Terry and the misaligned moniker.

We have been, from time to time, somewhat harsh on our little African pen-pals.

As such, we sometimes wonder if we are perhaps being overly cruel.

Fortunately for our conscience there are creatures out there like the very inappropriately named Terry Cool.

Terry’s message arrived this morning. Something inspired us to reply.

We were lucky enough to catch Terry at his computer, so the entire history of our relationship with Terry Cool, only took a few hours.

It went as follows.

Subject: This Message Is From The Western Union,
From: terry cool
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Date Sent: 8/8/2012 6:25:50 AM
ATTENTION,

This Message Is From The Western Union, To The Owner Of This E-mail, How
Are You Today, I Write To Inform You That We Have Already Sent You
USD5000.00 Dollars Through Western Union As We Have Been Given The Mandate To Transfer Your Full Compensation Payment Total Sum Of US $500 000.00,Via Western Union As Instructed By Our Government.

Terry demonstrates a unique typing style, in that he capitalizes every word and has a some distinctive ideas regarding the use of punctuation.

Please note that Terry Cool has stated above that he has already sent $5,000 to us via Western Union.

I Was Calling Your Telephone Number To Give You The Information Through
Phone But You Did Not Pick Up My Calls Through out That Yesterday Even This Morning. Now I Decided To Email You The MTCN And Sender’s Name So That You Will Pick Up ThisUSD5000.00 To Enable Us Send Another payment Today As You Know We Will Be Sending You Only USD 5000.00 Per Daily.

Terry Cool claims to have been calling us repeatedly on the phone.

He also seems to have overcome his fascination with commas.

Please Run To Western Union To Pick Up The USD5000.00 And Call Me Back To Send You Another Payment Today Manager Dr George Rick Telephone Number Tel# +229-99 88 3009  Email: ( westernunion_9087657732986548-2012@barid.com ) Call Or Email Me Once You Picked Up This USD5000.00.

Again, Terry Cool has strongly implied that the $5,000 is waiting for us at Western Union, not that we are about to run to western Union anytime soon.

Barid.com claims to be “The most functional web mail in the Arabic World”.

We have no opinion on that one way or the other, but it is more likely to be true than anything Terry Cool has offered thus far.

 Here Is The Western Union Information To Pick Up The Money:

MTCN # 1860977956
 Sender’s Name::::::Mr.Abuch
 Sender’s Last Name::::::Ekwegbli .,
Amount’s $5,000.00
Test Question:::::what colour
Test Answer::::::Green

So in continuing with the current theme, Terry Cool has sent us the MTCN information which should allow us to pick up the $5,000 were we to run to the nearest Western Union office.

We went to the Western Union site. They allow you to track money transfers if you have the MTCN, destination country and amount of the transfer.

They were unable (surprise, surprise) to locate the $5,000 that Terry Cool had sent to us.

I am Waiting For Your Call Once You Pick Up The Money.

We suspect that Terry Cool was hoping that we would have gone to the Western Union office, discovered that the transfer had gone awry and then called him so that he could advise us as detailed below.

MEANWHILE YOU ARE REQUIRE TO SEND US THE TRANSFERING FEE WHICH IS $195 USDFOR THE WHOLE TRANSFER CHARGES, THAT WE HAVE ALREADY REMITTED TO YOUR NAME, SO WITHOUT THE TRANSFER FEE YOU CAN NOT PICK THE MONEY FOR IT’S ON HOLD AND THE MTCN CANNOT BE RELEASED TO YOU UNTILL YOU SEND  THE TRANSFER FEE, THAT IS AN INSTRUNCTION FROM THE FEDERAL MINISTERY OF FINANCE (FMF).

Wire transfers are a funny thing, you send money and it gets there. That’s it. That’s all.

If you have the information necessary to retrieve it, it’s yours.

They are not subject to instrunctions from the Federal Ministery of Finance.

Please Email Me Your Direct Telephone Number Because
I Need To Be Calling You Once We Send Any Payment For These
Information’s.

Is seems that we remember Terry Cool claiming to have been calling us for the past day or so, so it stands to reason that he already has out phone number.

HERE IS THE INFORMATION THAT YOU WILL USE TO SEND THE TRANSFER CHARGE SO THAT YOUR FIRST PAYMENT WILL BE RELEASE TO YOU FOR ANOTHER TO BE SENT

RECEIVER NAME::::::::::::::::::::::::Philip Emeka Ajaegbu
 COUNTRY:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::REPUBLIC OF BENIN
 CITY ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::COTONUO
TEXT QUESTION :::::::::::::::TRANSFER CODE?
ANSWER ::::::::::::::::::::::::001
 MTCN::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 MTCN Number#, Sender’s Name:

It seems to us that the national industry of Benin seems to be money transferring.

Here is the e-mail address you can contact us AS SOON AS you made the payment of US$195.00: FOR THE TRANSFER OF YOUR FIRST PAYMENT

Director;Mr.Emma Osiga
Tel# +229-99 88 3009
E-mail ( westernunion_9087657732986548-2012@barid.com )

We are looking forward to hearing from you.
 Mr.Buchi Adam
Thank you.
Western Union Headquarter Benin.

Terry’s hovel must be getting crowded with Mr. Buchi Adam, Mr. Emma Osiga, Philip Emeka Ajaegbu, Mr Abuch Ekwegbli and George Rick all huddled around the computer with Terry Cool planning this great $195 heist.

As we said, we had a feeling about this one so we sent the following:

What is my name? What is my phone number?

Shortly thereafter came the reply:

are you not Ellis Tyd

Punctuation seems not to be Terry Cools’ strong suit.

We responded, including the Western Union tracking link:

Congratulations on being able to work my name out from the email response.

You said you were calling my phone.

Would you like to try telling me the phone number you were calling?

https://wumt.westernunion.com/WUCOMWEB/transferStatusAction.do?method=load&nextSecurePage=Y

I was not able to confirm the transfer MTCN 1860977956  using Western Union’s tracking page.

I wonder why that was?

Send it again, with a verifiable transfer number .

Terry Cool responded very quickly, if not coherently:

be were what dose that mean? why must you insult me are you out of your mind or what do you receive my e-mail or dose it mean that i sent this to wroug person

We suspect that Terry Cool’s initial email was cut and pasted from somewhere else. There’s something of a disparity between the typing styles.

We were not aware of having insulted him.

We very much dislike insulting people…..inadvertantly.

We returned the volley:

You said in your message that you were calling my phone. What number were you calling?

You also said that you sent $5000 via Western Union with the following information:

>> MTCN # 1860977956
>> Sender’s Name::::::Mr.Abuch
>> Sender’s Last Name::::::Ekwegbli .,
>> Amount’s $5,000.00
>> Test Question:::::what colour
>> Test Answer::::::Green

I went to the Western Union tracking page and they have no record of the transfer.

Send it again and send me the tracking number

Terry Cool may have been losing his cool as he deferred the response to Mr. Buchi Adam, although not for his command of English.

we sent your payment to you but it was on hold because of our transfer charge which i explain to you in my fest e-mail so i want you to know that with out the transfer charge your payment can not be available for you to pull it out so be clear right now.        as soon as we confirm the transfer charge  your first payment will be release to you immediately with out wasteing time.

once again are you not the owner of the number 732-575-9xxx

Mr.Buchi Adam

Thank you.

we rather enjoy wasting time, so we continued with:

No, but I can tell you that 732-575-9xxx is a cell phone in New Jersey.

Western Union doesn’t charge transfer charges on wired money transfers.

If you had a legitimate MTCN number, you’d  know that.

If you’re planning on making a living doing advance fee frauds, you need to polish up your act.

Crawl back under your rock and stay there.

How is the weather in Benin these days?

See, at least here the insulting is clearly above-board.

Alas, this was too much to allow the cool Terry Cool to maintain his cool.

This was his (edited, as we try to run a class joint) response.

f*&^ ur as and fall into river f*&^ u there and inslut your self

We are assuming that he meant insult, but who are we to know.

We returned fire and tried to offer some helpful advice:

You need to find another line of work. 

Being a con artist takes patience and tact, you have neither.

And Terry Cool is an awful name.

This came in response:

f*&^ ur a$$ and f*&^ any body around u then fall into river f*&^ u and u u

We can only imagine that somewhere in Western Africa that Terry Cool was stomping around his hovel probably doing a decent imitation of Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam rolled into one while sputtering “U! U! U!”.

We are sure that Terry Cool will try again, although we did forward his emails to several anti-spam addresses.

At any rate, should Terry Cool regain his cool and attempt to convince you to run to your nearest Western Union office, we would suggest, instead, that you avail yourself of the delete key on your keyboard.

This is a Fraud (and not a very good one at that).

That is all.