Advice on windfall

[Sam Vimes]

I'm looking for advice on what to do with a windfall that I'm about to receive. Its substantial so I'm considering a new car and carvan combo. At the moment a Humvee plus Airstream Tourer 251B but I can't find this combo on on Towcar.info so not sure if its a good match.

The reason for this change in fortunes is a result of an email I got this morning. If I get more than a handfull of unsolicited emails a year that would be exceptional and since I've had a few already I'm sure this one is genuine. It is in block capitals after all so must be important.

It's from DHL and apparently the US government have approved the transfer by them of $28.5m from a South African bank to me. I've check with my friend Al the Artificial Ignoramus and that amount of dollar bills would only take up about 2 cubic metres, so Mrs V. thinks we could store that in the spare room.

All I have to do is provide some personal information, including proof of identification to a Mr. de Cok who is the head of the SA branch of the bank and the money is mine.

Now since we're all good virtual friends here I'd like to share some of my good fortune with you. So if you wish to receive some used dollar bills please send your 16 digit credit card number, CSV, Expiry Date, Name and Address, Inside leg measurement, name of first born child, name of pet dog and its birthday and mothers maiden name. I'll get DHL to send some straight to you as well which might save on shipping cost.

On a more serious note - we recently decided to help our daughter with the purchase of a house by giving her some money towards it. You wouldn't believe - or maybe you would - the amount of evidence we had to provide to her solicitor that this wasn't money we were laundering. Maybe I should send a copy of my email to her solicitor.

Have a nice day.

 

[otherclive]

When I sold my fathers car for £400. I went along to his Santander branch to pay it into his account. No can do as I could not show the source of the money other than a hand written receipt from the buyer. So I then took the cash home, had to then go into local town NatWest to put it into my account. Same questions but they accepted the handwritten receipt plus DVLA change of keeper document. Then went back home and transferred £400 to my dads account by inter bank transfer. Off now to my luxury villa in St Tropez.

 

[Buckman]

It could be a scam or Mr De Kok spelt his name incorrectly. Did they name the SA bank?

 

[audiorob]

According to almost daily recorded telephone call reminders perhaps you will be inundated with expensive gifts that have been bought on my credit card just in case your SA luck runs out!!!
Watch out also for advertisements for final reductions for online purchases from Wilkos at unbelievable prices - the real internet site stopped trading a while ago!

 

[otherclive]

I can get anything around 50 junk emails each morning via a long held hotmail account. Neither Microsoft’s or Apples filters and rules stop them. I plan at some stage to ditch the Hotmail account and start a new one on Yahoo or Gmail neither of which cause me any trouble on my existing accounts with those providers.

 

[Sam Vimes]

It could be a scam or Mr De Kok spelt his name incorrectly. Did they name the SA bank?

I thought I might hear from you. 😉

I scanned the email quickly so it's possible I Kok'd up the name of my benefactor.

I think the bank was something like 'Bank of Biltong' but again it was only a quick scan of the email.

 

[Sam Vimes]

There are Scam emails and Junk emails. I class the junk emails as the equivalent of the paper stuff that sometimes comes in the post.

Usually these are due to people registering on web sites and forgetting to check or uncheck the box that says please do or don't send me your junk emails. If you're unlucky there should be an unsubscribe option in the email

Some can be from organisations that you've not registered with but they've got your email address because they've tracked the sites you visit. Best to clear down all session cookies and block third party cookies every time you quit the browser.

FWIW. I use Firefox as a browser with two add ons to block ads and tracking... uBlock Origin and Ghostery. I also use DuckduckGo as a search engine. Less invasive than Google.

It's a constant battle to remain anonymous.

 

[Steve1962]

The lying swine!!!
He told me that was mine.

 

[audiorob]

Moral: if it sounds too good to be true it generally is!

 

[Sam Vimes]

No it didn't sound to good to be true. I was hoping for $150m so was a bit dissappointed.