I get…snail farms. Somehow, the email below got past all my mail filters.
Hi nice one,
Nice day. I expected your reply especially notifying you have received the message. By now your mind might be going many directions concerning my mail asking is it not the same bad eggs of black race but his proposal is natural. Farming is natural business. Its profit is known at early stage of starting. What I am trying to prove is the first things you consider are snail eatable in Nigeria? Then how much is the cost of snail in the market today? Check populations of snail eaters. If it gives sense, then you verify personal national identity from government if the national identity is proved genuine. If the business is good profit why waiting. Just go a head and finance the business. Why I give you this advice so that you will work me.
Friend with me in field of tapping success from Nigeria in less than four years we will make billons of dollar. Nigeria is full of opportunity of inventing. I mean virgin opportunities. Even if this project erected the snail farm is going be recorded as the first farm that makes snail found in every part of the country and at a very cheap price, where every body affords snail soup, stew, etc.
I can make the money by scam and invest it in snail farm, but I assured you no snail will be harvested from the farm. You can only waste the money.I has read the holy bible from Genesis to revelation page after page. I understand only one thing God is law and to get God you must obey the law. I am highly gifted that’s why God open my eyes on untapped successes littering over all the corners of the country.
Ask your God if I can deliver or if a human disappointment is found in me. Because of me God must give you sign that I am an honest man I claim. I am 100% sure God must bear witness for me. For him God have never lie before. Do not be afraid God have visited you. Accept now because my offer is one chance only. I can not open your heart but God can open your heart so that you can see the future of my invitation.
I was tempted, but then he lost me the last few paragraphs. I’ve removed all the contact information, but if anyone else would like to try their hand at making billions by investing in Nigerian snail farms, let me know and I’ll pass it along.
That was clearly not sufficiently surreal. Let’s take it up a notch.
I often thought that “scam of the day” would be a nice recurring feature of a blog. Lately, I’m getting the “ATM card loaded with six point one million dollars” scam. I have no idea how it’s supposed to work.
It is interesting though — I have two e-mail addresses. One gets that kind of scam — huge dollars hidden in a metal box scams. The other address gets ad after ad for Ray Ban sunglasses and faux Viagra. Fascinating. Obviously, both make money because otherwise why bother? But they obviously don’t cross talk or share e-mail lists.
Snail farms huh?
I don’t see any fast profits in that one …
Clearly it got through your electronic mail filters because they sent you … snail mail.
Also, this seriously reads like it was google translated, just from the odd word choices and sentence formation.
I love the idea of a snail farm, as long as I can get a very, very patient border collie to help with the herding.
*chuckle*
Creepy god stuff there. It sounds like an escargot cult.
Today on WHEN THE INTERNET CAME TO SQUIDWARD’S HOUSE…
Hey, I’ll bear witness. That first part sounds pretty honest to me.
Nice one, Moggie. :)
So he forwarded this email to God, right? Maybe you should check your junk folder, PZ. Anything miraculous in there?
Saad: I had trouble at:
We are apparently 12 years old.
Thank you for making me laugh, Moggie !
That video was in your email???
I never get that kind of stuff:(
A very brief Google indicates snail farming actually is a thing in Nigeria. You learn something every day.
I don’t believe that this is a good investment. If the sender really had any experience, then they should know that crops are grown on farms, and animals (i.e. snails) are raised on RANCHES.
What’s a ranch? Is it some USAian thing? ;)
Not a crop to be seen. EIEIO!
That is not the chicken dance.
That video was perfectly cromulent until they started dancing behind giant band-aids.
Okay, now I’m hooked on Wang Rong.
xDDDDDD That videos is fucking amazing xDDDD
Ah, fuck, thanx PZ, that was a lot of fun.
I have my favorite e-mail tacked up behind my desk:
From: Bel Erlaup [fedtedlytripp@drafthouse.com]
To: Ben Fowlwa
Subject: Pliable and dissolvable tablets for serious guys
Our pills are just equal typical pills but they are specially developed to be supple and dissolvable under the lingua. The tablet is absorbed at the mouth and gets into the blood directly alternatively of rising through the tummytum. This results in a quicker more vigorous upshot which run up to 31 hours!
If you’re going to invest your riches* in raising snails for eating, send me the money. We grow plenty of them in our garden in San Francisco. I’m told these are non-native snails brought here specifically for escargot, so we’re well on our way. We could produce acres of the things and apparently the only serious predators is gardeners.
* I’m sure you’re rich as a Koch brother from teaching, speaking at conferences, and ad clicks from your blog. Right?
Are we talking five-clawed or fanged snails here? It matters. One stomps on you and swallows whole, whilst the other chews you up before swallowing. Both grow to similar sizes (several metres and a tonne or more) and can out-slither a stampeding yak, albeit neither is known for playing the sax. Fortunately, neither can climb stairs (rather like Daleks). The lasers on the eye-stalks are used instead (very much like Daleks).
Not sure what they grow on their farms, however. In fact, I didn’t actually know either snail farmed, in Nigeria or elsewhere.
robro @22 wrote:
[slight derail] YES, that was something that always confounded me while I lived in the Bay area: snails everywhere I looked, and they would leave mucus paths across the sidewalks from the street side to the lawn side. I never saw snails here in Mass. (though I know they exist). Walking the dog, she would sometimes follow the trails to point out the snail to me, and when it occasionally rained, they would pop up all in more quantity. Never even thought of escargot, if that’s true, then … … how much does escargot cost again? I didn’t recognize the gold wandering right in front of me! But seriously: are CA snails really an invasive species?
At least this one’s promising an actual business venture, not just moving a deposed president’s money.
Dunno about the billions of dollars claim, that seems a tad overinflated…
When I was working in Portugal you’d see people having snails. I forget what season, but people would go out and gather them from the fields, and a short while afterward you’d see bags of them hanging from store eaves. They served them in butter, with tiny forks to get them out of the shells; I never tried one. I imagine they mostly taste like butter.
The best “Chick flick” ever.
Now I want to form a band named Directly Alternatively and name our first album “Rising Through The Tummytum.”
@inflection #25:
They both feel and taste like a famous product of Mr Dunlop’s company. Garlic and butter is wasted on them.
I figure the first people to eat snails were acting on an adolescent dare.
Somehow it spread.
Until I got to the third paragraph I was thinking “Well, this could be a legitimate attempt to start a business: Snails might be a less expensive protein source than meat, making the venture of farming them a potentially viable one, and the language oddities could simply be due to a non-native speaker who doesn’t know English all that well. I’m sure I sound equally strange in German.” But then the letter went off into the “god wants us to” territory and I stopped trying to give it the benefit of the lingustic and/or cultural doubt.
I am, however, now inspired to start an online course “English as a foreign language for internet scammers”. Just send me $99.99 and I’ll teach you how to write an email that sounds like a perfectly normal English language business email in just 6 lessons. Trust me on this: you’ll sound totally legit by the end of the class…
cervantes, #21
So priapism. They promise priapism.
That video: so Wang Rong Rollin is basically a Chinese Kyary Pamyu Pamyu?
Religion seems common in Nigerian spam, albeit not to the same degree as this one. I don’t know whether that’s because Nigeria is a highly religious society, or because it’s an affinity scam aimed at Christians.
from what I have been told the brown snail in California is the result of someone’s great idea just like this wonderful business opportunity but there was a problem. They brought the wrong but related snail and there was no market or one did not develop for them. Though there is a very good market for a large sea snail from the west coast that has been severally over fished called Abalone that when properly prepared is wonderful.
There are a few things that eat those snails out here including the none native black rat and of course the racoon, possibly possums and skunks also.
I have raised them to feed red eared turtles who like them a lot.
uncle frogy
twas brillig (stevem) @ 24 — It’s my understanding that the big ones you saw (there are surely small native snails) were introduced in the 1850s by a Frenchman who raised them to sell (here). The details of the story may be apocryphal, but they are considered invasive by local gardeners.
I’ve seen those trails, too. It’s rather impressive to see how far the “slow moving” snail can go in a night. Some of those trails you saw were probably banana slugs, which are native.
Them snails is gettin’ restless. Reckon the thrushes has ’em spooked.
And banana slugs, while technically edible in the sense that they’re not actually poisonous, make your tongue go numb and taste awful, so only people who want to show off what hardcore survivalist types they are actually do it. The list of things that do eat slugs and snails also includes ducks, which many gardeners recommend as a pest control measure where feasible. The Muscovy duck is particularly prized for this purpose, as they don’t quack and thus annoy the neighbors less.
Al Dente:
Better hope they don’t stampede!
I’m trying to picture a snail stampede. It’s not working.
weatherwax
Take your time…
dianne (30):
You didn’t call dibs on that, did you? Because if you didn’t, I’m going to teach them to speak English as well as Mabus.
Amazing video. It’s like the Achy Breaky Chicken Dance, sung Gangnam Style.
And now for something much less bizarre: Chicken Train
by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
Actually, raising snails as foodstuff is a difficult job, so difficult that France now import its snails from Eastern Europe (where the breeders are less paid) rather than produce them locally: if you come to Paris and eat some Escargot chances are that the snails will be Magyar, not Burgundian.
So, as silly as it seems, whoever imagined this con did his homework and invented a story that’s actually credible.
Watching the video, I get the feeling even if I understood the language, I’d still be confused.
dianne, JamesY2, the textbook’s already been written. (I know one of the authors, who generally responds to this sort of spam with a pitch to buy the book.)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1938757114/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=
weatherwax
Imagine a Seattle traffic jam.
On Game Day.
The snails will be moving slightly faster…
The only thing I got from that video (besides a touch of vertigo) is that Wang Rong Rollin is inordinately fond of Gucci.
DnDueed
Are they saying Gucci Gucci? I thought it was Poochie Poochie.
Wait…this was sent to PZ “Poopyhead” Myers? Someone was mistaken, bc PZ isn’t a nice one. Why, the things he makes his minions do…they’re unspeakably horrible (I’d tell you what these things are, but y’know ‘unspeakable’).
chigau @12:
One day, when your star shines brighter than the brightest of brights (i.e. brighter than Dawkins) or if you make it to Level 10 on the Global Atheist Thinky Leader Scale, you’ll get wacky emails just like this.
weatherwax @38:
Does this help?
No?
Howzabout this?
“Stampede” contains teh word “stamp” which has a generally footsie style percussive theme about it. Snails can hardly stampede on one sticky foot, but they might slympede though.
Tony, those help, but I’m trying to picture a herd of thousands of heads of snails, thundering along, trampling all in their path, with everyone running to get out of the way. Er, walking. Er, mosying.
“Dusty, how long do you reckon it’ll take to get these snails to the railroad at Dodge City?” “Oh, should pull in about 1996 or so, Lefty.”
So I finally watched the video…now my brain is rebelling.
What the hell was that?