A Pretty Good Week

I normally delete spam as it comes in, typically once or twice a day. Finding myself busy for a few days last week, though, I inadvertently allowed it to pile up. I then decided to see just how much fun I was missing by not following up on the tantalizing offers that arrive a few hundred times daily. Here's the result of exactly one week's accumulated spam.

I've discovered that the banking system in Nigeria is shockingly inefficient — in order to wire money from one account to another, it seems they have to offer tens of millions of dollars to strangers in other countries, even when the customer is a prince. You'd think they'd try to revise that system. For now, though, I plan to take advantage of it. I've also discovered that, through a chain of circumstances I'm unable to follow, I'm the beneficiary of more than a dozen wills in Nigeria, Ghana, and other African nations.

(Some highlights: I get fully half of a deposit of $597,800,000; I also get 35% of $500,000,000. It almost makes me think it's not worth the trouble to collect on the measly offerings of £800,000 or, worse still, just $100,000.)

All told, they've earned me $829,814,500 + £117,790,000 + 20,160,000 euros; at the current exchange rate, that's

$829,814,500
$237,913,420
$29,099,146
--------------
$1,096,827,065

Pretty cool, huh? — I've topped a billion dollars in a week. And that's only where I'm the beneficiary of someone's will or aiding a former prince in getting money out of the country. Lotteries have provided a further $12,572,000, £3,741,259, and 1,730,000 euros, for an additional total of $22,625,732.

Not everything goes in the deposit column: I apparently made five suspicious purchases through eBay which have been withdrawn from my account, at $47.85, $47.85, $47.85, $47.85, and (wait for it) $447.85, or a total of $639.25. But even if we subtract that from my week's income, I'm still up by $1,119,452,158.

I did have nine eBay customer questions about items I'm selling; my eBay account was compromised six times; my Bank of America account four times; my PayPal and Amazon accounts three times each; my accounts at Central Bank, Wells Fargo, and Citibank twice each, and my accounts at Capital One, Teachers Credit Union, and Banca Intesa each compromised once each.

Sure, these are serious security problems. As I see it, though, I can afford to set aside $100 million to take care of all my credit problems, give a nearly $20 million tip, and still leave myself with a billion dollars.

I was also promised that I'd get laid tonight. But with an extra billion in my pocket, I shouldn't think that would be very difficult.