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SEIFFE:  Here As A Public Service . . .

Thursday May 25, 2006

By Ralf Seiffe

Ralf Seiffe received this fax this morning and it is republished here, exactly, as a public service.  

Dear Gracious Sir or Madame:

My name is Ibriham Ngoto and I serve as the international banking officer at the Bank for International Payments in the capital city of Lagos , Nigeria .  I am write to you today because an unusual situation has come about and you have been recommended to me as a trustworthy person.  

Usual work I do is to find very distant next-of-kin of plane crash victims who have left

more than $USD10 million in cash in our bank that we do not know what to do with.  Other times I help our kleptocrats find partners to move their looting out of Nigeria . 

My usual job is to finding honest persons willing to let us use their bank account to send money to by Nigerian businessmen and politicians inconvenienced by Nigeria ’s strict banking laws.  I am always puzzled that more dependable persons are not willing to give us their bank account numbers even though we offer very large commissions.

I write today to tell you of my assignment today.  I am a junior officer here in the bank and among my duties is to open and close the vault each morning and evening.  I also make the coffee and clean the refrigerator each week of forgotten lunches and half finished sodas. 

You can imagine my surprise when working late last Friday night when I was doing my refrigerator duty and I find $USD90,000 in the freezer!  Normally when I find such money I write to dependable and gracious people like you to get the money out of the country.  When this happens I would offer to wire this money to your account and pay you $USD9,000 for you trouble.  

Unfortunately, this time we know that the money belong to a famous American congressman who will want it back.  He have sent the money to fund important business deals here in Nigeria .  The congressman’s problem is that many authorities has been asked for his reason to have the money.  He told us he has this money after collecting much spare change from automobile seats in the Washington DC taxicabs, many driven by Nigerian immigrants.

Unfortunately the congressman has not been reporting the proceeds of his hobby to US tax authorities.  This unfairly puts him in jeopardy.  Because you have been recommended as a straightforward personality, please send me you Social Security and date of birth.  We will then use it to file a restated tax form about this money and pay $USD60,000 to tax bureau.  This is a huge overpayment so you will be eligible for a large tax refund.  We simply ask that you send us half the refund.  What could be fairer?  This must be done before the news cycle collapses so please fax your information to:  

©2006 Ralf Seiffe

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.