Economy

How I Became A Millionaire Doing Nothing

April 28, 2009

Yup, it’s true. I am now about to become a millionaire. According to an email from Felix Ahmed, the only Son of late Ahmed Bello, I am now in the position to make 15% of 10.5 million dollars. Do the math and that is $1,575,000.00. Not too bad for doing absolutely nothing. Well, I should take that back, I still have to send Felix my bank account information and social security number so that he can transfer the money over since he can’t take out the money and deposit it himself.

How?

By now I know what you are thinking: How did I run across such luck? Very simple actually: doing pretty much nothing. Felix did all the work. Felix spent many hours gathering email addresses and picked my email out of the hundreds and thousands and decided that I was going to be the lucky one who gets nearly $1.6 million dollars. All I would have to do in exchange is give a little bit of information. Now I realized that he did all the work and that I would get all the rewards so I decided to write him an email back thanking him. The correspondence is as follows:

Dear Felix,

Thank you for this great opportunity! I am honored that out of all the people in the world you choose me! How can I get this share of the money? I am saddened to hear of your unfortunate circumstances. I can’t believe I almost missed your email, it went directly to SPAM mail. I was wondering how you actually found my email address and why you picked me? Also, I was thinking that 15% is a little low. I was thinking maybe at least 25%. What do you think?

Joseph

I know it was bad to ask for 25%, but times are tough. I could tell that Felix was eager to do business with me as he emailed me back in less than 25 minutes with a response:

Joseph

Thank you for helping. I am here in Cote D’ivoire and don’t have much time before the money is stolen by someone else. I only need your social security number and your bank account number and I will transfer it over immediately. I can give you 25% if you can send the information very soon.

I await your reply.

I couldn’t believe it! 25% of $10.5 million dollars is $2,625,000.000! I couldn’t believe my luck. For anyone out there reading this, one important thing to remember is that when someone emails you offering to give you 15% of $10.5 million, always ask for more.

Before I sent over my personal information to a complete stranger, I still had more questions for him:

Felix,

Now that I think about it, I have a lot of bills to pay, I think that 40% is fair. How is your money going to get stolen? I hope it isn’t a pot of gold like from Lucky Charms. Also, I heard the weather is beautiful in Cote D’ivoire during this time of year. I see you are using Gmail! Let’s talk? I got a webcam, do you? I love google and all the great new tools they are coming out with! By the way Felix, where in Cote D’ivoire are you located? Let’s meet up? I know a great coffee place that has some killer scones!

Let me know.

At this point of our correspondence, it seemed that Felix was very stressed as he began to become disoriented and somewhat agitated in his emails:

Joseph,

40%?!? That is too much, but if you send your information now I will let you take 40%. I don’t have a webcam sorry. Why do you ask such random questions? Don’t you want your money? I am located in central Cote D’ivoire. I don’t have time to meet you, I just want money. What the hell are Lucky Charms and why would you want to drink coffee at a time like this? I am giving you money for FREE. Don’t even know what scones are.

I await your reply.

A person that doesn’t know what scones are? I couldn’t believe it. Not only was I outraged, but I decided to call it off:

Felix,

How do you not know what scones are! Do you know what muffins are? If you do, then just picture the top of a muffin only and you have a scone. I don’t know if I can do business with someone who doesn’t know what scones are. That is like going to a 5-star restaurant with no waiters. Not good business Felix. You should have known that I love scones. I am taking a trip to Cote D’ivoire tomorrow, if you want to talk to me in person about scones and how we can make this deal happen, let me know. Otherwise, I feel sorry for someone who doesn’t know what scones are.

After this email, I didn’t hear back from Felix again. It is unfortunate that our deal didn’t go through, but what Felix failed to realize was that I loved scones. Plain and simple. Sure it was over 2 million dollars for free, but Felix was just bad at business. Funny thing happened though, a couple days later it seemed that Felix had gained the courage to try and find someone else to help him because I got an email from him again that was almost identical to his first email. It must have been a mistake that he sent it to me again, but it is good to see that Felix doesn’t give up on trying to get people to give him their personal information for the hopes of millions of dollars.

So the question now is how can you win a million dollars doing absolutely nothing? Simple, check your email and look at your spam folder. I can almost gaurantee you that Felix or one of his friends has sent you a great offer and a chance to become a millionaire or even a billionaire.

Who said the economy was bad? Felix doesn’t think so.

—-

Photo by mwboeckmann

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  • Dan Miranda April 28, 2009 at 7:25 pm

    Ha ha! Felix was quite the funny character there. 😉

  • Luke April 28, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    I hate it how they don’t serve scones in Cote D’ivoire! Felix needs to brush up on some of the habits of the western world, he has enough money obviously!

    Great post Joseph

  • Brian Linton April 28, 2009 at 8:31 pm

    Haha, I loved this!
    Great, satirical approach to getting rich quick – and how stupid it is to think you can do so…

  • Lorraine Smith April 29, 2009 at 2:42 am

    What gets me is that he was totally unaware of what was going on and got completely agitated about it! Brilliant!

  • Akhila April 29, 2009 at 5:31 am

    Haha! This is absolutely hilarious, and good job with the satire. People usually delete these emails, but I love how you made it into something funny 🙂

  • Pritesh April 29, 2009 at 6:06 am

    Hillarious. I simply loved it. Great post Joseph. You have made such an awesome post out of SPAM emails. Really a good one.

    I’ll consider twice before going to Cote D’ivoire as I like scones too. 🙂

  • Jason April 29, 2009 at 9:06 am

    I was literally laughing on the bus and everyone thought I was crazy. I wonder if it will be a new trend, people replying to spam messages for entertainment. A counterattack to spam.

  • Yu-kai Chou April 29, 2009 at 9:33 am

    Awesome post.

    I think checking my spam mail is too much work for getting a million dollars. There’s so much SPAM that these winners are one out of thousands! You said I didn’t have to do anything but now I can see that was just your deceitful plot to get me interested.

    Instead of checking my spam mail, I rather start a company and make millions with it! That’s a much easier and direct way!

    Btw, why does it say Google Analytics at the bottom left? Are they your sponsor? 🙂

  • Jun Loayza April 29, 2009 at 10:37 am

    damn… that money could have been great funding for FD!!!

  • Carissa Caricato April 29, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    That was the funniest thing I have read in a while! Thanks for the laughs 🙂

  • jstmycuppatea April 30, 2009 at 9:11 am

    Hey I love scones too!!! i wouldn’t do business with anyone that doesn’t like scones.

    Loved your response!

  • Joseph May 2, 2009 at 2:53 am

    Thanks everyone for the great comments! In the end, I hope that everyone got a smile out of it and realized that people are willing to do just about anything for money and that it is important to always be aware.

  • Montana Flynn May 18, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    LOL, this was pure comedy, I had a smile the whole way through. I have been getting a lot of spam like this lately. Thanks for the great post, I eagerly await your next.

  • Tatiana May 22, 2009 at 11:53 am

    How funny!

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