UNBELIEVABLE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I am a regular recipient on my e-mail address of fantastic business opportunities that will net me millions of dollars without much effort on my part. I receive at least two of these messages every week. They are always signed by an important political or banking official of some central African country – Nigeria, Togo, Ghana and Congo are the favorite return addresses of these fantastic offers. The messages are always the same, though the wording differs in each letter. The letter informs me that I have been chosen for this gift of instant riches because of my reputation as an honest, clever and sterling person. So far, so good. The writer then informs me that he has discovered a dormant bank account in his country with six, eight, twelve, even twenty million dollars in it (the amount always varies but it is always very substantial) and that somehow he has legally obtained control over that account. However, he cannot withdraw the money from that local bank because he is either a civil servant, an employee of the bank, or a high-ranking politician who would be compromised by the withdrawal. Therefore, he needs a foreign bank account to which he will have the money transferred. Since, I am the lucky holder of a foreign bank account, he is willing – nay, eager – to give me thirty to forty percent of the monies in the account if I will only sign certain documents and provide him with all of the necessary information regarding my bank account. I am assured that all of these shenanigans are perfectly legal and there is absolutely no exposure or risk on my part whatsoever. Because of my spotless reputation for honesty and probity, he trusts me that I will deliver to him somehow the sixty to seventy percent of the millions of dollars he is depositing in my account.

                        Now, it is obvious to me that someone wants to loot my bank account. Well, buddy, there is not much in there to loot! Nevertheless, I admire the brazenness of the attempt. Whenever, I see this type of message appear on my computer screen, I immediately press the “delete” button on my keyboard. I think that the “delete” button is one of the major contributions to civilized living that the computer has occasioned. I would like to have it work in other situations in life, sans the computer. But, I digress. I wonder if anyone ever answers these types of letters. P.T. Barnum said that “a sucker is born every minute.” He should have known that from his own business experiences, so he was probably correct. So, if that is the case, I am certain that there are some greedy, gullible people who do respond to such get-rich-quick offers. They do not reckon with the odds of how many dormant bank accounts with millions of dollars in them can truly exist in Mali or Togo. Greed blinds people and forces them to do stupid and many times illegal things. It is this knowledge of the power of greed that allows the con men operating these schemes to keep on trying. I estimate that hundreds, if not thousands, of these quick-buck letters are sent out every month. Only a few responses will make the scheme profitable to the operators of it.

                        Anyway, I am not really interested in having that kind of money floating around in my bank account anymore. I am pretty much satisfied with the way things are now, what with my enormous income from the Wein Press and from my teaching at the local Jerusalem yeshiva .So, I have convinced myself that even if this fantastic scheme was somehow true, legal and legitimate, I still would not respond to the offer. But, then, I really don’t completely trust myself on that score. So, if any of you have a real, legitimate, surefire way that I can make millions of dollars without too much exertion, please keep it to yourself. I hate temptation.