We received the following from the (cough, cough) pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church in Craig, Alaska.
As is usual with letters such as this, not much adds up correctly.
From: Mr. Michael Thompson
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2012 4:49 AM
Subject: RE: YOU ARE BLESSED
We looked around on their site, but didn’t see any evidence of Michael Thompson. We did notice a level of programming expertise and linguistic skill that seems to contradict the contents of the email.
The General Council Of The
NEW HOPE BAPTIST CHURCH
116 Tanner Crab Ct.
Craig, Alaska 99921,
The church is real, but any connection between it and this email exists only in the mind of whoever wrote this thing in the first place.
I am Rev Pastor Howard Day, I’m 80 yrs old, I reside at Tanner Crab Ct. Craig, Alaska 99921 USA.
As is typical, he starts off with way too much information.
I am a good merchant, I have several industrial companies and good share in various banks in the world. I spend all my life on ministry and corporate business both in Asia, Europe and here in USA.
The church website seems to omit Pastor Howard Day from its literature. The entire site seems to be the work of Pastor Richard Ensley, who we are sure is a very nice man and is in no way involved in any of this nonsense.
The site also seems to be the work of someone who would probably not write in the style of the paragraph above. One doesn’t often run across anyone who is both a man of the cloth and a captain of industry.
It has been our experience that those are often mutually exclusive career paths.
I am a very godly man with all cost I care about orphanage and less privileged, since when I had an experience of my difficult to sleep and give rest, in the year 2010 November I was sent a letter of medical checkup, as my personal doctor testified that I have a lung cancer, which can easily take off my life soon.
We believe that both Matthew and Luke would take issue with the beginning of the statement above. Strunk and White would then come in to finish the job.
Actually, looking back, he started the previous paragraph with a bit of boasting as well. And now he has cancer. That’s how Karma works some days.
As far as worrying about the lung cancer taking his life off very soon is concerned, at 80 he’s already on borrowed time as it is.
We always find it somewhat amusing, in a dark sort of way, when we see an article about someone who has died, at say, the age of 102, and the reporter feels it necessary to state in the article that the cause of death was not immediately made known.
It is highly unlikely that they were shot in bed by a jealous teenaged lover.
Really, work it out people.
I found it uneasy to survive myself, because most of my investments cannot be run and managed by me anymore.
We think that most people would be, at best, confused to find out that they had survived themselves. We would expect that the confusion would probably be followed by relief, but maybe that’s just us.
It would make writing a will easier. “I hereby leave all my worldly possessions to me.” One could then have it laminated and carry it with one until it was needed again.
One should also add a note that one did not want to be an organ donor, just in case one was a bit slow in recovering.
On the other hand, we could see quite a bit of litigation by the corporate boards regarding the overturning of a death certificate.
“Yes, I know I was dead, but I got better.”
I quickly called up my fellow pastors/prophets to give me positive thinking on this solution, as my adviser, he ministered to me to share my properties, wealth, to motherless baby/orphanage homes/people that need money for survival, business women and men for their investments and future upkeep, so that they will have food on their tables.
We always were under the impression that one called up demons. We were not aware of any spells to call up pastor/prophets, what ever they are.
He seems to want to throw money at anyone and anything. there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of discretion being exercised here.
He does feed our earlier suspicions regarding the whole cloning issue as he clearly distinguishes between motherless babies and orphans.
Therefore I am writing this letter to people who really need help to contact me urgently, so that I can make available preparation on that.
We hadn’t been aware of an urgent need to contact you, but thanks for the effort none the less.
Especially women of the day, who are divorced by their husbands, why they cannot survive from feeding and need roof over their head and their growing children. Please contact me and stop weeping.
Why stop with women of the day, why not help ladies of the night, Christ did.
We only make reference, without malice, to Mary Magdalene.
(Please do not start badgering us with pro and or con religious arguments. We belong to the Latter Day Church of Seventh Day Edsel Hubcap Salesmen. We lead a quiet life in service to our Ford, and really do not have a dog in the whole Christian/non-Christian fight as it were.)
Probably let me know what you really need the money for, and if you can still help me to distribute money to people in need near you.
Probably? We would like to say that we would use it to help the poor, foster world peace, etc. But probably, we’d spend it on more hedonistic pursuits, probably.
May the Lord bless you, as you reach me, please to remind you, don’t belong to scammers or any act of fraudulent on Internet. I will give more information to you as I await your response immediately.
It is highly unlikely that we would ever belong to a scammer, or to an act of fraudulent or even the third act of Henry the Eighth, but thanks for the warning anyway.
Bless you,
Rev. Howard Day.
In fairness to our mystery author, as misused as his chosen words are, they were at least spelled correctly, which is a rare occurrence in and of itself. (As a side note, WordPress’ spell checker will suggest occurence as a correct spelling of occurrence should one misspell occurrence, go figure.)
In closing, let us just say that we are certain that this is Fraud.
Should you hear from Rev. Day, do not be tempted by his cleverly crafted words.
Delete his email and get on with your life. There’s nothing here for you.
That is all.
How to spot a Fraud 