Boris Johnson of the Yard with fictional crimefighter Sherlock Holmes

Ever since Dick Van Dyke attempted a cockney accent in Disney’s 1964 movie Mary Poppins, the ability to impersonate a Londoner has been subject to serious critical analysis.

Van Dyke’s cheery Bert  is according to Wikipedia “still often cited as one of the worst attempts at a British accent by an American actor”.

After 45+ years of criticism, you’d think that anyone portraying themselves as a London policeman would have done some decent research, especially when they claim to be from London’s Scotland Yard.

As the Smithsonian Magazine states “The name Scotland Yard invokes the image of a foggy London street being patrolled by a detective in a trench coat puffing smoke from his pipe”.

But what if you receive an email claiming to be from the Yard’s cyber crime division?

And that email comes from a certain Boris Johnson offering to compensate you for a scam you’ve suffered with your payout being a cool “Ten Million, Twenty five thousand United States Dollars that will be paid to you in the next few days” ?

Analysing a scam email

We were forwarded this curious email from the South Island and I felt obliged to publish the contents on the NetSafe blog partly to publicise the scam and partly to laugh at the epic fail perpetrated by the scammers.

I’ll list the points that should set your alarm bells ringing below and put the full text at the end of this post:

1. Scotland Yard (both Great and New variants) has been the HQ of London’s police force since 1829. When they registered an internet domain to send emails from I can’t think scotlandyard.com was the obvious pick for a non-commercial operation – it’s actually an unconnected Florida real estate firm.
2. Does the police Commissioner address all his emails to ‘Dearest’?
3. I’m not sure London’s Scotland Yard has jurisdiction in Africa, but it has been operating a tad longer than 2002.
4. “The Leaders of the UK Crime fighters … have recovered $422 Million Dollars” – I’m reaching for my pinky finger to do a Dr Evil impression what with all that capitalisation. And how come the land of the pound is now working in American currency?
5. “your name was given to us by one of the fraudsters in our detention room after serious investigation” – so the good cop, bad cop routine worked well then, I just hope you didn’t resort to police brutality to get my name.
6. “In addition to the compensation amount also approved in your favor is also Ten Million United States Dollars (US$10,000,000.00)” – that’s some serious generosity at a time of global economic turmoil, I would have been happy with another 25 grand to be honest.
7. All you need is my name, mailing address and phone number to process this compensation? Err, OK
8. “Regards, Boris Johnson, London’s Scotland Yard E-mail: @cooltoad.com” – Boris – him with the wild hair in the photo at the start of this saga – is in fact the Mayor of London and nothing to do with the Metropolitan Police. And why is he now quoting an email address for a domain served (by strange coincidence) out of London, Canada?

That’s just a few pointers from the email that get me laughing and also want to ensure people steer well clear of the rogue ‘Boris Johnson of the Yard’.

If you receive scam emails like this delete them and avoid thinking just how you’ll spend that cool ten million dollars.

For more tips on how to beat the scammers create your own custom educational scam news video at www.scammachine.org.nz.

Full text of the scam email:

Dearest,

Firstly we introduce this commission, London’s Scotland Yard, we fight cyber crime, Internet fraud, scam and money laundering in Africa and London United Kingdom Our commission has been in existences since 2002 and our duty is to stop internet fraud. We have over 7,500 of them in our jails around UK and we are still looking for these internet fraudsters and we are aware that a lot of foreigners have been deceived and huge amount of money has also been lost to this fraudsters after promising you percentages in their letters for you to help them move funds and they will end up demanding for money from you and in return you will get nothing.

The Leaders of the UK Crime fighters, London’s Scotland Yard has come together to inform the world what is going on now and we have recovered over $422 Million Dollars (Four Hundred and Twenty two Million Dollars) from the people we have apprehended. The reason we are writing you this letter is because your name was given to us by one of the fraudsters in our detention room after serious investigation and our aim is to refund all lost fund to its legitimate owner.

The Government has approved a total of Twenty five Thousand United states Dollars (US$25,000.00) only as the compensation of the lost that you incurred as this was a ceiling rate as some suffered more while others suffered less to and the idea is to restore you back to the position that you would have been if not that you are defrauded.

In addition to the compensation amount also approved in your favor is also Ten Million United States Dollars (US$10,000,000.00) only making it a total of Ten Million, Twenty five thousand United States Dollars that will be paid to you in the next few days.

Your Name
Your Mailing address (Not P.o Box Please)
Your Direct Mobile Line

Regards
Boris Johnson
London’s Scotland Yard
E-mail: @cooltoad.com

Picture credits -Wikipedia | gregwake | cackhanded