Man Makes Millions from Nigerian Scam

July 13, 2007 | by Dave L | 1 Comment

Contributed to Crooked Street Press by Dave Lindley

San Jose- It was just another ordinary day for Rich Lark, San Jose retiree. Little did he know that an e-mail, mistakenly sent to his “spam” box would change his life forerver. Crooked Street Press interviewed Mr. Lark recently to find out how he made his instant millions.

CSP: Good Afternoon Mr. Lark.

RL: Greetings poor person! (Laughs abruptly) I’m just teasing. But seriously though, you are poor compared to me.

CSP: Perfectly fine Mr. Lark. If I made 2.3 million dollars in 3 weeks, I would gloat to.

RL: Well that’s the amazing thing! You CAN make millions of dollars in three weeks!

CSP: Well yes, let’s start by you telling me how you did it Rich.

RL: Well, I had just got done with my Hollywood Word Jumble, and was about ready to take my nap.

CSP: I see. So just a little afternoon siesta, eh?

RL: No, this was my 9am nap. I had been up since 4:30 AM, so I was just about tuckered out.

CSP: I think this is going to be a long interview…

In fairness to the reader, portions of this interview have been deleted due to this reporters inability to stay awake. These stories were really boring…In an effort to stay awake during the interview, I went outside for a smoke, and when I returned, Rich was just wrapping up his explanation of why Matlock showed more pride in his work than Magnum P.I. Apparently, my absence was not noted by Mr. Lark. At this point, the interview resumed.

CSP: I see, very intriguing. Now about the money?

RL: Ah yes, as I was saying, I was just about to lie down for my noon nap, when I heard my computer announce, “You have electronic mail.”

CSP: Your computer said “You have electronic mail?” Is that the new version of AOL or something?

RL: What’s A-O-L?

CSP: Eh, never mind. So what about the computer?

RL: As I was saying, poverty boy, it announced that I had electronic mail waiting for me. So I went to the World Wide Web and checked it and sure enough I had three electronic mails.

CSP: (hesitatingly) Please, uh, tell me what they said.

RL: Well the first one was from a gentleman named Alphonse Starks, and it was entitled “I’ve got a 12 inch erjjigcn.” I’m not sure what that one was about, or what a ‘erjjigcn’ was since it did not show up in my dictionary, so I sent it back to the sender with a note that it had been wrongly delivered.

CSP: Oh boy…

RL: The second one was from someone named Vishakha Hoffman and it said “Bigger pen1s, better s3x! pfigjnbt.”

CSP: Thank you for literally spelling that out. About the money….

RL: That’s where the third electronic mail came from.

CSP: E-mail.

RL: What?

CSP: E-mail.

RL: What?

CSP: (Loudly) What the hell did the third e-mail say you Old Man!

RL: Okay then…well basically long story short, a prince from Nigeria, -whose name I have sworn on my life and honor to keep a secret… sent me an electronic mail stating that he was a political refugee, and that he had escaped from Nigeria and was hiding in exile in Egypt. He had large sums of money in Nigeria, but the only way to get the money from Nigeria to Egypt was to run it through a third account so that it could not be traced. Over a series of electronic mails, we arranged the swapping of bank account numbers. All I had to was send him $3000 to pay for the arrangements, and he would take care of the rest. When it was all said and done, he would send me a cashier’s check for 2.3 million.

CSP: So what happened?

RL: What do you mean?

CSP: You lost the money and then what?

RL: I didn’t lose the money. He sent me a check for 2.3 million three weeks ago. Now I eat reporters like you for breakfast.

CSP: What??

RL: The point is, Prince Akbar Abdul Jihimmeh, OOPS…I mean…uh….Prince um…Bob, kept his word and sent me the check.

CSP: Do you mean to tell me you are the first person in the course of history to actually make money on a Nigerian Scam?

RL: Scam? What do you mean? Prince Ak…Prince Bob is my friend. He saw my my space page and knew that I was someone he could trust.

CSP: You have a MySpace page?

RL: Its not your space, its my space.

CSP: So what’s your advice?

RL: Basically all Americans are selfish pricks. Everyday millions of letters and electronic mails are sent to people, and they don’t even bother reading them, let alone replying to them. Oh, and heaven forbid we help someone in a third world. It just goes to show you that if you help someone out, you will be rewarded.

CSP: So the moral of the story is open your spam?

RL: What’s spam?

CSP: Thank you for your time Mr. Lark.

RL: That’s Gold Nuts to you, penny scrimper.