My jaw is on the floor…

I just got this email to C3’s general email address. It was sent to the info@ or help@ address of around 30 different US-based nonprofit cancer-related organizations. Disease-specific and general cancer.

The headers show that it legitimately came through Yahoo (or it’s a good fake of a Yahoo IP address):

Hello,

My name is Mr. (name), I am a dying man who had decided to donate what I have to you. You may be wondering why I choose you. But someone has to be chosen. I am 59 years old and was diagnosed for cancer about 2 years ago, immediately after the death of my father, who had left me everything he worked for.

I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my late father to you for the good work of your organisation, rather than allow my relatives to use my father’s hard earned funds ungodly. I have asked God to forgive me all my sins and I believe he has, because He is a merciful God. I will be going in for an operation, and I pray that I survive the operation.

I have decided to will/ Donate the sum of $500,000 ( Five Hundred Thousand U.S. Dollars) to you for the good work of the organisation, and to help the motherless, less privileged and also for the assistance of the widows. Believing in a long time parabe that says: “Part of Living is Giving”.

At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls, due to the fact that my relatives are around me and I have been restricted by my doctor from taking telephone calls due to my present state of health and that I deserve all the rest I can get.

Presently, I have informed my lawyer about my decision in willing this fund to you.

I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and please I implore you to use the funds well and always extend the good work of the Lord to others.

Kindly Contact my lawyer through this email address (@yahoo.com), quoting my name: name(Mr), if you are interested in carrying out this operation, so that he can further inform you on due course. My Lawyer’s name is Barrister name.i had to use my friends e-mail to mail you.

I know I have never met you but my mind tells me to do this, and I hope you act sincerely. I will pay you 10% of this money if you will assist me because I am now too weak and fragile to do things myself because of my cancer.

NB: I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished, as I don’t want anything that will Jeopardize my last wish, due to the fact that I do not want relatives or family members standing in the way of my last wish.

i will need the amount of 20,000 us dollars for my operation.

love

name

Oh come on… “i will need the amount of 20,000 us dollars for my operation.” Now he’s just trying to make me laugh, right?

I’ve gotten more 419 scam emails over the years than I can count. Someone went through the trouble of looking up those email addresses to put in the “To:” field and send through Yahoo…does he think that people that work for nonprofits are stupid? Don’t answer that.

Yes, I’m reporting it to Yahoo.