Letter from Rodrigo de Rato

Rodrigo de Rato has just written to me. He works for the International Monetary Fund, as Managing Director, no less, of a section charged with pressuring banks to pay out monies owed to beneficiaries of wills, winners of lotteries, and creditors under contracts.

Like all such well-established officials, he has an e-mail address where I can contact him at any time -- it is with live.com, as one would expect. No hotmail or gmail here! i am so glad that the MD has such a personal interest in me as to write directly; though he would have instilled even greater confidence in me had he used my real name, and not addressed me as undisclosed-recipients.

The more paranoid among us who stand to receive vast sums might be tempted to question the occasional infelicitous sentence or strange capitalisation of a word, but there is no need. No less a personage than Mr Ban Ki-Moon (UN Secretary General) is involved, and my $12,500,000 will be wired to me, or delivered in a wheelbarrow, from the most trustworthy JP Morgan Chase bank.

I wonder how many of us undisclosed-recipients there are who are all owed precisely $12,500,000? Very interesting...

But, lest I still hold some concerns, his letter assures me, "Note that the above fund has been cleared from terrorist or fraud related activities." I am already breathing more easily.

Of course, sums of money this large can't be just transferred willy-nilly around the world. I have to provide "...full name, direct telephone numbers, contact address, Occupation and age for reconciliation with information forwarded to the bank by this office." And I will have to pay a $US550 insurance charge as well. No doubt those who pay up will find there are delays, and additional charges... and a couple of burly Nigerians at the door if they make a fuss.

Sadly, these rats catch too many people, and the simple underlying reason is greed. People think, "Here is an offer of undreamt of wealth! I may have no right to it, but these people will give it to me, so who am I to argue?"

In their haste to make off with the loot, people fail to notice the gigantic warning signs all over these scams. Then they get their fingers burnt, and some TV current affairs program plays violins while telling the story of the battlers being robbed. But who mentions that it is a case of amateur thieves being done by professionals -- and not particularly clever ones, at that?

The mediaeval Catholics listed greed as one of the seven deadly sins; like all sins, it certainly turns around and bites us when we yield to it.

I hope Mr de Rato slips into his own trap one day and gets squeezed until he realises that he needs to rethink his life's goals.

Meanwhile, feel free to delete his e-mail if he writes to you.