Frohlich and a Nigerian prince both contacted Hans today, and Hans – being such a nice guy – is helping them both out. In case you’re not in Frohlich’s hotmail address book, here is the message that went out earlier this afternoon that fooled Hans.
From Frohlich’s hotmail account.
Subject: MY PLIGHT!!!!
How are you doing? Honestly, I’m doing pretty awful! I’m with family on vacation in London,England and a lot of crap has been spewing. We got mugged last night in an alley by a gang of thugs on our way back from shopping, one of them had a knife poking my neck for almost two minutes and everything we had on us including my cell phone, credit cards were all stolen,quite honestly it was beyond a dreadful experience for us but looking on the bright side we weren’t seriously hurt or injured and we are still alive so that is whats important. I’ve reported to the cops here and canceled all our cards,it appeared I had acted quickly enough or they almost would have succeeded in cleaning out my bank account. I’m really having some difficulties clearing our hotel bills and also need to pick up a voucher ticket at the counter for us to catch a flight back home in a couple of hours.
I was wondering if you could please loan me some money pending when we get things straighten out and I promise to refund as soon as we arrive home safely. All we need to get back is $2,000Write me back and let me know how soon you can get it to us asap.
In case you didn’t catch the 50 ways this is obviously a scam, don’t feel bad. Neither did Hans. Hans immediately spammed all his other college buddies in a panic to help Frohlich. Hilarity ensued over email, as at first Shane then Paul admitted to wiring Frohich money just in case the email was real.
Does Frohlish even have kids? Has he ever left DC, let alone been to London? Has Frohlich ever written anything not laced with spelling errors? How do you pay for a hotel and flight home from London for a “family” for only $2,000? What was he doing with his family in a dark alley at night?!
Nevertheless, maybe we can all learn something from this. What if this really happened to one of us? The next time any of us gets mugged in a foreign country and needs help for real, lets settle on some standard language to use so we all know its not a scam. First, lets agree to dispense with the pleasantries. If you’ve just been robbed at knife point, I for one, would not expect to be asked “how im doing?” in the first line of the email. Lets agree to cut to the chase in these cases and say something like, “Dude! I got jumped in an alley again! Send $$” Everyone agree?
Shades
We need to have a code phrase to include in the email so that everyone knows it’s legit. Something only a quince would say. For example, “Dude, I just got mugged. Send money. Also, in my mind Brandon Tate it the next Randy Moss…”
Another coded phrase could be “Deucegate.” A foreign scammer probably wouldn’t be familiar with that scam.