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The Kitchen Table

Ben Vernake sent me an e-mail!

15 years ago

He's sending me millions! I just don't understand why he's in Nigeria. I usually just delete these e-mails but decided to have a little fun. I sent them a return e-mail with information from Ben E. Eficiary, even gave them my bank PIN #, which is 666.

Now they know my e-mail is real, but who cares. I get so much junk mail now I don't think it's going to matter.

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Comments (10)

suzieque
15 years ago
Isn't it funny how there's so much money in Nigeria that they offer to send it to us so often???

I don't know if Ben Vernake is a real person or not, but I'm not sure I'd have replied to their email. That just identifies you as a valid address and someone who might bite (not sure they'd get it that you were being a wise guy). Did you at least mark the address as spam so you won't get another from them?
socks
15 years ago
Kath, wasn't that fun? Just hope you don't pay a price later. "Ben" might pass around your email as a "live" one. I'm sure he's in Nigeria trying to collect money to help the U.S. bail out. Love your PIN number!
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I sent a reply, but got an auto-response about spam. First thing to try, as you plan, is to kill / reset the power, see if the dead drawer recovers. I'd recommend disconnect about 30 seconds to a minute. The two drawers are fed power via a chassis "mains" board located on the floor of the cabinet (it also has the flood sensor and sends power to the four lid motors). The mains board has connectors for wiring harnesses coming from the controllers on the two drawers. I suppose it's possible the mains board could fail in a way that only one drawer goes dead ... otherwise one dead drawer indicates a bad controller board on that drawer. The usual recommendation for troubleshooting is swap the controller boards between the two drawers to see if the "deadness" follows the boards. I don't recall running across mention of it ... but I just now had an idea that swapping the upper / lower controller connector positions on the mains board (assuming the connector plugs are identical) might be a way to check if the mains board is the fault. If it is in your case, the lower drawer would go dead and the upper would work. I suppose if the upper/lower condition didn't change, then that would indicate the respective drawer board is the problem. Swapping the drawer boards requires removing the front panels and, of course, physically removing and moving the boards. Access to the mains board is by pulling out the lower drawer. If you feel up to trying either procedure, I can give you some instruction and also send a service manual (although I don't suppose you'd be able to receive it past the spam blocking).
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I don't believe you can leave random feedback on a seller (or buyer), you have to have purchased (or sold) something. Now I suppose I could sell stuff to my friends or create fictitious accounts and write the feedback myself. Of course, you'd be paying eBay a fee for everyone one of those transactions and I have to believe that their security folks might watch for that kind of stuff. I haven't bought or sold much on eBay but what I have has been a positive experience. A few years back I was doing some Internet work for a used car dealer. A customer had mentioned that they had seen the vehicle on eBay. News to us since we didn't use eBay at the time but sure enough someone had "borrowed" the pictures and description of the vehicle from the dealership's website and actually SOLD the vehicle on eBay. I frantically tried to find a customer service phone number for eBay so that they could contact the buyer before he sent any money. Unfortunately, eBay doesn't seem to have a phone number. I sent off an email and then tried to inquire what had happened but eBay would only tell me that the matter was under investigation. The interesting part is that the vehicle was reasonably worth about $16,000 but it had sold on eBay for $9,000. When something seems to good to be true...
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Comments (5)
You can have your email enabled in your My Page page, so that people can click on your name, and then will be able to email you directly. You must do the following four things; if you didn't do even one of the 4, your email won't show up in your My Page page: At the bottom of the Kitchens Forum page, click where it says "Member Services". Then click where it says "Edit your Personal Information, Page and Preferences". Then, log in, and do the following: 1) Type in your email address in both boxes. 2) Near the bottom of that same page, there is a pull-down menu for "Show my email address to", that gives you the option of "None" or "Members" or "All". Click on "Members", and make sure "Members" stays in that view box. 3) Where it says "allow other users to send you email via forms at our site", click on that box (a check appears). AND 4) Click on the box that says "Save your Member Profile". Again, if you omitted any ONE of the above steps, your email option will not appear on your page.
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jannie
15 years ago
All I can say is, Emails like this are the reason I have a delete button.
jannie
15 years ago
I once got an Email from a widow in Nigeria willing to share $750 million her late husband had left her with me. I wrote back and asked her, just advance me a little money so can buy a ticket to fly to Nigeria. She didn't answer. You can't fool me !
liz
15 years ago
Kathy...you and I must be having the same type of day...
petaloid
15 years ago
You're funny.
sephia
15 years ago
You definitely received SPAM, and the spammer can't spell. It's Ben Bernanke, and he's the Federal Reserve Chairman
joyfulguy
15 years ago
Vernake, huh?

The one that rhymes with "snake"?

Oh, no - that's the ones that were in the part of the big banks that assembled those stinky mortgages to pawn off on various unsuspecting investment agencies and people.

Should have been forced to return their bonuses, at least, maybe 3/4 or their salary ... or no bail-out.

As for that kind of mail ... I've had scores of similar type. Including from some widows claiming to be on their deathbeds with lousy in-laws who want to waylay their inheritance ...

... that they want to send me, to promise that I'll give most of it to charities, widows, orphans, etc.
I haven't yet replied to suggest that they just give the money to a reputable charitable agency in their own land.

One artist guy the other day wanted me to collect money from his customers here, as it was difficult to have them send it to him, then forward it to him.

I wrote to offer the sugestion that he open a Canadian bank account and just have his cutomers transfer the money, then they can send it to him.

He wrote right back, saying that he couldn't open a Canadian bank account ... and could I collect for him?

I think that I'll write him to suggest that I want no part of money laundering.

I did get an email the other day from a guy with a pipeline to the Ghadaffi system in Libya, asking that I receive some money from them, that I can use for five years or something like that, then return it.

I've been thinking of writing to the Syrian embassy in Ottawa, asking the recipient if they aren't proud to be associated with the government of Syria, at this juncture?

Our government just declared their Embassy closed, froze their bank accounts and gave their staff five days to get out of the country.

After which one of their members asked to be accepted as a refugee.

ole joyful
suzieque
15 years ago
OH!!!!!! It was supposed to be Ben Bernanke? I didn't get that! Yes, I read it as Vernake rhymes with snake. haha...

So supposedly Ben Bernanke wrote to you, and they can't even spell his name right. That is too funny.
samkaren
15 years ago
I get those all the time. I replied to one saying that I appreciate the thought but if I accepted I would have to pay taxes on them. I then said please just forward the money to the Illinois government to bring out debt down.

Never heard back either

Samkaren
your resident DJ

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