Adventures with an African scammer - Part 4

My friend Kevin is amazing, he passed every test with screaming colours:

Dear Chester Williams

The model you will buy is N97 or N96 if you have the money to buy too I will be very happy one for me as a gift then I will sale one and help you pay and remember after buying it if you go to send it if they ask you why are you sending the phone to Ghana tell them that is your friend there send money to you to help him buy it and send to him

Another thing please remember that I am not in Gambia I am in Accra Ghana not Gambia because I see where you write Gambia so mind you is Accra Ghana. And please if you want to send it go to DHL and send it that will be very fast than any other company and please do not forget to give them this phone number 0249141364 to call as soon as the phone rich here in Accra Ghana

Here is the Address and the receivers name
NAME: EMEKA JOHN PAUL
ADDRESS: 34 NEW ACHIMOTA PLAZER,
ACCRA GHANA

Thanks and I am waiting for the airway bill as soon as you buy the phone and send it through DHL

Regards

Mr. Kelvin

All righty Kevin, a Nokia N97 costs around $450 (AUD), which is a wee bit higher than the original US $150 that we started with, and even higher than my generous $180. And now I can feel free to send two - thank you for the generous offer.

They say that greediness leads to poverty.

He immediately picked up on the “Ghambia” thing, which means his address in Ghana should be real. It’s just the rest that’s a little fake. And flaky, to say the least...

Now it was time to play the “wait-a-while” game. He is really excited about the fancy Nokia that some gullible idiot is going to send him - maybe even two of them - and he can’t wait for that package to arrive.I made him wait two days, and then sent this email. Personally, I think it was one of my best pieces of original writing:

Dear Kevin,

I have tried DHL, but they are extremely expensive. They are really being very evocative with this expedition.[bwahaha - what does this mean??]

Anyway, I have been looking around for the phones, and have found something. The supplier said that this phone will have non-inverting trimodiodes, but it will also work fine in Ghana and Brazil. It also has the following:

TFT resistive touchscreen,
16M colors
Erotic ringtones and vibrations
microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB
HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
Full 3D mp3 downloads from the Luky Dube album
Touch sensitive voice modulation via bluetooth and z-waves
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
Jacob Zuma showerhead faceplate design - South Africas favourite style at the moment
ARM 11 434 MHz processor
MP5 version of all the songs from the Village people.
Auschwitz© AMF - (arbeit macht frei) special clip-on silencer modulator made in Germany
MP4, 2592x1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, LED flash light, video
anti-hijack warning system
tazer with exponential afterburner
Digital compass MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/MP4/M4V player MPEG4/WMV/3gp/Flash video playerTV-outVoice command/dial

Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF viewer)Video and photo editorFlash Lite 3T9

And many more things. I am not much of an expert - I only use my phone to call my business partners at Leehman brothers, but it looks like these phones these days are getting really provocative. I never thought you'd be able to play music and go on the internet with a cell phone? This is truly amazing.

I just hope you would be able to sell the phone over there, what if it doesn't work? Are you sure it works in Gambia?

Anyway, the good news is that the other company was much cheaper, and I have sent it via the waybill with Fedex. I hope you have Fedex over there, because they said so, and they took my package today. It should reach you early Saturday, if not Saturday, it will be Sunday - they go 24hours, 7 days a week.

Anyway, the waybill is ready and I have a copy - if you want a copy of the waybill I can email it to you. Let me know.

So, my friend, once again, thank you for helping. Please let me know as soon as you get the phones, and please let me know when my package will arrive from Global Couriers.

Thanks
Regards,
Chess.

Look at that list of specifications. I took a lot of real stuff from the Nokia website, and then subtly added my own science fiction in-between. Some of the most astounding pieces of technical fiction are:

tazer with exponential afterburner

[Imagine this conversation:

“Yeah, mate, and then I told him...” --- ZAP, Woooosh --- “...ouch, what the hell?...oops, sorry mate, I pushed the wrong button on my mobile. I feel a little weak, call ya back later”]

Jacob Zuma showerhead faceplate design - South Africas favourite style at the moment
MP5 version of all the songs from the Village people.

anti-hijack warning system

Touch sensitive voice modulation via bluetooth and z-waves
(what the hell are z-waves? How do you make voice modulation “touch-sensitive”?)

My personal favourite was this one:
Auschwitz© AMF - (arbeit macht frei) special clip-on silencer modulator made in Germany

Of course, no one can really tell me what “non-inverting trimodiodes” are.

I really thought I was going to lose this guy now - I figured I was just taking it too far with all these technological blasphemies. But, once again, Kelvin’s lack of general knowledge had proved to be a valuable weapon against him.

I did expect the “Lehman brothers” thing to be over his head. However, if he just made a little effort to Google it, he would have realized that this company’s financial failure was one of the main causes of the Global Financial Crisis that we all are finding ourselves in. Just goes to shows you - a little knowledge can go a long way.

Chester unceremoniously refers to “Gambia” again, just for fun.

Read more about Chester’s love-hate relationship with this friendly man from Ghana.

Or was that Gambia? Can’t remember...