The scammer wanted £1,500. Instead, he ended up writing an email about gummy bears, chocolate eggs, and giant candy lizards. Somehow, this ridiculous message was supposed to explain a multimillion-dollar gold deal. The strangest part was that the scammer followed every instruction.
British comedian James Veitch had turned an ordinary scam email into an unforgettable exchange. What started as a simple choice between replying and deleting became weeks of increasingly absurd messages.
His story shows how far a scammer might go to keep a fake deal alive, and why the funniest response sometimes reveals something serious about online fraud.
1. The Scam Email That Started Everything
Most people know what to do when a suspicious email arrives. They delete it, mark it as spam, and continue their day.
James Veitch faced that same choice when an unexpected message appeared in his inbox. It came from someone calling himself Solomon Odonkoh, who claimed to have an exciting business opportunity.
The message was short and offered almost no useful details. There was no clear company name, no explanation of the business, and no reason for a stranger to receive such an offer.
Those warning signs usually make the decision easy. But Veitch saw something else in the message: an opportunity for a strange experiment.
One Unexpected Reply Changed the Conversation
Instead of deleting the email, Veitch responded with enthusiastic interest. He wanted to see what would happen if the supposed businessman found someone unusually eager to cooperate.
Solomon responded with a proposal involving gold shipments. According to his story, Veitch could receive gold and earn a 10 percent commission for helping distribute it.
For an ordinary person, that should raise serious questions. Why would a stranger offer such a large commission without checking anything about the recipient?
Veitch, however, decided to play along with the absurd promise. Rather than asking for proof, he began treating the offer like a major international business opportunity.
That decision created the central joke of the entire exchange. The scammer expected to guide the conversation, but his supposed customer started making increasingly ridiculous demands.
The more Veitch acted interested, the harder Solomon had to work. Every attempt to move the deal forward only gave Veitch another chance to make it stranger.
The First Warning Signs Were Already There
Solomon’s message followed a familiar pattern used in many advance-fee scams. These schemes promise a large reward but eventually demand money before anything valuable arrives.
Three details made the original offer suspicious:
- An unexpected business proposal: A stranger approached Veitch without any established relationship.
- A huge promised reward: The offer involved valuable gold and an unusually easy commission.
- Missing business details: The messages provided little evidence that the gold or company existed.
None of these details proves fraud on its own. Together, however, they gave Veitch plenty of reasons to doubt the story.
Instead of accepting it as genuine, he decided to test how much nonsense Solomon would tolerate. That choice led directly to the gold negotiation that followed.
2. The Gold Deal Became Ridiculous Almost Immediately
Solomon initially proposed shipping 25 kilograms of gold. He estimated its value at around $2.5 million, making the supposed opportunity sound enormous.
Most people would be shocked by such a figure. Veitch reacted as though the shipment was disappointingly small.
He pushed for a larger deal, suggesting that they should think beyond the original amount. Solomon responded by offering 50 kilograms as a trial shipment.
That would already represent an extraordinary amount of gold for two strangers discussing business by email. Yet Veitch still refused to treat it as impressive.
A Metric Ton Became the New Goal
Veitch insisted that anything smaller than a metric ton was hardly worth discussing. A metric ton equals 1,000 kilograms, twenty times Solomon’s proposed trial shipment.
This completely changed the balance of the conversation. The scammer, who had started with a generous promise, suddenly found himself defending a much smaller offer.
Solomon questioned whether Veitch could handle such a shipment. He seemed concerned about the imaginary customer’s ability to manage the deal.
Veitch answered by presenting himself as an experienced financial professional. He claimed to work in hedge funds and banking, making his invented background sound impressive enough to justify his demands.
The joke worked because both sides were performing different roles. Solomon wanted to appear like a serious gold dealer, while Veitch pretended to be a powerful buyer who considered millions of dollars ordinary.
When the Customer Becomes Too Demanding
The exchange revealed an amusing weakness in the scammer’s approach. Solomon wanted Veitch to believe the opportunity was real, but Veitch kept making the supposed deal harder to explain.
Instead of following Solomon’s suggestions, Veitch repeatedly raised the stakes. Each demand forced the supposed gold dealer to respond.
The negotiation had three increasingly absurd stages:
- 25 kilograms: Solomon introduced the supposed shipment as a valuable starting deal.
- 50 kilograms: He offered a larger trial shipment after Veitch showed interest.
- 1,000 kilograms: Veitch demanded a full metric ton, turning the negotiation into comedy.
The numbers mattered because they showed how ridiculous the exchange had become. Solomon was trying to control a conversation that kept moving further away from his original plan.
At one point, Veitch even expressed concern about how the gold would arrive. He treated ordinary postal delivery and signed-for shipping as reasonable issues for such an enormous consignment.
Those practical questions made the invented deal even funnier. A supposed international gold transaction had started sounding like someone ordering an expensive parcel.
3. A Business Chart and a Strange Investment in Hummus
Solomon eventually explained that convincing his company to approve a larger shipment would be difficult. Veitch responded by offering to help him make the case.
Rather than produce real financial records, he prepared a comical visual presentation. The idea was to give Solomon something that looked like business analysis without offering meaningful evidence.
The Chart That Was Supposed to Seal the Deal
Veitch sent a chart that turned the already ridiculous discussion into something even more absurd. He presented it as the result of work completed by one of his assistants.
The chart was part of the joke because it treated the fake negotiation with exaggerated seriousness. Solomon was supposed to use the visual to support a shipment that had grown far beyond his original offer.
This was a clever reversal of the normal scam. Instead of the supposed businessman presenting convincing documents, the intended target began supplying ridiculous material of his own.
Veitch made the scammer react to an invented professional identity, fake business confidence, and increasingly strange requests. The entire conversation became a test of how determined Solomon was to keep the opportunity alive.
Then the Conversation Turned Personal
After several messages about gold, Solomon introduced a more emotional detail. He explained that a successful deal would also earn him a valuable commission.
That detail made the story feel more personal. Rather than discussing only business, Solomon was now talking about what the money could mean for him.
Veitch asked what Solomon planned to do with his share. Solomon replied that he wanted to invest in real estate.
It was a believable answer for someone expecting a large payment. Property could sound like a reasonable goal after a profitable business deal.
Veitch’s answer was considerably less predictable. He announced that his own financial future would revolve around hummus.
The Hummus Conversation Went Completely Off Course
Veitch began describing the growing variety of hummus sold in supermarkets. He even discussed dipping carrots into it, as though this were a major investment strategy.
Nothing about the conversation helped arrange a gold shipment. The supposed multimillion-dollar business meeting had become a discussion about chickpea dip.
Solomon eventually announced that he needed to sleep. His response suggested that even this unusually patient correspondent had reached his limit for the evening.
Veitch sent him a playful goodnight message and continued treating him like a close business partner. The friendly tone made the exchange feel more like a strange friendship than a fraud attempt.
That contrast made the episode memorable. Solomon was trying to build enough trust to complete a transaction, while Veitch kept turning the discussion into comedy.
The exchange had already lasted for weeks. By then, Veitch’s friends were competing for his attention with updates about imaginary gold shipments.
He had spent so much time entertaining the scammer that the joke was starting to affect his routine. Something needed to bring the exchange to a memorable ending.
4. The Secret Code That Made the Scammer Talk About Candy
Veitch decided that the best ending would involve a completely unnecessary security system. He told Solomon that their email conversations needed protection through a special code.
In a real business transaction, protecting sensitive information can be sensible. Veitch’s version, however, replaced ordinary business terms with the names of sweets.
Solomon agreed to use the system without receiving a reasonable explanation. That willingness gave Veitch the perfect opportunity to make the conversation even more ridiculous.
Every Serious Business Term Got a Candy Name
Veitch assigned a different sweet to each important word. The result sounded more like a shopping list than a confidential business code.
His replacements included:
- Lawyer: Gummy Bear
- Bank: Cream Egg
- Legal: Fizzy Cola Bottle
- Claim: Peanut M&Ms
- Documents: Jelly Beans
- Western Union: Giant Gummy Lizard
Veitch also gave himself a new identity for future messages. Solomon was supposed to address him as KitKat.
The replacements were carefully chosen to disrupt the scammer’s usual language. They targeted words that might appear when discussing payments, paperwork, legal claims, and money transfers.
The humor came from mixing serious financial language with childish candy names. A request involving lawyers and banks suddenly sounded like a conversation inside a sweet shop.
Solomon Initially Forgot the Rules
After receiving the code, Solomon went quiet. Veitch began to suspect that the strange request had finally pushed the joke too far.
He sent a follow-up message to check whether the business arrangement still existed. Even then, he signed the message using his new candy-inspired identity.
Solomon eventually replied, saying that the business was continuing. However, he initially failed to use the secret vocabulary.
Veitch reminded him that the code was supposed to appear in every message. The reminder produced the most memorable response of the entire exchange.
The Greatest Email Was Also the Most Absurd
Solomon finally sent a message using the candy code. It discussed arranging assistance from a Gummy Bear and submitting Fizzy Cola Bottle Jelly Beans to a Cream Egg.
Every ridiculous phrase represented something that would normally sound serious. The message was almost impossible to read without laughing.
Then came the real purpose behind the conversation. Solomon wanted £1,500 sent through a Giant Gummy Lizard.
This was the moment when the fake business deal revealed its financial demand. The promise of a massive gold shipment had led to a request for money.
The candy language made the request hilarious, but its underlying meaning was serious. Someone was still asking a stranger to send cash in connection with an unverified deal.
The joke reached its peak because Solomon had followed the instructions so carefully. He was willing to make his own payment request sound absurd rather than abandon the conversation.
For Veitch, it was the perfect ending to weeks of strange correspondence. The scammer had helped create the very punchline that made the exchange unforgettable.
5. Another Scammer Claimed to Be Winnie Mandela
The gold exchange was not Veitch’s only experiment with suspicious emails. He later described spending three years responding to many similar messages.
One particularly memorable email came from someone claiming to be Winnie Mandela. The sender identified herself through her connection to Nelson Mandela, the former South African president.
The message claimed that $45 million needed to be transferred out of South Africa. It also connected the request to Nelson Mandela’s health.
The Story Had One Enormous Problem
The supposed sender appeared unaware of an important historical fact. Nelson Mandela had already died before the email was sent.
Veitch immediately noticed the contradiction. Rather than ignoring it, he responded with dark humor about the seriousness of Mandela’s supposed health condition.
The absurdity was difficult to miss. Someone using a famous person’s identity had built a financial emergency around a person who was no longer alive.
The scammer did not appear interested in addressing that problem. Instead, the correspondence continued toward instructions involving a banker and a payment.
The sender also supplied material intended to look official. Veitch joked about one supposed authorization document because it lacked meaningful written content.
Such documents can be part of a larger attempt to make a false story seem legitimate. Official-looking shapes, stamps, and layouts may impress someone who does not inspect them carefully.
The Conversation Became a Musical Joke
The supposed Winnie Mandela repeatedly used the phrase One Love. Veitch responded with references to songs associated with Bob Marley.
The messages soon became a strange mixture of fake banking instructions and musical references. The scammer apparently continued treating the exchange as a possible money transfer.
Eventually, the sender requested $3,000 for the supposed banker. That demand exposed the same basic pattern seen in the gold conversation.
A large sum of money was promised first, followed by a much smaller payment request. The story changed, but the attempt to obtain money remained.
This second exchange showed why Veitch found the messages so entertaining. The scammers often continued even when the replies moved far away from normal business discussion.
Yet the humor had an uncomfortable side. A person who accepted the original story might have treated the requested payment as genuine.
6. Why the Scammers Kept Answering Such Ridiculous Messages
The most surprising part of Veitch’s story is not the candy code. It is the fact that Solomon continued participating after so many unusual requests.
A genuine gold dealer would likely ask for proof of funds, contracts, and other business details. Solomon instead continued exchanging informal messages with an unknown stranger.
This behavior raises an interesting question about scams. Why might someone pursuing a fake deal tolerate so much nonsense?
The Promise of Money Can Keep a Conversation Alive
One possible explanation is that the scammer still saw Veitch as a potential source of payment. Someone acting wealthy and enthusiastic might appear worth pursuing.
Veitch’s invented financial background helped support that impression. He sounded like a person with access to money and an unusual willingness to take risks.
The larger the supposed transaction became, the more valuable his interest might have appeared. The scammer had a reason to keep the conversation moving.
However, the transcript does not reveal Solomon’s private thoughts. It shows what he wrote, not exactly why he chose to keep responding.
Small Requests Can Follow Huge Promises
Both email stories followed a pattern commonly linked with advance-fee fraud. The sender offered access to an enormous amount of money before requesting an upfront payment.
The promised reward was much larger than the amount requested. That difference can make the payment appear small by comparison.
In the gold story, the final request involved £1,500. In the message claiming to come from Winnie Mandela, the requested amount was $3,000.
The offers made those figures seem like minor steps toward something far more valuable. But the large rewards were never shown to exist.
Several common features connected the two stories:
- A large reward: Gold or millions of dollars created excitement.
- A special opportunity: The recipient was made to feel selected for an unusual deal.
- A reason to cooperate: The sender supplied explanations for why help was needed.
- An upfront payment: Money was requested before the promised reward appeared.
These details help explain why such messages deserve caution. They use the possibility of a major benefit to make a smaller immediate demand sound acceptable.
Humor Revealed the Weakness of the Stories
Veitch exposed the shaky logic by pretending to accept everything. He then added demands that made the stories increasingly difficult to defend.
The scammers kept treating the conversations as business opportunities. That allowed Veitch to show how little meaningful checking seemed to occur.
The audience could laugh because the contradictions were obvious. A bank represented by a chocolate egg was not a convincing financial institution.
But someone facing financial pressure might react differently to the original emails. The promise of a large payment could feel more important than the warning signs.
That is why the story works as both comedy and a warning. The same messages that sound ridiculous during a stage performance can still cause harm when sent to vulnerable people.
7. The Funniest Response Is Not Always the Safest One
Veitch explained that his goal was to waste scammers’ time. He reasoned that time spent answering his ridiculous messages could not be spent contacting other potential victims.
It was a clever idea, and his stories made audiences laugh. However, that does not mean replying to suspicious emails is a safe habit for everyone.
Replying Can Create New Problems
When someone responds to a suspicious email, the sender learns that the address is active. That information can make the recipient a target for further messages.
Scammers may also use replies to gather personal details. A casual conversation can reveal names, schedules, workplaces, or other useful information.
Attachments and links add another risk. A scammer may try to direct someone to a fake website or convince them to open a harmful file.
Veitch eventually warned people not to use their ordinary email addresses for such experiments. He explained that his early attempts led to large amounts of unwanted email.
Even a separate email account does not remove every risk. Contact with unknown senders can expose someone to new fraud attempts.
Five Safer Ways to Handle a Suspicious Email
For most readers, the safer approach is much simpler than Veitch’s comedy experiment. There is no need to prove that a scammer is wrong or make the sender admit anything.
The following habits offer a more practical response:
- Avoid replying: Do not confirm that the address belongs to an active reader.
- Check unexpected claims: Contact a company through an official channel found independently.
- Ignore payment pressure: Be cautious when a promised reward depends on sending money first.
- Protect personal details: Never send passwords, banking codes, or identity documents to an unverified sender.
- Report and delete: Use the email provider’s reporting features to flag suspicious messages.
These steps are especially useful when an email creates excitement or urgency. Strong emotions can make a weak story feel convincing.
For example, someone struggling with bills might find a large commission especially tempting. A scammer can use that hope to push for a quick decision.
The Real Warning Was Hidden Behind the Laughter
Veitch’s stories are memorable because the exchanges became so ridiculous. But beneath the jokes, both scams were built around the same goal.
The sender wanted money from a stranger who had no reliable reason to trust the offer. Everything else, from gold shipments to famous names, helped create the story surrounding that request.
The candy code simply stripped away the serious language. Once the financial terms became sweets, the supposed transaction sounded as silly as its underlying promise.