The world economy is in disarray and industries of all kinds are hurting like never before. Construction, housing, the automakers, cigar manufacturers as well as a plethora of industries are reeling and desperately grabbing onto whatever they can to stay afloat. But I have noticed that one particular industry is stepping up it’s marketing like I have never seen before. This group has unleashed a full frontal assault on its prospective clientele, and it’s impressive to see such tenacity and a belief in good old fashioned traditional marketing values. Of course I’m referring to: The Email Scammers.
Never have I received such a relentless barrage of Nigerian 419 letters, foreign lottery notifications, and phishing scams in all my life. Everyday I receive three to five different creatively written emails trying desperately to separate me from my hard earned money. It has become obvious that the world’s stifling economic conditions are hurting the email scammer industry and these gallant lads are doing their best to stay afloat.
The Nigerian letters are amazing – so well conceived and so sincere and believable that I almost want to give these bastards everything that they want, sight unseen. The stories are always uncanny – a steel magnate dies and somewhere along the way in life I must have crossed paths with this fine gent. His daughter Fatima needs to move his two-hundred million dollars from a financial institution in the Ivory Coast to an American Bank, and as fate would have it, gosh darn it, MY name came up at the top of the list! Wow, what a stroke of good fortune for little ol’ me! I also got one from Jipjad Dorhoni whose father (the owner of a Boron mine in Sri Lanka) has been wrongly imprisoned and he needs my help and will reward me handsomely! WOW! And then there’s Kim Chee, a Hong Kong finance officer who has a “very important” business proposition for me but can’t release the information in an email. Ooooooo, how deliciously clandestine!
These people have balls that King Kong would be most jealous of. They ask for your name, address, name of bank, and often times your account numbers. And the most astonishing thing of all is that people willingly hand them the information, all in hopes of taking a ride down “easy street.” A favorite quote of mine is by football analyst, John Madden who said that, “The road to easy street goes through the sewer.” Not too long ago a woman from the somewhere in the U.S. northwest made the news as she was swindled of something like eight-hundred thousand dollars by these enterprising entrepreneurs. The key is that you need to give them a small sum of money to make the transaction happen. Then there’s a glitch and they need more money. Then a hold up in the international bank requires more money. You get the picture. This stupid-ass “greedy” broad said she got so caught up in receiving the millions that she was willing to do anything to make it happen. It wasn’t until her bank red-flagged her $400,000 wire transfer that things finally came to a halt. Yowzers.
And just call me the luckiest man on the face of the earth as I have won no less than 12 international and foreign lotteries in the past three weeks, totaling 200 million dollars! Praise Jesus! Would you believe that each and every one of them randomly picked me from a hundred million names! What are the odds?! What will I buy? What will I wear? Never has the heavens blessed such a good citizen as me! Cigars… that’s it, I must purchase lots and lots of cigars. Of course I’ll need a place to put them. Then I’ll need some pals to smoke ‘em with. Of course I’ll then need a big place to smoke them in. Wow, being the recipient of a most fortuitous situation sure can be complicated.
Last but not least, are the banks, credit card companies, and other noted financial merchants who need me to verify my banking or credit card information. Hey, it’ll only take a minute, right? Gotta have my financial information in order! I keep getting stuff from banks that I don’t have accounts with, but claim that I do, and that’s just so cool! I mean I have accounts with gobs of moolah in them that I wasn’t really aware of. I’ve even gotten a few from pay Pal. But the worst ever was several years ago. The email stated that they received my order for child pornography and wanted to verify shipping info. It said that if it was sent to me in error to send my credit card info so they could promptly cancel the order. Holy crap, that one scared the begeeiz outta me.
They are thieves, liars, scumbags, and major-league criminals, but you gotta give these bastards credit for working so diligently to make ends meet. Hey, business sucks all over the place, and scammers gotta eat, too…right? These dirtbags might be the most inventive and hard working marketers that I have ever seen. So I say hats off to the Nigerian scammers and their ilk. Now all we need is a Bud light “Real Men of Genius” commercial for them… “Today we salute you, Mr. Nigerian 419 email scamming son of a bitch.”
But let me be the first to say that every email you get from JR Cigars is the real deal, chock full of honest to goodness leafy splendor! What the hell, click the link to the site and check out the cigars. It’ll do ya some good!
Well, gotta go… my winnings in the Indonesian Electronic Sweeps awaits!
Later my peeps,
Tommy Z.
JR Cigars Blog With the Zman