The FBI wants to make me rich

I suppose because my byline appears regularly in the paper, scammers bombard my email address with more come-hithers promising vast riches than the average user of a computer might receive.

Usually, the con artists pretend to be a relative of some rich despot now deceased. I got three or four of these messages earlier today. As you may know, Nigeria is infamous for being the origin of most of these scams.

But the last one I got was in a special class. It was marked "Federal Bureau of Investigation." Well, that got my attention. I thought I might be nailed for transporting juvenile jokes across state lines.

It began:

"Attn:Beneficiary.

We believe that this notification meets you in a very good present state of mind and health. We the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in conjunction with some other relevant Investigation Agencies here in the United states of America have recently been informed through our Global intelligence monitoring network that you presently have a transaction going in Europe and Africa as regards to your over-due payment which was fully endorsed in your favor accordingly."

That awkward and overly polite English marked this as the usual scam from the get go "We believe that this notification meets you in a very good present state of mind and health..."

Ah yes, that would be how the G-men send me correspondence. They would forget to capitalize the states in United States of America as well.

You got to hand it to these guys, though: Pretending to be the FBI is world-class chutzpah.