From my inbox:
Greetings to you
SCAMMED VICTIM/ $500,000 BENEFICIARIES.
REF/PAYMENTS CODE: ECB/06654 $500,000 USD.On behalf of the Obama's Foundation and UNITED NATIONS, we wish to notify you as a beneficiary of $500,000 USD in compensation of scam victims.This is to bring to your notice that we are delegated from the Obama's Foundation and UNITED NATIONS in Central Bank to pay 150 victims of scam $500,000 USD (Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) each. You are listed and approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this amount.
According to the number of applicants at hand, 114 Beneficiaries has been paid, over a half of the victims are from the United States, we still have a pending of 36 compensations left to be paid. Your particulars was mentioned by one of the Syndicates who was arrested as one of their victims of the operations, you are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to him for any reason what so ever as the U.S. secret service is already on trace of the other criminals. So keep it secret till they are all apprehended. Other victims who have not been contacted can submit their application as well for scrutiny and possible consideration.
Do contact HSBC INTERNATIONAL BANK, United Kingdom Branch for verification and release of your $500,000 USD that we have deposited with the HSBC BANK,UK.The account log on will be presented to you by the bank in order to access the funds before releasing into your nominated bank account. You will transfer the funds into your nominated account on-line as the HSBC BANK,UK will provide the necessary information to you. Please if you are willing to accept the funds, do contact the Managing Director of the HSBC BANK,UK with the following details:
You are to fill the appropriate form and submit to the bank.
[1] Full Names:
[2] Contact address
[3] Direct Telephone No:
|4| Occupation :Managing Director of the HSBC BANK,UK
Name: Mrs. Joy steven
Private Email:mrs.jscarton@discuz.orgYours Faithfully,
Dr.Caravan Marvis
Coordinator.
OBAMA'S FOUNDATION AND UNITED NATIONS© 2010
I don't know what to make of this. Is it a delightfully and unwittingly ironic twist on a well-known scam? Or is it a parody of one?
Either way, it made me giggle.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
That’s a Nigerian recovery scam. It plays out as a typical advance fee fraud. The scammers will demand money to “investigate” the earlier scam.
See
http://www.419scam.org/419-money-recovery-scams.htm
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/interpol-scam.shtml
Oh, I know. What I find amusing is that this is (apparently) aimed at people who have already fallen for this sort of scam. Talk about niche marketing.
If you want Nigerian scam humour, try this:
http://www.quatloos.com/brad-c/directory02.htm
He basically strings them along with increasingly absurd counter-proposals. A couple of times he even gets THEM to send HIM money.
Oops, this is the right page.
http://www.quatloos.com/brad-c/directory01.htm
I suspect that a bunch of unemployed ex-CUSO volunteers wrote this SCAM. Clever.
It’s not that much of a niche market (so to speak). Nigerian scams are a huge industry. There’s a lot of victims out there who are ripe to fall for a recovery scam.
Well then, maybe one of them will see this and decide that their luck has changed!
I’ve received about 30 of those in the last week. Spam filters come in handy.