a particularly and interestingly bad variation

[Pottapaug1938]

Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Attn: Beneficiary,

I am Mrs. Janet Napolitano, the personal secretary of the

United States Homeland Security. After proper investigations,

we discovered that your impending payment that have been

withheld by imposters, have been transferred to Central State

Bank here in the United States of America.

Investigations revealed that you have spent a lot on your

personal earned money just to conclude the successful transfer

of your funds to your nominated bank account by obtaining

transfer documents as requested by the imposters, costing you a

lot of money but all to no avail.

The Home Land Security has giving authority to the Central

State Bank to assist the Federal Ministry of Finance and all

the organization involved; such as the Central Bank, Zenith

Bank, and Legit lottery organizations to immediately commence

with the compensation of all the beneficiaries awaiting the

successful transfer of their funds. With the help of some of

the best Internet investigators attached to the Homeland

Security, we traced your information from the Internet as one

of the beneficiaries awaiting the successful transfer of funds

to your nominated account.

I am pleased to inform you that you have a total of 10,000,000

US DOLLARS WITH THE BANK in California FOR TRANSFER OF YOUR

FUNDS TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. Please note that, you are not

supposed to pay more than $350. ONLY, which is to set-up your

online account.

Contact Mr. Frederick Hsing
Central State Bank U.S.A
Tel#: 646-504-0915
EMAIL: frederick_centerstatebnk@postino.de

YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION:
FULL NAME:
HOUSE ADDRESS:
CELLPHONE NUMBER:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:

Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Okay, boys and girls -- 1000 Quatloos goes to the first person who can identify the funniest goof in this message.

[webhick]

I am Mrs. Janet Napolitano, the personal secretary of the United States Homeland Security

I'm surprised she was able to write this incomprehensible email in between answering the phones, taking letters and picking up dry cleaning for an entire government department. Dumbasses.

[rogfulton]

assist the Federal Ministry of Finance and all

has my vote

[Pottapaug1938]

I like the way that this alleged contact in the "Central State Bank of U.S.A." (whatver that is) has an e-mail address located in Germany:

frederick_centerstatebnk@postino.de

[fortinbras]

I suspect that this is a put-on, a very obvious bit of parody, like a similar letter some years ago attributed to Suha Arafat, and it was not intended to actually fool anyone.

[Pottapaug1938]

I suspect that this is a put-on, a very obvious bit of parody, like a similar letter some years ago attributed to Suha Arafat, and it was not intended to actually fool anyone.

I might have suspected that, except that it came from a fairly sketchy source and came into my junk e-mail box. I have thought of creating my own parodies of this sort of solicitation; but every time I tried it I couldn't come up with anything funnier than the real thing.

[Kestrel]

My nominations are a toss up between these three:

The Home Land Security has giving authority to the Central State Bank to assist the Federal Ministry of Finance...

The US federal government has ministries now? Granted, I'm no governmental scholar, but I thought ministries were historically associated with monarchies.

...and all the organization involved; such as the Central Bank, Zenith Bank, and Legit lottery organizations

Zenith Bank is headquartered in Nigeria. Need we say more?

I am pleased to inform you that you have a total of 10,000,000 US DOLLARS WITH THE BANK in California FOR TRANSFER OF YOUR FUNDS TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.

I wish...

[Pottapaug1938]

The guy has smartened up -- he ditched the German e-mail address. Then again, maybe not....

Contact Mr. Frederick Hsing
Central State Bank U.S.A
Tel#: 646-504-0915
EMAIL: hsing_frederick@yahoo.com.hk

[fortinbras]

Telephone area code 646 is NYC cell phones.

[Arthur Rubin]

Telephone area code 646 is NYC cell phones.

Can those act like AC 900? I know there is an exchange (perhaps 976) which can be a pay line.

[The Observer]

Actually the biggest goof IMO is the fact that the letter led off with "I am Mrs. Janet Napolitano,..." No official letter or written statement from a government executive is going to lead off with a common honorific, especially one that denotes marital status. It is totally irrelevant to the officeholder.

And even it if was relevant, it's wrong. Napolitano has never married.

[notorial dissent]

It's like the Rev Dr Engr titles that I see all the time in these, as if they add some verisimilitude to an otherwise tawdry bit of poorly written dross. One time I counted four tacked on to a name, which I think was a record, for me. While I realize that titles are socially important in some countries, they don't cut much here, or at least as much, and I think most people are inclined to ignore the multiple ones. Just as we seldom care about the sender's marital status or bereavement. But, then that is what makes these things so entertaining in one respect, is the general weirdness.