The fun begins

So it was time to start the game. With enough information received I was able to fill my replies with nonsense and jokes. My goal was to firstly make William spend time on reading replies, secondly keep his hope alive, and thirdly receive a piece of evidence he's doing a scam. I'm not sure if you familiar with Australian comedian Santo Cilauro. If you've never heard about him or Molvania, you should google his name. In short he came up with imaginary country of Molvania situated in Eastern Europe, he also applied to perform on Eurovision contest with very funny 80's synthpop/high energy parody. His humor is subtler and funnier (to me) than one of Borat character.

William,

I'm glad to receive such detailed e-mail from you. You are right, in our times it's very hard to trust people around you. Everyone tries to exploit our weaknesses, so we have to be careful. I'm not even sure if sending my personal information by e-mail is safe, because there are many articles on the web about frauds and scams, and they all urge not to provide such information to strangers. But you are right by saying it's impossible to know you without actually dealing with you, and the prize is so big and compelling I'm really torn apart and don't know what to do!

I'm probably going to seek a little bit more assurance about your credentials, I got your address and everything else, but I also would like to receive your registration number. I talked to my friend who is lawyer in my home country Molvania, and he said he had to get registered with Molvania's Law Society before he could open the practice. But he's not dealing with banks or anything, he is in real estate law. He told me once one of his clients sent his home address to a stranger and his house was later repossessed by the bank in which he took out the mortgage, because somebody  took loan against his property and didn't pay.

I want to trust you so much, because we are talking about a lot of money, and you come forward as a very intelligent guy, and I believe you will be able to do the job right, but deep inside I'm still hesitant. You see I have this big nice house on the shore and I wouldn't want to lose it because of my greed. My friend urged me to ask you to provide your legal registration number, he told me that should remove my last concern. I don't know about Togo, but in Molvania every lawyer has a registration number and a nice wooden stamp with it, so he can certify the documents. My friend showed it to me once, and I'm still jealous I don't have one myself!

Sincerely,
Pord Yanovsky

It was interesting to me if the guy can catch the artificial country in my message, apparently he wasn't interested  to look it up. His reply was insisting on "datas", but not on banking information. The answer was quite long, but the level of English degrades significantly. To the point it's actually hard to understand what was meant to be said.

Dear Pord,

Thanks for your mail and for your bit understanding.

You see,we are in the world where if we cannot have trust and faith we are bound of not archieving anything.If there is no existence of trust within us,the transaction we are about to commence can never work out.Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen and by faith we shall complete this transaction smoothly and begin to enjoy the friut of our labour.

I am a senior advocate in Lome Togo and you must be aware that what you asked me to give you is a very vital classified document which we,the lawyers dont release anyhow as it is against our ethics.We may release the whole world but cannot tamper with our law certificates.

Gentleman,if actually you are free in mind as I am free in mind,having a good thought  towards you that in the process of this transaction we shall meet one on one,then you will have no cause to hesitate in coming up with my request so that we may kick off this transaction.I only requested for your data excluding your bank account information to help me prepare an application which I will send back to you and you will be the one to forward it to the bank as the next of kin and the bank then contract you to proceed on the processing of the release of the funds via your bank account.It is the bank that has the right to demand  for your bank account informations and any other vital document or information deemed necessary for the transfer of the funds to your bank account.

For your information,the bank gave me a deathline which is fast approaching,that time when if I did not bring the relatives of my late client,they will declare the account unservicable thereby confiscating it,so the earlier we put this application the better for us.

Waiting to hear from and to have the required datas as to proceed.I will rather send you my international passport but that will be on Monday when my scanner might have be well repared.

Have a nice weekend.

Best regards,

Barrister Williams Inyama.

I highlighted couple of very interesting mistakes, *deathline* definitely being the funniest of them. It's a beautiful mix of cliches and broken English that makes a reply so much enjoyable to read. But the biggest surprise was not the reply. In a separate e-mail William sent me something I hoped to get, but wasn't expecting so soon:

Dear Pord,

Attached herewith is my International passport copy.

Send your datas to me and I shall prepare the application and send to you so that you may forward it to the bank directly by yourself.

Best regards,

Barr William Inyama.

Tel: +228 0942008 .

This picture is worth more than words. The scan is blatantly forged. I think in our day and age it's very audacious to assume people will actually believe in something like that. The serial number of the passport is real, so it's actually possible to find out who is the original owner of the document. But that's another story for another time.