Col. Clarke Gable....

....sent me an email. Here it is:

Hello,
My name is Col. Clarke Gable of the 27th Infantry Brigade, 10th Mountain United States Army in Feluga, Iraq. I'm contacting you on behalf of my team here in Iraq peacekeeping service. We honestly need your assistance to move Allocation {Funds} into your custody for safekeeping pending our final dismissal any time this year...

However, I wish to remind you that I’m a soldier and I have no time to come over the internet for a child play, so please if you are not able to handle this transaction with utmost confidentiality please Do Not Reply.

If somehow you are interested in this proposal, kindly leave a message with your most confidential telephone numbers and I will get back to you with details.


Yours Respectfully,
Col. Clarke Gable
27th Infantry Brigade
10th Mountain
United States Army
Feluga, Iraq.
Email: col.clarkegable AT terra DOT com

Where to start? Col Clarke Gable? Do you think he serves under General Homer Simpson? Does this read like it was written by someone whose native tongue is English? Does "come over the Internet for a child play" sound like it comes from an Army officer? And what GI calls his DROS a "dismissal"? How about discharge or rotation back to the States? And I would hope an Army officer dodging bullets in Fallujah would know how to spell it.

I guess the "widow of the former Nigerian finance minister" scam was losing steam.

[slight edit - I took out the HTML code so the "email" link wasn't clickable. Part of me enjoys the thought of a spambot picking up a scammer's email and sending the same scam back at him; the larger part of me doesn't want anyone clicking through, even by mistake, and possibly getting a nasty virus or trojan horse. -nf]