Tuesday, December 30, 2008 2 comments

The Ballad of Weezy Salah

by Lusy Dupree

The perils of the internet do not cease during the Holidays, of course. The ruses just get more focused.

Most are familiar with the traditional e-mail scam: an unsolicited message is received from an unknown person in a foreign land requesting financial assistance with the promise of a large financial reward. Following the instructions, victims of the so-called "Advance-fee fraud" (aka the Nigerian E-mail scheme) send money overseas with little hope of seing any return.

According to legend, the e-mail scheme business is a major industry in Lagos, where internet cafes cater to scammers working on prying the cash out from overseas. The ideas of the scams have been numerous, if not silly, at times using false airline tickets, diplomas, and even the forged signature of the Nigerian president.

Evidently, as we at the New Madrid discovered, the scam artists began targeting Christmas Tree vendors during these holidays. One of our contributors - who at times has operated a Christmas Tree farm (really) - received a slew of grammatically-flawed sales inquiries at his business address from a number of email addresses, each asking for an order of trees to be sent overseas.

The scam comes in when the "purchaser" demands a certain shipping agent (of course, a fake one) be used and paid in advance by the tree vendor, as we discovered in the following correspondence.

In this case, however, something beautiful blossomed from our correspondence with the scammers: true love, the ultimate Christmas gift.

Please enjoy the following exchanges. We responded in turn as an "independent Christmas Tree consultant" for the below correspondence. It is long in length, but a quick read that is entirely worth your time.

The correspondence from the scammers is entirely unedited.

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