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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Harris’ Identity Gets Stolen!

Today I received an email which appears below this news item.  I’m assuming that the email is not genuine, and if it is, Harris, I’m very sorry, but by the time you get around to reading this, I think you will be laughing.  My first attempt to respond to this email was to email Harris:

Dear con artist,
I can’t believe this is from Harris.  His ability to write far exceeds yours.  You may wish to some research on the people you pretend to be before trying to fool them other into trying to help them.
Dave.

That email got bounced by Google.  I guess Google caught the fraud and disabled the account right away, or else the con artist had it disabled before hand so that people like me couldn’t put the kibosh on his evil scheme.  But he underestimates the resourcefulness of his marks.  I sent Harris some issues of Literal Translations, so I was able to do an Internet search on his address, and found Jason Roberson using his address who is married to a Miriam Tobias.  So I have emailed Jason.  I have a Lulu account, and logging in allowed me to get his email address - Literal Translations used to get printed by Lulu, but now it goes to InstantPublisher instead.  If Jason responds, I will update this story.

Here is the email I received originally:

I am sorry I didn’t inform you about my traveling its very important for a program called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education, the program is taking place in Ghana. It has been a very sad and bad moment for me; the present condition that I found myself is very hard for me to explain.
I am really stranded in Ghana because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because I have no money on me. I am now owning a hotel bill of $ 1000USD and they wanted me to pay the bill soon else they will have to seize my bag and hand me over to the Hotel Management, I need this help from you urgently to help me back home, I need you to help me with the hotel bill and I will also need $1250USD to feed and help myself back home so please can you help me with a sum of $2250USD to sort out my problems here? I need this help so much and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don’t even have money to feed myself for a day which means i had been starving so please understand how urgent I need your help have decided not tell my family so that they will not be worried. When I return I will tell them and they will understand.
I am sending you this e-mail from the city Library and I only have 48hrs, I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and I promise to pay back your money as soon as I return home. You need to transfer the money through Money Gram or Western Union to the address below.Pls reply back to my alternate email address at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  because G mail service is very bad right here in Ghana Hope to hear from you soon.

Here is the address on how to send me the money, when you get to the transfer office inform them that the money should be pay to me without ( I.d Card) just the tracking numbers and the Text Question and Answer, due to my lost document once you say so to them the money will be paid to me here in Ghana i will be waiting for the payment details in your next reply save my life.

Name: Harris Tobias
City: Accra
Zip code: 00233
Country: Ghana
Regards,
Harris

Sometimes, I believe, expletives are justified.  Here is the email I sent to the fake Harris at his Ymail account:

Dear con artist,

I can’t believe this is from Harris.  His ability to write far exceeds yours.  You may wish to do some research on the people you pretend to be before trying to fool others into trying to help them.

Watch your back, mister.  Harris was a friend of mine and it looks like you ruined his email account.

On the other hand, if you have much of a brain in that lazy effing noggin of yours, maybe you could make something up that’s interesting and post it to my website.  It’s http://www.litmocracy.com.  If you earn anything, though, it’s going to the real Harris to compensate him for you fucking up his email - at least until he feels you’ve paid your debt.  After that, I’ll send whatever money you earn to your address in Ghana you can quit being a cheating bastard.

I think I will bug him a few more times as the whole feed-the-children-in-Ghana thing suggests a creative mind, and hey, remember Indian Telemarketers, and it’s follow-up, Long Distance Calls?  Well I haven’t heard from that Harry for a while, but I like to think that’s because he’s doing well.  Maybe he’ll read this.  Maybe calling me now is too expensive.

Anyway, I have to thank this new con artist for reminding me of my adventure with Harry.  If you see or talk to Harris himself, please make sure he’s aware of this article.