I recieved the email (wow, this guy doesn’t waste any time). The address, of course, does not exist and the telephone number is also bogus (although he was foolish enough to use a non-existant area code, curious). The X-Originating-IP address show that he might have sent the email from NITEL, the Nigerian Telecommunications Company. In any event, here’s what I wrote back:
John Frank Ferguson
6422 NE 60th St.
Seattle, WA
98115
206-948-1701
Nordstroms, Senior Repair Technician
1642 Olive St.
Seattle, WA
98122
Elevator Repair
42 years old
married
I hope this is what you need. Let me know what the next step is.
-John Ferguson
I didn’t hear back from him until today and I was actually kind of getting worried that he saw through my guise. However, he emailed me today:
ATTENTION:JOHN FRANK FERGUSON
I ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF YOUR EMAIL IN REGARDS TO YOUR OUTSTANDING PAYMENT THROUGH THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA(CBN).WE DUE APPOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY OF YOUR PAYMENT.
I WISH TO OFFICIALLY NOTIFY YOU THAT YOUR PAYMENATTENTION:
I ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF YOUR EMAIL IN REGARDS TO YOUR OUTSTANDING PAYMENT THROUGH THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA(CBN).WE DUE APPOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY OF YOUR PAYMENT.
I WISH TO OFFICIALLY NOTIFY YOU THAT YOUR PAYMENT HAS BEEN VERIFIED AND THE CENTRAL BANK AND ALSO THE SANATE COMMITEE ON FOREIGN DEPT HAS APPROVL THE SUM OF US$25 MILLION TO BE MADE TO YOU OUT OF YOUR TOTAL CONTRACT SUM IMMEDIATELY VIA AN INTERNATIONAL CERTIFIED BANK DRAFT,IT ALSO REFLECTED IN OUR SYSTEM AND VALID FOR IMMEDIATE REMITTANCE TO YOU.
I WISH TO INFROM YOU THAT YOUR PROVIDED DETAILS HAS BEEN FORWARDED TO OUR LEGAL DEPARTMENT FOR AUTHENTICATION AND THE RELEASE OF YOUR BANK DRAFT WHICH WILL BE DELIVERED TO YOU BY A FIRST CLASS COURIER COMPANY NAME:(NEDLINK WORLDWIDE COURIER SERVICE).
AS SOON AS OUR LEGAL DEPARTMENT CONCLUDES AND REPORTS TO ME WITHIN 24HRS, YOU WILL BE INFORMED FURTHER ON THE DATE, TIME OF YOUR PAYMENT. YOU SHALL CALL ME ON MY DIRECT TELEPHONE NUMBER: 234 1 4346860 FOR FURTHER EXPLANATION.
ATTACHED IS A COPY OF YOU FUND RELEASE BOND AND CERTIFICATE OF IRREVOCABLE PAYMENT GUARANTEE BOND.
THANKS FOR YOUR EXPECTED CO-OPERATION.
DR.JAMES FRANCIS
ACCOUNTANT GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION
FEDRAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
CONTACT TEL: + 234-1-4346860
CONTACT FAX: + 234-1-7594268
There were also two pictures attached:
I don’t know about you, but they sure look authentic to me (yea right)!
And so this is where things were left. I anticipate that I will hear from him again in the next day or so.
First things first. Comedian was awesome last night. Dad called and he flew in and is going skiing tomorrow. As much as I want to go, I need to get homework done. So I had to say no, which was hard because I really wanted to go. Then this morning I woke up to find that it had snowed. There is at least a good foot or so on the ground right now with no signs of letting up. And from the looks of it, CSM hasn’t bothered to clear the side walks. This should make my 100 foot walk to breakfast pretty fun.
Jim Ferguson, my Dad, turned 50 today. However, even he couldn’t escape favorite birthday past-time: Photoshoping. “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator
