Bringing in the bucks - Lies and damned lies

Well what did my email bring in yesterday? Well, this for starters:

 

         OFFICIAL PRIZE NOTIFICATION 
 
This is to inform you that have been selected for a cash prize of £ 
1.000.000.00( One million  Great British Pounds) , International programs 
held on the  11th of  Febuary   2007  in the London Uk.
 
The selection process was carried out through random selection in our 
computerized  email   selection system(ess) from a database of over 
250,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world.
 
The Uk National  Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and  
also Licensed by the The International Association of Gaming Regulators 
(IAGR). This  lottery is the 3rd of its kind  and we intend to 
sensitize the public.

But that's not all! There is - as they say - more!

It is with pleasure, honour and respect that I am bringing this business proposal to you and with hope it will be for a mutual benefit to both of us. I am optimistic you wont let down the trust and confidence I will repose in you.
I am MR. PETERSON LAMIDE. One of branch manager of a bank in Accra Ghana.During a routine audit of our Bank, we discovered a dormant account of a foreign contractor who died aboard the Egyptian airline boeing 747 that crashed on 31st October 1999 on its way from New-York to Cairo Egypt. Since then nobody has applied or come forward with claims to our Bank as a family, relation or friend to the affected disaster victim.
The regulations of the Bank stipulates that any account that has not been operational for a period of two years becomes automatically dormant. Now the money of the affected foreign victim has been deposited into an suspense

account in our bank.I MR. PETERSON LAMIDE, needs your assistance by presenting yourself to the bank or making a formal request through me to bank as a relation to the foreign contractor whose account is worth three point one million u.s dollars ($3.1m) in a suspenses account.
This money has been in his account for a period of more than ten years.I MR. PETERSON LAMIDE, assure you of a risk free transaction if only you are willing to help. For your assistance to assist me transfer this money to your account and country, I will like us to share it 50/50 of the whole money and strongly and honestly promise to offset any sundry expenses you might incure during the course of the transaction.
As soon as I get your reply I will proceed to give you all my contacts and all necessary informations with regards to the account.Please your full name, address, telephone are highly needed to enable me proceed the preparation of the transfer with my contacts in the bank.
NB: Remember to keep this proposal secret and confidential because of my position in the Bank. I assure you with my position and contacts in the bank, this money will be lifted into your account hitch free.
Regrads,
Mr. Peterson Lamide

Thanks for your kind err 'regrads', mister Lamide. You have my undisguised contempt as the very detritus of the species. You are cruel, greedy, callous and apparently lazy if your language is anything to go by.

People actually fall for this sort of thing, if you can imagine it. Strangely, people want what they don't truly feel they deserve. The more they think they don't deserve it, the more they want it, and the more they try to convince themselves that they do want it.

And then people fall for stupid crap like this. They listen to lies and ignore the inconsistencies and believe what they want to believe. We all do this at times, when we're lied to. Sometimes in little ways. Sometimes in larger ways.

We're all fools now and again, some more often than others - we believe what we want to, and pave over the inconsistencies, often without even noticing them. When someone clearer-headed tries to reason with us, we bite them or lash out.

Don't be a damned fool. I won't if you won't.