CHAPTER 1: The Beginning
On this, the first day of the USA’s Festival of Looting and Destruction, we at Improbable Research received an email message from a fraudster in China. A few days ago we were warned by an another fraudster in China that the first fraudster was trying to register domain names that would make them appear to be us. We thanked the second fraudster for the warning. Today, the first fraudster sent us another message. Here, above, you see the text of that message. The other fraudster then sent us another message offering to kindly blahblahblah if we would like to pay them blahblahblah because blahblahblah, and so on.
CHAPTER 2: The End
Gosh, guess how this story would turn out!
If (like us) you don’t want to bother guessing, dip into the general info here: “Guarding Against the Chinese Domain Name Email Scam“, written by the Hinshaw law firm.
EPILOGUE (and also prologue): The 20-year-old Literature Prize
That pointless exchange of emails raises memories of the 2005 Ig Nobel Literature Prize, which was awarded to the Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters — General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others — each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.