I'm Gonna Be Rich

I'm now receiving about 1000 spam a week. Almost all to an email address that does not appear in a Google search but was used by at least 2 different people as their "spam" address. Interestingly, both these people are from California. The first one started, and stopped, many years ago. The second started last year, using the address for his taxes, a tux rental and who knows what else. I found him based on the tux rental address and his MySpace account and he has also stopped using the address. But the damage is done.

Yahoo! does a good job screening out the spam but sometimes one or two will sneak through the filter. Here's the one that tricked the filters today:

From:"zebview@terra.es"
Subject: funds transfer from swiss bank,$14 million dollars

DEAR SIR,

I AM CONTACTING YOU ON BUSINESS TRANSFERING MONEY INTO
YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.

I AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE, SO I CAN GIVE YOU MORE DETAILS ABOUT
THIS TRANSACTION.

REGARDS,

MR MICHAEL DEROBERT.

Is there actually a person smart enough to use a computer and read e-mail but still dumb enough to respond to this?

OK, you already know the answer. I responded (shouting, of course).

DEAR MR DEROBERT,

THANK YOU FOR CONTACTING ME BUT I BELIEVE THERE WAS A TYPO IN YOUR EMAIL. WHAT ACTUALLY HAS HAPPENED IS THAT APPROXIMATELY $1,400,000 WAS INCORRECTLY CREDITED TO MY BANK ACCOUNT.

THIS MONEY DOES NOT BELONG TO ME BUT I HAVE HAD NO WAY OF RETURNING IT UNTIL NOW. PLEASE SEND ME YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER SO THAT I CAN TRANSFER THE MONEY TO YOU FORTHWITH.

REGARDS,

JAY MANFREDGENSENGEN

I like the use of "forthwith". It sounds very honest.