Now they’re getting the scams pre-cleared by the FBI!
I just love being referred to as “undisclosed recipient.”
I especially enjoyed the use of the FBI’s seal and Robert Mueller’s signature, as if the director of the FBI personally certifies lottery winners for private organizations, or any organization. All spellings and punctuations just so:
Official FBI Information for You
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 5:05 PM
From:
“Federal Bureu Of Investigation” <SamlottoFBI@fbi.gov>
To:
undisclosed-recipients
Anti-Terrorist and International Fraud Division. Federal Bureau Of Investigation. 935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535
ATTN: BENEFICIARYThis is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you legally won the sum of $800,000.00 USD. from a Lottery Company outside the United States of America. During our investigation we discovered that your e-mail won the money from an Online Balloting System and we have authorized this winning to be paid to you via a Certified Cashier’s Check.
Normally, it will take up to 10 business days for an International Check to be cashed by your local banks. We have successfully notified this company on your behalf that funds are to be drawn from a registered bank within the United States Of America so as to enable you cash the check instantly without any delay, henceforth the stated amount of $800,000.00 USD. has been deposited with Bank Of America.
We have completed this investigation and you are hereby approved to receive the winning prize as we have verified the entire transaction to be Safe and 100% risk free, due to the fact that the funds have been deposited at Bank Of America you will be required to settle the following bills directly to the Lottery Agent in-charge of this transaction whom is located in Lagos, Nigeria. According to our discoveries, you were required to pay for the following –
(1) Deposit Fee’s ( Fee’s paid by the company for the deposit into an American Bank which is – Bank Of America )
(2) Cashier’s Check Conversion Fee ( Fee for converting the Wire Transfer payment into a Certified Cashier’s Check )
The total amount for everything is $200.00 (Two Hundred-US Dollars). We have tried our possible best to indicate that this $200.00 should be deducted from your winning prize but we found out that the funds have already been deposited at Bank Of America and cannot be accessed by anyone apart from you, the winner; therefore you will be required to pay the required fee’s to the Agent in-charge of this transaction via Western Union Money Transfer Or Money Gram.
In order to proceed with this transaction, you will be required to contact the agent in-charge ( SAMUEL OLIVER ) via e-mail. Kindly look below to find appropriate contact information:
You will be required to e-mail him with the following information:
FULL NAME:
ADDRESS:
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
DIRECT CONTACT NUMBER:
You will also be required to request Western Union details on how to send the required $200.00 in order to immediately ship your prize of $800,000.00 USD via Certified Cashier’s Check drawn from Bank Of America, also include the following transaction code in order for him to immediately identify this transaction : EA2948-910.
This letter will serve as proof that the Federal Bureau Of Investigation is authorizing you to pay the required $200.00 ONLY to Mr. Samuel Oliver via information in which he shall send to you, if you do not receive your winning prize of $800,000.00 we shall be held responsible for the loss and this shall invite a penalty of $3,000 which will be made PAYABLE ONLY to you (The Winner).
Please find below an authorized signature which has been signed by the FBI Director- Robert Mueller, also below is the FBI NSB (National Security
FBI Director
Robert Mueller.
Authorized Signature
NSB SEAL ABOVE
NOTE: In order to ensure your check gets delivered to you ASAP, you are advised to immediately contact Mr. Samuel Oliver via contact information provided above and make the required payment of $200.00 to information in which he shall provide to you.
Sam, I won’t be responding. The FBI doesn’t offer the service of verifying lottery winners, especially for people who didn’t enter the lottery.
And of course, it’s already been done — this is the same scam I got last February, just presented with a couple of graphics to try to make it look more official. At least they lost the name of their contact, “Peter Water.”
Sure, it’s wire fraud. Is there any way to get any authority to prosecute?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Al Franken’s in the Senate and Sen. Robert Byrd is out of the hospital. I was thinking maybe it’s time for some intransigent Republicans to review whether they really want to cross the Democrats. And then I came across this photo. Somehow, it’s symbolic.
In any case, it’s a great photo.
Well, technically it's a mule, and not a jackass, but sometimes I worry that Thomas Nast couldn't tell the difference. Mule at a Georgia petting zoo - Photo by Lona
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Gotta love it. Did this person bother to click on the blog to see what goes on here?
Hello,
I represent a company called _________________, a company that does what’s known as advanced search engine placement. We reach a Network of over 35 million people who are predominantly US based. Our Network is entirely opt-in, and the users on our Network allow us to present them with a preferred choice whenever they are looking for anything on the top sixteen search engines. (GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN and thirteen others.)
I seek one source to send the users on our Network, from the major search engines, for different types of quality bath tubs.
Please contact me at your earliest convenience. I am in the office daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.
In cosmology, we had to wait decades for the theism-friendly big bang theory to beat out atheism-friendly theories like the eternal universe model, the steady-state model, the oscillating model, etc. Piles of taxpayer money wasted trying to prove atheistic flights of fancy. But in the end, the evidence for the big bang was too much for the atheistic theories, and we beat them out.
I hadn’t realized Christians championed Big Bang against atheists. Wait until the creationists learn about this.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Great idea. Really. There’s a lot of campaign stuff left over. Rather than dump it, they’re selling it cheap.
Image from the Obama campaign site, June 2009
Government and politics teachers can stock up on the stuff to decorate the room. AP Government teacher Mrs. Richie, at Duncanville High School had a collection of bumperstickers that went back 30 years before she retired (where did that collection go?)
Over at Republican National Headquarters, they’re having a sale on politicians, I hear. Entire Congressional committee minorities, cheap. Izzat so? Not really. Really?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
One of my favorite comedy routines from the Master of Voices, Mel Blanc, and his accomplice Jack Benny:
We were talking about this old routine today, and sure enough, we could find it on YouTube.
In 1974, they repeated it for old times’ sake, on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson:
Note: May 22 is the anniversary of the last time Johnny Carson hosted the Tonight Show, in 1992. George Bush the elder was president then; the Soviet Union had been out of existence only five months. Osama bin Laden was a little-known, former ally of the U.S. in the Russo-Afghanistan war. E-mail was just coming on, cell-phones were rare and expensive, as well as analog, wireless broadband hadn’t been invented. Apple was still making computers far, far behind the IBM-compatible PCs — new chips like the 486 promised a revolution in computing. A lifetime ago.
Why is this post tagged “animation?” You remember, don’t you? Blanc was the guy who did almost every voice in the Warner Bros. cartoons from the classic era. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn . . . as someone noted, remarkable to think Yosemite Sam and Tweety Bird are the same guy.
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One day on campus a local radio station did a live broadcast from the quad of the college, with their right-wing, flag-waving, self-proclaimed patriot “on a mission for God and Country” loud-mouthed cigar-smoking host.
The Marine watched, stunned, as the radio host goaded the college crowd by saying, “Is God real? Of course He is. And He favors our glorious war in Iraq, and He favors waterboarding every ‘towel-head’ we can catch — the more the better. Do I think that’s unChristian? No — and here’s my offer: God, if you disagree and think we shouldn’t be waterboarding everyone who might bear ill-will to the U.S. of A., you can come down here, knock me off this platform and shut off my microphone in the next ten minutes.”
The crowd fell silent. You could hear the pigeons on the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest cooing, but even they got quieter.
Five minutes went by, the station cut to a series of ads, and then the radio host proclaimed, ‘”Here I am God. I’m still waiting. Do you think we should take it easy on our enemies, or torture them because they deserve it?” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine strode out of the crowd, walked up to the radio host, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. Then the marine found the switch on the microphone and turned it off. Even the radio station’s engineer was too stunned to do anything. The radio guy was out cold.
The Marine went back into the crowd and sat down on the grass, silently. The other students were shocked, stunned, and sat there looking on in silence. No one even called campus police. Eventually the radio station called the engineer on his cell phone and everyone heard the engineer describe what had just happened. “No, he’s out cold.” But the radio announcer was stirring.
The talk jock eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the h— is the wrong with you, you f——up m———-ing dope smoker? Why did you do that?”
The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting American soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, God sent me. If we waterboard their guys, our soldiers will have worse stuff done to them. That punch was from every Marine and soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan who wants to come home to his wife and children.”
Is this a true story? Is it funny? Is it tragic? What is it?
“How can you vote in favor of Pi Day, if it’s just one day. Pi Day should be forever,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.
Chaffetz was one of just 10 members of Congress to oppose designating March 14th as Pi Day, meant to encourage math education. It honors the famous number pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter), which starts as 3.14 and goes on forever.
When asked if this is really why he voted against the resolution, Chaffetz said, “Absolutely.”
Peruvian guano has become so desirable an article to the agricultural interest of the United States that it is the duty of the Government to employ all the means properly in its power for the purpose of causing that article to be imported into the country at a reasonable price. Nothing will be omitted on my part toward accomplishing this desirable end. I am persuaded that in removing any restraints on this traffic the Peruvian Government will promote its own best interests, while it will afford a proof of a friendly disposition toward this country, which will be duly appreciated.
Another teacher pointed it out to me: A condom wrapper, on the stairs. It was a Trojan brand.
“So,” she wondered: “Are we displeased that the students are having sex, ostensibly in the building since the wrapper is on the stairs; or are we happy that they’re using protection?”
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Pete, as the squirrel has come to be known, shows up most days at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, England (near Portsmouth, in southeast England).
“We don’t think he is a mutant squirrel but he may have had a mishap around the school, [said Dr Mike Edwards, an English teacher at the school.]
“The old building where we have seen him nipping in and out is a bit of a graveyard for computer printers. He may have found some printer toners in there.
“We haven’t seen any purple baby squirrels yet.”
TV wildlife expert Chris Packham believes Pete will moult and lose his purple fur in time for spring.
He said: “I have never seen anything like it before.
“Squirrels will chew anything even if it’s obviously inedible. It is possible he has been chewing on a purple ink cartridge and then groomed that colouring into his fur.
“Alternatively he may have fallen into a bucket containing a weak colour solution that has stained his fur.
“Underneath there’s a normal grey squirrel who has just given himself an unusual hair colour – you would pay a fortune for that in some salons.
What will creationists make of this?
Squirrels come in different colors naturally, too. The squirrels common throughout the eastern U.S., the eastern grey squirrel, have a black variant in some parts of Canada and the U.S. Some of these black squirrels were imported to Washington, D.C., during the Theodore Roosevelt administration. When we lived in Cheverly, Maryland (1983-1987), we had families of black squirrels spotted among the grey squirrels in our next-door forest. The two groups rarely mixed, oddly enough.
East of the Russell Senate Office Building there was an albino squirrel for several years, prior to 1985. One friend said she’d seen at least two at the same time in the same park. White squirrels show up from time to time, either albinos or mutants. Naturally, squirrels tend to be either grey or reddish-brown, most of the time.
Purple squirrels in business slang — the perfect candidate for an open job, with all the qualifications (or “all the nuts”), but of course, a candidate who does not exist (Here’s a chance to retool your “hell freezes over jokes” for business recruiter audiences)
It struck me today: Don’t the political events of the past year make a powerful argument that there is an afterlife, and that Molly Ivins is finally taking control of some of the supernatural strings?
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 