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The Catholic Church (Italy) is giving out donations!

Submitted by robot_terror on Fri, 08/31/2007 - 17:45.

After centuries of receiving donation upon donation the Catholic Church (Italy) recently announced it will begin sending and not merely receiving donations! This glorious news was revealed to a lucky few (perhaps more than a few, though) via e-mail (that's the Catholic Church for you -- always embracing the newest trends, being early adopters of technological advances) which I include, in full (click the toggle to see the headers, minus my email info) for your amazement:


Rcpt
The Catholic Church Italy (http://www.chiesacattolica.it/), would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development. The Church is one of the biggest church built for God in Italy. In the year 1901, they started offering collection for the sole aim of human growth, educational and Community development. In conjunction with the ECOWAS, UNO, and the EU, We are giving out a yearly donation of US$650,000.00 each to 100 lucky recipients each year. These specific
Donations/Grants will be awarded to 100 lucky international recipients worldwide; in different categories for their personal business development.

The objective is to make a notable change in the standard of living of people all around the Universe (From America to Europe, Asia to Africa and all around). Kindly note that you will only be chosen to receive the donation once, which means that subsequent yearly donation will not get to you. Take time and thought in spending the donation wisely on something that will last you a long time.

Based on the random selection exercise of internet websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide, you were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of US$650,000.00 as charity donations/aid from the Catholic church Italy, ECOWAS, EU and the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament. (Note that all beneficiaries email addresses were selected randomly from over 100,000 Internet websites or a shop's cash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased something from). You are required to contact the Church Executive Secretary below, for qualification documentation and processing of your claims. After contacting the secretary, you will be given your donation pin number, which you will use in collecting the funds. Please endeavour to quote your Qualification numbers +(N-2 2 2-6 6 4 7, E-9 1 0-5 6) in all discussions.

Exec Sec.Rev sister Abrielle Gallo
Email: chiesacattolicaitl@yahoo.it

Please note that the EU, ECOWAS, UNO, strictly administers these donations/Grants. You are by all means hereby advised to keep this whole information confidential until you have been able to collect your donation.

On behalf of God, The Church, ECOWAS, UNO and the EU, accept our warmest congratulations.

May God Bless you with this donation.
M. Paccino

Ok... this is by far the most interesting "Nigerian 419" (advance fee) scam I've ever received.

Some things that stand out:

  • The audacity to claim to represent the Catholic Church
  • The idiocy to mis-name the Catholic Church -- yes, it's in Italy, but it's Roman, dammit!
  • The lunacy that the Catholic Church (of any kind) would donate its windfall ... to anyone...
  • That the Sister in charge of the program uses a Yahoo!Italy e-mail address. When did God start preferring Yahoo! over Google?
  • The Catholic Church is making donations for business development. Oh, my! What a change of affairs for the Old Time Religion!
  • The Catholic Church is in league with the EU? Is the Harlot riding the Beast already?
  • The Catholic Church is coordinating with the UN? Perhaps Vatican City is vying for a seat at the Security Council?
  • The Catholic Church Italy is coordinating with ... er ... ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States -- yeah, I had to look it up, not being a Nigerian, unlike the sender... oops.)?
  • The Catholic Church is data mining millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide! Holy Father in Rome! How did they score these receipts? Did Mormon-founded Albertsons work out a deal with the Catholic Church for receipts?

Oy, vey! Inshallah! OMG! $FAITH_BASED_INVECTIVE!, indeed. The Catholic Church Italy in league with the EU, UN and some West African group to give money out based on grocery receipts. Ugh.

And yet... in a few months there will be a story of some poor victim of this scam that will try to make us feel sorry for the greedy idiots who fall prey to this drivel.

"On behalf of God, The Church, ECOWAS, UNO and the EU, accept our warmest congratulations."

Yeah, yeah... as if that group of entities (and deity) would ever be seen in the same room together!

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Follow-up: ~6 months later

Submitted by robot_terror on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 00:52.

This article is still one of my most popular articles ever written, according to the number of hits I receive. It is amazing to me that this SCAM-EMAIL still receives interest from the public at large. Even more amazing are the inquiries I receive from people like the following received today (email address and name partially redacted):

From: susan[...]@yahoo.com
To: robot terror
Subject: Catholic Church giving out donations

Received this Catholic church giving out donations. Checked www.snopes.com
and www.truthorfiction.com. There was no mention of this one.
Is your website saying this is not true?

Thanks,
Susan [...]

Yes, Susan and so many others asking the same thing, this email solicitation claiming that the Catholic Church is giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to people after scouring grocery receipts for people's contact information is FALSE and a SCAM.

I am happy you have learned to research these too-good-to-be-true stories. While I cannot speak for Snopes or TruthOrFiction, the fact that this particular scam is not listed on their sites could possibly be related to the utter ridiculousness of the idea that an entity claiming to be a joint task-force of Catholic, European Union and West African governments would hand out large amounts of US Currency to strangers via email based on grocery receipts. Perhaps they figured it would not be necessary to expose this scam.

I am here to tell them, if my assumption is correct, that they are WRONG. Exposing even this third-rate Nigerian 419 scam is necessary. I have no idea why it is. But, it is necessary.

Yours, truly,

Robot Terror

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The E-mail of a winfall

Submitted by anony-bot on Sun, 09/30/2007 - 19:59.

I see this e-mail from this person normally i just delete but was curious,and when i looked i also seen a 1,000 RED FLAGS !!! so what did i do, i googled the sister and found your blog... Thanks for the giggles.

Over the years, I have seen many like this shakes head and says when will they ever learn they are not as smart as they think they are.

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how??

Submitted by anony-bot on Tue, 01/15/2008 - 15:45.

how do they get my e-mail address??

and i replied to the first e-mail, they send another one that says...

----Kindly provide all required information. ----FULL NAMES…………………………………………………………………… ----FULL CONTACT ADDRESS……………………………………………… ----TEL/FAX………………………………………………………………………… ----AGE/DATE OF BIRTH……………………………………………………… ----SEX…………………………………………………………………………………. ----OCCUPATION………………………………………………………………… ----RELIGION............................................. ----DECLARATION (Please read AND fill in your name in the space) I .................. HEREBY DECLARE THAT, ALL ABOVE INFORMATION PRODUCED BY ME ARE TRUE, AND I SHALL CASH THE CHEQUE LEGALLY IN MY LOCAL BANK WITH MY IDENTITY AS PRODUCED IN THIS FORM. FURTHERMORE, I WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY COST OF TAXES THAT MIGHT ARISE DUE TO MY RECEIVING THE SAID AMOUNT, BEARING THE FACT THAT THE TAXES ARE LEGAL AND WITH LEGITIMATE REASONS. ----IN A BRIEF EXPLANATION, HOW DO YOU INTEND TO USE YOU DONATION FUNDS IN IMPROVING YOUR STANDARD OF LIVING.

doesnt look like they can take your money or anything...until you read this bit "I WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY COST OF TAXES THAT MIGHT ARISE" lmao!!

sad people =)

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