I just got this email:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I is Archibold N.M. Bettesworth, the Personal Underling to the Ancient One. After a lengthy investigations of scrolls and tombs, we discovered that your lineage is heir to an overdue payment, which was unissued due to dimensional legislation at the time payment was obliged.
However, due to current strict rules of dimensional matter we are unfairly unable to honor the agreement between the Ancient One and your Great-great-great Grandfather. Our best scholars and top occultists have assured us that there is no way to produce the 6.66 Million Dollars that is owed to you because of the obtuse laws that govern interdimensional monetary dispensation. Successfully, our best investigators had found a loophole that allow us to extricate the monies to you, the descendent of your Great-great Grandfather the original party to the contracts, in exchange for the minor allocation of your soul, which we are equally unhappy with but believe to be best course for both parties.
We know this money would have been very been a facial to your family in the recent stresses of the economy and rapid steep fiscal cliff. As such we desire to give you all your money faster. Therefore you are advised to re-confirm your ancestry to your Great-great-great Grandfather and repeat the following incantation whilst in the middle of a pentagram diagram the eve of a full moon night:
“Nunc ego tribuo meus animus ut aperta mundorum et liberum Obscuram Princeps. Et ubi est vita vestigiis pergamus.”
Please email me and confirm that I have reached the correct descendant of your Great-great-great Grandfather.
Most gratifully yours,
N.M. Bettesworth
Personal Underling to the Ancient One
That doesn’t even need my commentary.
Whoever wrote that, well-played. It even has some fucked-up grammar in there. (Or maybe that was accidental, who can say?) Is this a joke? A riff on the earlier FBI spam mail I got?
Either way: funny stuff.
I mean, don’t do it again. This is a one-time-only amusement. I don’t want a deluge of “ha-ha-funny-not-spam” emails drowning me.
But still: well-played.
I wonder if I should write back?
laurakcurtis says:
It might be been a facial to right back.
December 13, 2012 — 9:06 PM
Tim Lumpkins (@TimLumpkins) says:
That is by far my favorite line from that email.
December 23, 2012 — 4:52 PM
Patricia (@patricialynne07) says:
That is funny. I think my favorite part is about the “minor allocation of your soul”. This reminds me of a spam message I got a few years ago. I kept it because it was so funny. A hitman emailed me to inform me that a close friend wanted me dead but he wouldn’t kill me if I gave him a few thousand but if I didn’t, he had no choice but to carry out the contract. I laughed my ass off over it.
December 13, 2012 — 9:09 PM
erimeh says:
Well it could be as much fun as baiting actual spammers. Though if Mr N.M. Bettesworth (and his fellow minions) are as tenacious as the FBI/Nigeria Bank fellows it could last a good long while.
December 13, 2012 — 9:14 PM
J. Chapman says:
String em along, scam-baiter style?
December 13, 2012 — 9:15 PM
Stephen Blackmoore says:
And you don’t want a facial, do you?
December 13, 2012 — 9:23 PM
Jules says:
That was kinda brilliant, actually!
December 13, 2012 — 10:48 PM
Scott Zachary says:
“Now would I give my soul to the Dark Prince of the open and free of worlds. And where is the life of following in the footsteps let us continue.”
Oh crap, I said the words. Now what?
December 14, 2012 — 1:15 AM
Virender Singh says:
Lol . . where do these mails come from? who writes these and why?
December 14, 2012 — 6:05 AM
Kathleen Cassen Mickelson says:
I bet Santa would know how to do interdimensional monetary dispensation. Check your socks.
http://oneminnesotawriter.blogspot.com
December 14, 2012 — 9:01 AM
Alex says:
Pyramid power!
December 14, 2012 — 10:31 AM
inkgrrl says:
Beautifully done. I’d love to read one that’s along the lines of a book review.
December 14, 2012 — 1:07 PM
Jeremy Jones says:
I like the last line, “Please email me and confirm that I have reached the correct descendant of your Great-great-great Grandfather.”
I’d write back, “No, unfortunately I went back in time and killed my great-great-great grandfather before he had kids. As such I’ve created a temporal paradox where I may or may not exist depending on whether or not I’ve stopped myself from preventing my own birth.”
December 16, 2012 — 10:45 PM
Tim Whitcher says:
Obviously, N.M. Bettesworth is merely a minion of Yog Sothoth Attorney at Law, representing the Great Cthulhu. I don’t think I’d respond.
December 18, 2012 — 10:20 PM
Gary Betsworth says:
As a fellow screenwriter (and playwright), I have to say that the guy at least has a cool name!
April 25, 2017 — 1:11 PM