Mr Bumper’s African scam

Published on October 31, 2010 by The Editor · No Comments

The Wowster looks at one of Africa’s latest, creative scam artists.

Internet and email scams from Africa are nothing new. They may not convince many but they deserve a medal at least for their creative writing skills.

Africa’s scams emails always seem to involve bank deposits left by deceased people who have died intestate and mysteriously slipped from the radar in some fictitious air crash. In parts of Africa death from falling planes or bank safe deposit boxes must rank alongside malaria.

Princes, princesses, politicians and military men abound in the email scam artist’s stories. Similarly, female Nigerian princesses, anxious to marry total strangers, are always somewhere in the mix.

The extraordinary thing about Africa’s scam emails is the amount of effort and invention set to work in the name of fraud.

On the one hand, it reflects the lamentable African affliction with graft, fraud and corruption, but on the other, shows a charming degree of misplaced inventiveness.

Just provide us with all your bank details and we’ll deposit a small fortune into your bank account.

The curiously named, Mr Jarnnot Bumper, manager, Foreign Remittance Department, Islamic Development Bank [IDB], Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, is the latest email scam artists offering one such deal.

Of course, it is “Top Secret”. In amongst the sad tale of the death of an unnamed man, women and child in yet another plane crash is the convenient presence of US$15.8m lying dormant in a bank account awaiting retrieval by a total stranger.

This transaction is 100% risk-free. Indeed, for your participation you’ll receive 35%, the principal 55% and the remaining 10% will go to meet expenses.

The Dickensian sounding Mr Bumper, who obviously doesn’t want to compromise his “position” as head of IDB, wants this process to remain ‘Top Secret”. So he might.

You have wonder what Africans could do if they had access to credit and capital. Instead of living in a poverty-induced twilight in which inventiveness and enterprise are subverted into absurd attempts to defraud people, they might actually be able to develop sustainable and profitable businesses.

Do you find it appalling, simply amusing or rather sad?

Illustration: therecessionista.blogspot.com