I received an interesting message via Tribe.net recently:
From Miss Finna Gausa Please write me at (@yahoo.com )
Dear Rob,
I am Miss Finna Gausa the only daughter of late Mr. & Mrs. Philip Gausa. I go through your profile and God lead me to contact you, My father and mother were very wealthy farmers and cocoa merchant when they were both alive After the death of my father,long ago,my mother Mrs. Rebecca Gausa was controling his business untill she was poisoned by her business associates which she surffered and died.Before the death of my mother on Nov. 2005 in a private hospital here in Abidjan where she was admitted,she secretly called me on her bed side and disclosed to me about the sum of Five Million US Dollars .(USD$5 million )
She left in suspense account in one of the bank here in Abidjan,it was the money she intended to transfer oversea for investment before she was strucked down by the poison.
She also instructed me that I should seek for a foreign partner in any country of my choice who will assist me transfer this money in oversea account where the money will be save and invested wisely.
Because of the current political problem here in Ivory Coast I decided to transfer the money to abroad where it will be save and invested. therefore,I am crying and seeking for your kind assistance in the following ways:
(1) To provide a safe bank account into where the money will be transferred for investment.
(2) To serve as a guardian of this fund since I am a girl of 18 years old.
(3) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and to secure a resident permit for me in your country.
As soon as I receive your urgent reply indicating your interest to assist me to successfuly transfer the money into your yet nominated account,I will give you every information and contact of the bank where the money is deposited. please I will be waiting for your urgent reply please.
Thanks and God bless you
Yours lovely,
Miss Finna Gausa.
I found this to be very striking, not because poor Finna Gausa had her sister poisoned, (which is admittedly very sad), but that someone has realized that it may be more worthwhile to attempt a 419 scam over a social networking website rather than over random emails.
Unless the person had built automation, they were most likely hand personalizing the messages. The story itself says that it reached me via my profile, (and God).
It makes sense to sacrificing the swiftness of spamming and scheming over email in favor of an intrasite messaging system on a website set up under social networking auspices. You avoid the spam filters and may be drumming up better leads.
What an interesting idea that there are growing electronic messaging systems blooming in near-parallel with the standard email protocol. I may expound upon this in the future here.
yours lovely,
rob