Go big or go home

Johannesburg, 01 Aug 2006

I am a winner - I have an e-mail that says as much. Admittedly, it was written in bad English, and did purport to be from Yahoo, which is a bit suspicious.

But I`m willing to overlook silly mistakes such as these, especially as I am now lb500 000 richer. Not bad considering the jackpot was only lb950 650, and was split between six people.

At an exchange rate of R12.87, this is a decent payout of R6.4 million. Enough to pay off the house, buy that yacht, and whatever else takes my fancy.

But, wait, there`s more. This is the second lottery I have won this month. The first was lb2.5 million, which I won earlier. So far, my running total is just shy of R40 million.

And, if I lend my assistance to displaced Liberians, and others on the continent, who would love to invest in SA but cannot until they get their stolen loot out, then I would be even wealthier.

Frankline Benjamin (his spelling) must be pretty desperate. He`s asked me twice to help him move $5.8 million out of Liberia, in return for which I will get 30%, which is just shy of $2 million, or about R13 million. (When you get to figures this size, you don`t worry about all the little numbers after the decimal place.)

At an exchange rate of R12.87, this is a decent payout of R6.4 million. Enough to pay off the house, buy that yacht, and whatever else takes my fancy.
Nicola Mawson

My favourite bit in Benjamin`s mail is the fact that this is pretty special money as it comes with instructions: "Rebels attacked our camp, so I ran away with the box of money including the instruction manual for the money."

Samuel Digo sent me the exact same e-mail, down to the numbers, except that he escaped the Congo. So, that`s another R13 million.

Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to take all these kind folk up on their collective offer of R66 million. Not because I don`t want to as the philanthropist in me is moved to tears when I read these tales of sadness.

You see, I can`t. I am now unable to open up a bank account in my own name as Home Affairs unilaterally, without my consent and despite my request that it not do so, changed my name. So, I`m still Nicola Someone Else.

Message received

While e-mails such as these are good for a laugh, unsolicited SMSes are not. Especially ones that come through during the wee hours of the morning, disturbing my slumber.

And I`m not quite sure how to get the message across that I do not want a personal loan, don`t care about your product launch and certainly do not want to go to an exclusive something or other.

I`m also not too sure where they get their information from, because, while I am apparently no longer Nicola Mawson, I definitely was never, ever Mr Mawson.

After about the fifth such spam in a day, I complained out loud about the waste of time, and the irritation. A colleague said there was a toll-free number that I could forward these to, and I should just call my service provider.

I call Vodacom and - after waiting a bit - I opt for the "call-me-back" service. When they do, I was fully expecting that they - having my number - would have pulled up my details.

So, I was rather surprised when, halfway through the conversation, the guy on the other end called me sir. "Do I sound like a man?" The answer: "No, you sound like a young boy."

I`m not often speechless, but this rendered me silent. I hung up....

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