GULLIBLE TRAVELS

I don’t know how they find me.  They line up, one after one, by email, to ensnare me into some ever-more ludicrous scheme, thinking I’m a naïf who just stepped from the womb in a blaze of Johnson’s baby oils and Pampers.  They don’t know that I’m a hard-bitten pragmatist with a track record of insulting salesmen until they’re reduced to fake tears.  Just look at last week’s output, or should I say input.  Firstly, Mr Alhmed Salem, or Salem Alhmed, dependent upon which way round the email name is, if indeed he is a mister, emails me.  The subject of his email is ‘We are interested in your products and equipments.’ Since I don’t produce anything, and the state of my equipments is not for public discussion, I skate over that.  Mr Salem asks me how I am today, then tells me he has been instructed to contact me.  He says he represents the Karmat Contracting and Consulting group which is ‘one of the leading indigenous firms in Iraq.’ It’s probably the only one left.  It seems that, in exchange for a small sum ($100,000), Mr Salim can guarantee that I can earn millions from various contracts he can put my way, namely in sectors relating to building, medical, textiles and something he calls ‘general ship equipments.’  I anticipate this to mean portholes, lanyards, asdic equipment and bilge scuppers, and I’ve no interest in any of them, so I pass on.

I pick up a billet-doux from Mr Mustafa Abdul-hadji, who represents a ‘group of company’ based in Switzerland.  They are expanding their business interests in ‘any sector’, which broadens the range considerably.  Mr Mustafa says that he knows I have ‘a solid background,’ which is true, it’s normally a chair, and that I have the necessary wherewithal to join him as an investment partner.  All he needs is 1 million Swiss francs and he will facilitate the arrangement.  Mustafa follows Salem into the shredder. 

Next is an email in French from Ms Anna Philip.  From what I can make out from my elementary ‘o’ level French, she is the Head of Personnel of a bank.  She has received £14 billion euros and is looking for someone to whom to offload part or all of, in exchange for a small consideration. That seems to be money-laundering on a scale so grand that it would render concealment impossible.  Madame Philip finishes with a conciliatory flourish: “Si vous voulez traiter cette affaire avec moi contactez moi immediatement et recevez nes sinceres salutations”.  And the same to you, mush.  

Finally, the most bizarre of all.  It is an email that purports to come from a Dr David Silva, no relation at all to the Manchester City striker, who resides in Harlesden, West London.  It’s as if the Google translator has gone berserk, for the whole missive appears to be in a Scandinavian tongue.  I know that because some of the letters have tiny little’o’s’ above them, some of the proper letter o’s have a diagonal line through them and there are words like ‘kunder’ and ‘Vennligst’ which look Danish to me.  Silva occasionally lapses back into English, so I can pick out ‘UBS Investment Bank’, ‘Chief Risk Officer’, ‘Late Mr Steve Allen’, and ‘Great British pound.’  He ends by saying ‘Forske a meg vite din avgjorelse sa snart some mulig’ which sounds like he’s got a nose infection.  It doesn’t take a degree in ancient Norse to work out that it’s another scam – that would have been apparent to Noggin the Nog. 

What seems amazing to me is that some poor folk actually fall victim to these people, and end up giving away cash or personal bank details, to their severe detriment.  I have one message for the worldwide scammers and chancers like Mr Salem, Mustapha, the Madamoiselle from Armentieres and Dr Silva - push off like good people and leave me and millions of others alone. In fact, why don’t you go off and snart some mulig somewhere else?