I received an interesting email the other day, that I almost deleted without reading. But, there was something about it that caught my attention. It wasn't the subject line, because all it said was, "RE: IFSD." It was the sender's name that got me...


The email was sent by someone named Simon Nicholas. The only Simon Nicholas that I have ever heard of is an artist. Hence my interest.

Well, this email was not sent by Simon Nicholas the artist, at least not the one known to me. This email was sent by a company who is supposedly offering employment, in the name of Simon Nicholas, General Manager of IFSD.
(read actual email here: http://www.ezines1.com/ifsd.txt )

What is IFSD an acronym for? Well, according to the web site, it stands for: International Financially Scheme Developers Inc.

Do you see what I saw, when I looked at this?

The very first thing that caught my eye was the actual name. For starters, the company name is not grammatically correct. Then there is the word, " scheme." Why would anyone use the word, "scheme" in the name of a company that is related to financial transactions? That not only sent up a red flag for me, but a blaring alarm went off as well.

Upon further reading, I was struck by the illiterate fashion in which the site copy had been written. It appeared as though the copy writer has no real grasp of the English language, at least as it should be written. There were more than just typos in the copy; the sentence structure was not much better than if an elementary school student had composed it.

The actual content does not reveal very much about the company, except that they are an international financial exchange broker.
"We offer our services in order to improve the procedure of international money transfers.

We’ve been working in the financial sphere for 5 years, and we have gained wide experience for this period of time. In the beginning of 2005 we have opened our representation in the Internet and this helped us to get more international contacts.

Our nation-wide network has of a lot of branch offices in different regions of America and Europe.

Our company expands permanently its activity, open new branch offices and announce new hot vacancies. We aspire to provide the best service: to make it convenient, favourable and reliable.

Working with us, you can be sure that you will receive what you need! We’ll provide you with the conditions really favourable for you.

We have serious fair-naimed business associates.

We maintain business relations with many large-scale financial companies including major brands such as Western Union, Money Gram, Pay Pal and E-Gold. "
Copied and pasted directly from the site.

If you read through the whole site, I am certain that you will find yourself shaking your head and rolling your eyes. Whoever wrote this stuff must be extremely egocentric to think that the average person could not see through this crap. Did this person even complete high school?

Here is what they offer:
Our company offers the whole spectrum of financial services. We organize the most favorable schemes of money ordera. Our services can be useful both for organizations and private persons. We offer different services for different client categories.

To private persons: Financial instruments for the work at the auctions and with foreign companies. We shall create all the optimal conditions to make it easier for you to receive transfer funds from private persons and companies.

To the companies: We create foolproof schemes for international bank money transferring, help to open international accounts, open branch offices of your company abroad.
If you have any questions, please contact us!
Well, I did have some questions to ask them. I sent them an email with my questions, but have not yet heard back from them. I wonder if my questions were too hard.