Slashdot Mirror
Nigeria Widows Lose Their Fortune
Phil John writes "In a cruel twist of fate, two Nigerian widows are genuinely fighting it out for their husband's (yes, the same husband) $55M fortune. The BBC has the full scoop. Who wants to bet we're abot to see a whole lot of 419's from 'The Wife of the Late Timothy Olufemi Akanni?'" Sometimes, life is too amusing to be true.
Its not for their husband's $55M, its
for their late husband (Who was killed by the government)'s USD55,000,000.00 (FIFTY FIVE MILLION US DOLLARS) which they will deposit into your account
So all those recent emails asking aid from me to transfer $55 m was real after all ?!?!?!?
Read radical news here
Dear Madam,
It has come to my attention that you may be in need of the financial services of an American who is sympathetic to your position. I know that we have never met, but I would consider it my honor and privilege to assist you in keeping what is rightfully yours. Respectfully, transfer your money to my bank account (attached at bottom) and I will transfer the money into a new bank account for you upon your arrival.
Sincerely,
An American who wants to help you spend^H^H^H^Have your royal family money.
I didn't know Hemos was Canadian.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I'm usually tolerant towards news stories with weak relation to the "news for nerds. stuff that matters" slogan but this story takes it too far. The link to 419 scams looks desperate.
...the families have asked that donations be made to The Holy Church of The Order of The Red Breast.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
I don't see what this has to do with news for nerds...
It's one thing for /. editors to miss misspellings, but BBC editors?
PS: I already sent them an email pointing out the error [next-to-last-paragraph, if you care].
Video Production Support
This story is just made for Fark, isn't it?
So, why is it on
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
We make Nigeria into a state as there is $57,848,925,050,147,124.63 languishing in Nigerian banks. We could all be rich!
Give it to the elderly and mentally disabled US citizens that he scammed it from.
is slashdot running out of interesting things to report on? is this story really "news for nerds. stuff that matters"?? to read stories like these, there are a hell lot of sites out there... shame on slashdot!!
*sigh*Time to go make up with the missus, I guess.
Meta will eat itself
Sincerely,
An American who wants to help you spend^H^H^H^Have your royal family money.
I always understood the underlying meaning, but I never caught the origin until now: ^H Explained.
... the main vehicle their late husband had for actually using his money was a Chase-issued Circuit City Rewards Card. So, if they don't get this resolved quickly, it will be resolved for them.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
really though, after all these years, me (sir or Madam) could have had mad cash deposited into my bank account? i think the real headline should read that they really aren't scams at all (as seen on CNN). man, i feel so pwned by Nigeria
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
Add in couple of lawyers and talk show host and I think it would be safe to say that Nigerians are finally becoming Americanized...
My wife's is the second wife of a Nigerian university professor. She's been a Niger-o-phile since the mid-60's. She will be moving to Nigeria shortly to live full-time because, as she believes, Nigerians take care of their elderly, and that being a wife of a Nigerian will mean that she will have family to take care of her. Note: She spent most of her productive, read: reproductive, years marrying Nigerians so they could come to the U.S., so never really had a family of her own. Now she's exiting middle-aged status, she is expecting to be cared for by her Nigerian "family".
Her view of helping out poor Nigerians is to use her pension to hire, as she puts it, "houseboys" and staff. Very paternalistic, very British. I'll send this article along as a cautionary tale.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
(Yes, I know Hemos posted this, but I had to check twice...)
All your sig are belong to us.
I guess Slashdot's having a bad day.
We just got upgraded to Outlook 2003 with fancy junk-mail features and it still sucks donkey balls (suprise, suprise). The reason is very simple: Setting up a bayesian spam filter is way too complicated for joe sixpack. And any spamfilter run at the mailserver is missing one very important piece of information: the adres book of the recipient. It should be possible for mail servers which pass on the mails to add spam-info in the header. Any server should be able to add a spam-probability to the header, and any server should be able to modify the estimate by the previous one based on wether it trusts the previous server or not. As we slowly upgrade the SMTP network to more secure standards, the servers will be more accurate in predicting wether the message is spam or not. In the end, the last server sets in the header:"this is 78% certain spam". The client (Outlook or whatever) can than proces it with a very simple rule s.a.: "If it is more than 75%, and the sender is not in my adres book, then ditch the crap." This method would allow ISP's to experiment with the spam-catching technology of the month, and yet provide a standardised interface to the end user. Who volunteers to write the RFC?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
The BBC seems to have been slashdotted; clicking on the link in the article takes you to their front page.
If you want to RTFA, you can find it here.
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!
About the Nigerian philanthropist who couldn't give away his money because everyone thought he was a scammer.
Click "two Nigerian widows are genuinely fighting it out" rather than "BBC".
I've always thought it rather braindead to include a link to the news organisation's home page in stories, but hey-ho...
From Google News, I came across a news site that's actually in Nigeria. The story is quite a bit more detailed here. The advertisiments alone on that page are quite amusing as well, it's worth a look.
grep -iw skynet
From TFA: The posthumous discovery of his second wife and fortune has shocked many of his friends and family.
He cannot have enjoyed his wealth too much, if his family didn't notice anything.
"Nigeria Windows" oh, however...
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
That is really a pathetic situation you got going there.
Congratulations, you've just earned your PathFinder badge.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Funniest phrase I'll probably see all day. Say it like an infomercial announcer and it will crack you up for hours.
So we've got a Pentecostal minister who amassed an eight-figure fortune as (among other things) a corrupt electoral commission director. Now we know where Diebold got their inspiration.
But the guy just died! I doubt he'd agree with that statement. From the 'oh-the-irony' department indeed.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
In Nigeria, it's only terrible if it happens to you...
Remember the future...
Weren't they supposed to be thown in the grave with him?
an ill wind that blows no good
...the most sought-after parts of Lagos and Abuja
I don't understand why you find that funny. There are certainly parts of Lagos and Abuja which are desirable areas to live. I freqently stay in a 5 bedroom rented house in Victoria Island worth approximately NGN 150,000,000, or US$1.1m based on valuations a few years ago. I am sure it must be far higher than that now.
I wish you could see the people of Nigeria that people like this dead fool have taken advantage of. They work hard for a very small wage that barely pays their house rent and childrens school fees, forget about medical expences or any other emergencies such as having to be bailed out after wrongful arrest by corrupt police officials. Then these people go to church on sunday where their pastor insists that "giving money to God" (tv's, fridges, Air Conditioning units, cars also accepted) will help them prosper. Having faith that the pastor is telling the truth because his own affluent lifestyle is a demonstration of his relationship with God, makes them give that little bit more. The people give, the pastor buys a new S Class.
Churches with paid ministries need to be eliminated.
Do they need the money to upgrade their computers for Windows Vista?
55 million is a lot of money. I can't believe one guy got all that from 419 scams.
Is there anything that says this came from 419 scams? He could have been a drug lord, Mafia boss or something else too.
If this did all come from 419 scams then it just goes to show how many stupid people there are in the world. No wonder spam works.
It's payback time... and payback can be a bitch!
Is that on the terminal you are typing it may appear that the characters are deleted, but they may not actually have been removed from the application you are typing into; email, irc, whatever. And the full text with ^H symbols and original incorrect text might be sent to the recipient. Things like you are a cun^H^H^Hnice person could easily be sent on incorrectly configured systems.
Deleted
I GO CHOP YOUR DOLLAR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMRjymIvGu4
Nigerians are Muslims and Muslims can have (up to) 4 legal wives. I had no idea that Nigerian Muslims would let their conationals convert to non-Muslim religions (apparently in Islam apostasy is punishable by death). Why did the dead guy convert to Christianity?. If he wanted (or needed) more than one wife he should have remained a Muslim.
The phrase "this letter will come to you as a suprise" alone should have set it off.
Oh, wait - he had 2 wives?? Shit, no wonder he was trying to move that money out of his account...
Meta will eat itself