Dealing with spammers is generally a mixed bag. It's very hard to tell beforehand where an email reply will lead and the replies can just as easily stop coming in altogether. Often enough, when I am working on a spamtastic update, I'm usually in contact with two or three different people, just to make the odds greater for one panning out. Generally, once I have enough to make an update, I let the rest die because even I can only take so much spam. But, surprise, not every adventure has to be 50,000 emails long and sometimes you can get what you need out of one or two.

While my last adventure with R. Hobberman took precedence, in the background, I was also talking to Mrs. Reda Brown. She has an offer for me that piqued my interest and I put Roger on the case. Read below for the one-part series concerning the saga of Mrs. Brown and her money.

From: "Mrs Reda Brown" [mrsredabrown@gmail.com]
Subject: IAM A WIDOW READ AND REPLY!!!!

IAM A WIDOW READ AND REPLY!!!!

Dear God's elect,

I am writing this mail to you with heavy tears In my eyes and great sorrow in my heart, My Name is Mrs Reda Brown, and I am contacting you from my country Tunisia I want to tell you this because I don't have any other option than to tell you as I was touched to open up to you, I married to Mr. Smith Brown who worked with Tunisia embassy in Burkina Faso for nine years before he died in the year 2005.We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only five days. Since his death I decided not to remarry, When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of US$ 8.5m (Eight Million Five hundred Thousand Dollars) in a bank in Ouagadougou the capital city of Burkina Faso in west Africa Presently this money is still in bank. He made this money available for exportation of Gold from Burkina Faso mining.

Recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last for the period of seven months due to cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to hand you over this money to take care of the less-privileged people, you will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want you to take 30 Percent of the total money for your personal use While 70% of the money will go to charity" people in the street and helping the orphanage. I grew up as an Orphan and I don't have anybody as my family member, just to endeavour that the house of God is maintained. Am doing this so that God will forgive my sins and accept my soul because these sicknesses have suffered me so much.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank in Burkina Faso and I will also instruct the Bank Manger to issue you an authority letter that will prove you the present beneficiary of the money in the bank that is if you assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein.

Hoping to receive your reply:
From Mrs.Reda Brown

As a general rule of thumb, people dying don't make for good updates. Unless, of course, their death is really, really funny. Mrs. Reda Brown dying from "stroke sickness" is one of those types of deaths. It also helps that she's not a real person. I might actually feel a little bad if any of the above were actually true.

But probably not.

Just because Reda Brown isn't real doesn't make her email or fake death any less important. There is imaginary money at stake here, after all.

From: "Roger Garrison" [roger@4kb.com]
To: mrsreda_brown12@hotmail.fr
Subject: Re: IAM A WIDOW READ AND REPLY!!!!

YOU HAVE REALLY POOR EMAIL ETIQUETTE!!!!

Dearest Mrs. Reda Brown,

I am replying back to the email you wrote with a nervous twitch in my fingers and gas pains in my stomach. My name is Roger Garrison and I am pleased to make your email acquaintance. Admittedly, the circumstances surrounding our meeting could be a little "less about you, more about me" but I suppose lonely men on the internet such as myself can't really be picky when it comes to hot widows. Well, I assume you're hot. If not, let me know so we can both stop wasting our time.

After reading your letter, I was left with a number of mixed emotions. On one hand, the passing of your husband and your complete bastardization of the English languages makes me deeply sad but on the other, you mention money and that's the kind of talk that makes my shallow life worth living. That and ice cream. God, I fucking love ice cream. I wonder if they make a money-flavored ice cream? Wait, never mind. That would probably taste like dirty fingers, stripper vagina, and cocaine residue. But back to your dead husband and his very much alive money.

I'm not really all that familiar with Tunisia but from your letter, it sounds like a lot of people are getting sick and/or dying there. You'd think that you'd take some of that nice cash you have laying and maybe fly to a better place. You know, a place that doesn't employ camels as doctors. I think they filmed part of the first Star Wars in Tunisia so I'm not saying it's all bad. Just not really a place that I would choose to stick around after my husband kicked the bucket and left me with crazy cash. I don't know -- maybe you're a better person than I am.

All other talk aside, that's terrible news about your medical diagnosis. Dying is not fun. I have lost many friends to varying types of cancers but I also lost one friend inside the grocery store when I was younger. We never found him and to this day I refuse to eat oranges because of it. I also had no idea that "stroke sickness" was a valid medical condition but I really haven't been paying attention to the medical field since they canceled Doogie Howser, M.D. He really was the best doctor.

Truly, I am touched that you were touched to open to me, even if I don't know entirely what that means and I would like very much to help you. However, you should note that I am a bit skeptical. I'm just looking for some reassurance that you are being honest. I've had email offers in the past from some not-so-nice people so I just want confirmation that I am not being taken advantage of. (Seriously, that guy wasn't even really my uncle. What was I thinking!?)

I'm all on board about the giving to charity thing though I think maybe we should discuss the 30% figure. I'm not saying that it's low, I'm just saying that my therapist tells me that I am worth more than that. It's not going to be a deal breaker or anything but maybe try and keep that in the back of your mind the next time you're running around figures in your head. Also, can we talk about the orphanage thing? I'm all for helping the people in the street but seriously, I've talked to a few kids at that orphanage and they're all "adopt me, adopt me!" I don't think they really care about money so maybe we shouldn't actually donate there. You wouldn't want your money to go to waste.

But hey, you know, it's your call. I'm just the vessel. (A sexy vessel, yes?)

As I mentioned above, I am very much on board to help you out. You seem like a fair and reasonable women who just so happens to have made God angry so he gave you some incurable illness. He tends to do that from time to time. Please provide me information about the person at the bank who will be contacting me so I know he's not trying to scam me. I wouldn't want to start helping out people who don't deserve it.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do in the mean time to help you as I patiently await your reply.

For The Love Of Water,
Roger Garrison
roger@4kb.com

It wasn't long after I sent the above email that I got a reply from an address and name that I didn't recognize.

From: "Dr. Pjkono C. Marshall" [drpjkono1@verizon.net]
To: "Roger Garrison" [roger@4kb.com]
Subject: Subject: Re: IAM A WIDOW READ AND REPLY!!!!

Dear Roger Garrison,

I write on behalf of MRS REDA BROWN and I am the bank manager at Burkina Faso. I am informing you that you money is with this bank awaiting remittance into your bank account Before the transfer is been telegraphically wire transfer into your nominated bank, An accredited attorney to the bank will have to endorse the final fund release document {authority letter} and other entire transfer Documents before the funds will be transfer to your bank account. I also want to bring to your notice that I have found a lawyer that will be willing to Endorse these document on your behalf and he is charging £10,000 Pounds Sterling for his services. The lawyer wants you to guaranty his endorsement charges for the entire documentation on your behalf.

Please be aware that this dose not requires an upfront payment. What the lawyer is requesting for is an escrow payment through western union and not an upfront payment. What I am saying is that you should send the funds to your wife and children’s names through Western union in United Kingdom,. As soon as this is done, you will only provide me with the MTCN Number for him to contact the western union to find out if the funds are really with the western union bank. If the western union bank confirms to him that the funds are there, he wills them proceed to the Burkina Faso bank to endorse the final fund release document and other entire transfer Documents. for the funds to be transfer into your nominated bank account in Australia. Then as soon as you confirm the money in your bank account, you will proceed to western union bank in your country and have them change the receiver name to the lawyers name to enable him pick the funds from western union with his international passport.

This western union option according to western union bank is 100% risk free, very safe and secure as well, all you have to do is to get the funds, and proceed to western union bank around your location and send the £10,000 Pounds Sterling to your wife or children names with United Kingdom at the address. Please be rest assured that the lawyer cannot collect the money from western union because you are going to send the money to your wife or children names.

You will only resend the payment to the lawyer name as soon as you receive the funds in your bank; Please let me read your response as soon as possible. The whole transaction intends to be completed within 3 days, if you’re able to follow the lawyer instruction today. My regards to your family.

Regards
Dr. Pjkono C. Marshall
Director, Burkina Faso

I was a little let down after reading the email to find out that it was the same old Western Union scam that has been done a million times before. So, I did what I should probably do more often: craft a reply that would pretty much ensure that I would never get an email back.

From: "Roger Garrison" [roger@4kb.com]
To: "Dr. Pjkono C. Marshall" [drpjkono1@verizon.net]
Subject: Subject: Re: IAM A WIDOW READ AND REPLY!!!!

Dear Dr. Pjkono "Pookie" Marshall,

Thank you for following up with me on this issue in such a timely manner. I realize that being a completely awesome manager for what I am going to assume is a bank with no name is a full-time job and you probably don't have a lot of free time to sit around dicking with email. Quite the shame, actually, because I just got this forward from a friend and it has tons of cute puppy pictures in it and the subject said "FW: FW: FW: FW: 10 Puppy Pics That Cure Cancer" or something like that. I could forward it on to you if you'd like but I don't want to burden you. But let me know if you have some free time or whatever. Between you and me, I don't really think that the puppy pictures actually cure cancer because they are just pictures but you never know. I don't have cancer myself so maybe they work? Also, we could forward them on to Mrs. Reda and see if they cure stroke sickness too. Think of all the good we could do, man.

I'm sure that you are a pretty good guy and all but I'm kind of sitting here wondering what is up with the bait-and-switch. One minute, I'm talking to some presumably hot widow who is rich and dying and the next thing I know, I'm dealing with you and you're talking about bringing yet another dude into our party. This email is turning into a sausage-fest for reals. Do you think that maybe you can try and find a decent looking female attorney that we could deal with instead? I figure that $10,000 payment could go a long way to convince someone to join our cause. Hell, for $10,000 I know a few upscale hookers who can act as attorneys. Will that work?

While we're on the topic of things that you could do to improve my customer satisfaction here, maybe you could stop bringing up my wife and kids? They were killed in a horrible blimp accident last year and their death is still fresh in my memory. OK, sure, maybe I had something to do with the "accident" and maybe the police consider me a "person of interest" but that doesn't mean that I am not grieving. I cried no less than 6 times while reading your email because you just kept throwing the "wife and kids" phrase around. That really bothered me. I am starting to think that you are a horrible person, Pookie. Not only do you want me to have sex (gay sex!) with you and your lawyer friend, you mock my grieving and fragile state.

I really want to sit down and work with you on this matter because, frankly, I could really use Mrs. Brown's cash but your absolute lack of professionalism is a huge concern to me. I mean, I'm only getting 30% of this stockpile for all the trouble I am going through. What about my needs and wants? What about my need to want more than 30%? Maybe I'm reading too much here but I get the feeling that you're the kind of person who could grease a few wheels in your neck of the woods. How about you and me, maybe we work together to get 100% of Mrs. Brown's money? She's stupid and dying anyway, so what is the harm? Giving all that money to charity would be a huge, colossal waste. She's a self-admitted orphan and I know for a fact that those people are legally retarded.

Think of all the cool shit that you could buy with the money. You could buy a giraffe. A FUCKING GIRAFFE! Do you know how awesome that would be? Your very own giraffe? You could ride that shit to work and make the bank set up special giraffe parking just for you. If the giraffe starts acting up, get a switch and beat it like it's your wife. Or, you know, I'm just speculating that maybe you would want to have intercourse with your giraffe. I personally wouldn't but perhaps you're freaky. A lot of people would buy cars with their money but you can't have sex with cars. (Edit: a quick online search has proven the previous statement to be false.)

OK, so maybe I am on to something here, yes? You are enticed by the idea of owning your very own giraffe. Maybe I suggest that we take this thing one step further? That lawyer friend of yours, maybe he has an "accident" after he releases the money. We gotta be smart about this thing and tie up and loose ends. You could maybe chop up the body and feed it to your giraffe. I'm not sure if giraffes eat meat or not but whatever. I have some other body disposal tips that I won't get into here. If the time comes, we can work on it then. Look, I have only the utmost concern for Mrs Reda's money and would like to see it fall into my hands sooner rather than later. I don't know how much longer she has left to live but, you know, maybe we could accelerate the process?

OK, I realize that I just put a lot on your lap here. With me sitting in America, there isn't much that I can do to help so you kind of have to be the man of action on the ground over there. I'm sure that you don't want to be a bank manager forever, regardless of how awesome you are at it and this is your ticket out. Both our tickets. But I have to know that I can trust you. I am also placing a lot of faith in you to handle your business and get us this fast cash. Trust me, you wouldn't want me to hop on a plane and have to come hunt you down. Joran Van Der Sloot ain't got nothing on me, bitch. You better believe that if you try and double-cross me.

So, anyway, yeah, why don't you work on getting back to me about all of this. Also, let me know if you still want those puppy pictures because I could totally send them. The third one is pretty cute.

Stay Legit,
Roger Garrison
roger@4kb.com

And that is how you shut down an email thread. I can't really say how I would have felt if he actually replied back and was interested in my proposition but I guess when there isn't any actual money to be had, it would be kind of stupid to do so. Sometimes I just don't have the patience to draw the whole thing out.

I think, for now, Roger is going to go on a well-deserved vacation where he can soak up some rays and not spend his free time dealing with blabbering idiots. In the mean time, if you come across any extraordinary spam emails that you feel deserve a reply, please forward them to roger@4kb.com.