I got this email and wonder if you guys think someone wants my “autograph” aka, my signature to use to charge stuff? The only reason I have doubt is that they specifically name one of my titles, and it’s an oldie, that is long since out of print.
This is the email in total:
Dear Sir
How are you?
Please allow my suddenly contact though you are very busy.
And I am Japanese so I am very poor English writer,but I write this email for my daughter,so
Please read this email.
I am Sumitani who is Shigeki Sumitani`s mother.
My daughter, Shigeki, is Ms.Katie Davis`s big fan. (16 years old)
She respects Ms.Katie Davis very much.
Please tell Ms.Katie Davis about this email and my daughter.
Shigeki learned painting for a long time but now she can`t play painting.
After having read your picture book, she wanted to become a picture book writer.
It was her dream.
However, the sickness deprived her of the dream.
Really today Shigeki has been in hospital by the congenital heart disease.
Her sickness doesn`t cure escept the heart transplant
Significant cost is done in it,and however,cannot it be necessary and we do it.
thisefore,I want to realize her dream at least.
The doctor said that Shigeki can live little time.
So I send this email.
As her parent,I will do my best to grant her dream.
But we are fathisless family,and her doctors fee is very expensive,so we couldn`t do anything.
The reason that she became Ms.Katie Davis`s fan is that Shigeki touched the
pretty, beautiful arts of Ms.Katie Davis. And she read pretty picture book “Scared Stiff”.
She loved Ms.Katie Davis`s pretty arts.
She wanted to draw like Ms.Katie Davis.
She dreamed that someday she becomes like Ms.Katie Davis.
Shigeki loves Ms.Katie Davis`s beautiful and pretty arts.
So I wanted to grant her final dream.
If it is possible, please donate Ms.Katie Davis’s autograph.
Really she wants to touch Ms.Katie Davis`s arts,but We have received the public assistance.
So we can`t buy the arts. Shigeki thinks that Ms.Katie Davis is godessess,so she wants to touch her
arts by all means. But now I can`t grant her dream.
She believes that if she touched Ms.Katie Davis`s arts,the miracle happens.
Please,please donate or lend art of easy autograph.
Shigeki loves the pretty arts that Ms.Katie Davis draws.
She wants to touch the pretty bear that Ms.Katie Davis really draws.
Please grant her final dream.
Shigeki said that she wants to touch Ms.Katie Davis`s autograph and arts once before she goes to heaven.
I want to give it by all means,because since my hus died she supported me and kept smiling.
Really I am a physically handicapped person. I am hard hearing.
She supported me to the utmost.
Shigeki said there are some bible and oasys in her life road, Ms.Katie Davis`s arts are her oasys.
And Ms.Katie Davis is the godess for Shigeki.
I wait and wait for your contact.
Perhaps you recieved same message from many people.
So even if anything is impossible, please contact me as soon as you can.
And Shigeki made below poems for Ms.Katie Davis, please show them to Ms.Katie Davis.
Please forgive my selfish request, please forgive and understand.
Even if anything is impossible,please contact me,because Shigeki`s life remains little.
Below poems are made by Shigeki for Ms.Katie Davis.
Please show the to Ms.Katie Davis.
WE are never collector,never merchant. please believe.
Thank you very much.
Shigeki Sumitani
5-2-16-203 Yutaka-cho Shinagawa-ku Tokyo 142-0042 Japan
※Please,please tell about this mail and Shigeki to Ms.Katie Davis as soon as you can.
Thank you.
Thank you.
this word of only short characters.
Though it is only short characters
It did not go out of the mouth always obediently.
If you do not say thank you
Man cannot surely live.
Thank you is oxygen.
At unhappiness, and painful time
At such time though it is a word that should be said why
It doesn’t go out of the mouth obediently.
Word not derived even if it thinks in mind.
However,
From the mouth obediently if composure occurs to the mind and it becomes happy feelings
Thank you can be said.
Thank you is a word of magic.
The person to whom the person who had said was said, too can become happy, too.
I
The mind : at any time.
Let’s put only the word of this magic without forgetting.
Happy now
The happiness that seems to overflow is packed into the balloon.
Let’s fly somewhere.
Surely ..all who finds the balloon…
Can say “Thank you”.
Life
The life
It might be whose.
My life : mine.
It is not mine alone.
My life
Everyone defends.
My life
When you run away from me
Everyone helped.
The life : in me.
I thought that it shouted valuing more.
It
To living
Become positive.
If you do so
The life is surely.
It doesn’t run away from me.
It lives positively.
The mind is positive though it is difficult.
The person who thinks alive to be usual also
The life doesn’t run away because it is surely positive.
Laying the life down from me
It is absolutely unpleasant.
No matter it is very even painful or how painful
Calling from the life is effective in the direction before ..it is…
In th
e morning.
When always wake; the same scenery.
Must you thank me today when it was made waking?
I want to appear in the othis side of that wall under a certain endless sky.
Does that wall have it of several centimeters?
The wall which is very thick for me.
How long do I break through that wall now?
It wants to be brushed cheeks by wind to blow the outside.
Because I am a common girl.
The sun.
I can meet you today to do a window.
You watch me over a window, too.
When you who cannot shine when I was not lighted up by you lighted me up though you were oneself and could shine, I did not smile at you because I became black.
thisefore do not you smile at me now?
A request.
Because I may become black, light me up directly once again.
Surely because I shine with you once again.
At night.
I dislike it at night.
Because I become lonely.
I will not look at the starlit sky how.
Even if the moon is going to light me up, it is not got before you me.
I hate being gloomy.
Only as for the sound of the car that it runs in the distance to be known.
I like it at night.
Because morning does not come unless night comes.
Because a dream is not seen unless night comes.
Because if thise is not it, I cannot meet in a dream.
Let me have a happy dream moon, today.
Because I am cheerful in the dream.
Tears.
Tears.
When you are glad when you are sad, you are always same as me.
You gathis for my eye and run through my cheeks.
While when I am glad when I am sad to encourage it, jumping.
You are always same as me.
Because I am still all right.
You in me do not yet die.
Tears.
I take good care of you so that tears become refined.
A wish.
My wish.
A small wish.
I want to do normal.
I want to do a thing same as all.
But the wish that is impossible for me.
When I was small, I played with the table which I surrounded in whole family on the knee of a fathis and the mother.
But the wish that does not come true anymore now.
It is normal.
The wish that it is the easiest, and is the most difficult.
Because the marriage does not need to be possible, I make the love a common girl only on 1st and
BZ
October 22, 2010 - 8:55 pm ·Yes! I got one of these today as well, though the girl's name was different (to make it more challenging to track down as a scam via google, I suppose)
In fact, i only found your site by googling the poem.
I'm an animator and there were references to my film, so this seems to be the scammer's modus operandi, to target artists. I assume there would be a follow up email with a request for money to help the girl get a transplant, as I don't think the autograph is useful to them for anything.
Katie Davis
October 23, 2010 - 5:50 am ·Yes, that was my assumption too, but it was weirder than most, and why would anyone target artists for a money scam?! LOL.
FLS
October 23, 2010 - 2:48 pm ·I just got a similar one today, too. It's very strange. The author mentions two of my books ( http://www.jai2.com ), and doesn't ask for money, only an autograph and a "mention." It seems like a scam in some ways, but then it isn't written like most scams.
Fred
Katie Davis
October 23, 2010 - 3:26 pm ·SO bizarre. I'd love to know the real story!
Anonymous
October 30, 2010 - 9:48 am ·Same here! I got the same letter also. I am also an animator. The name of the girl was Tomoca Sumitani in my case. They mentioned the titles of two books I published, and the self-portrait I drew for my home page. I also found out this was a scam by googling one of the poems. Someone desperate for free artwork maybe, or possibly they would eventually ask for money for an operation once further contact has been established, it's hard to say what is behind this one, it is unusual as scams go!
I am trying to string them along to know a bit more. I said a good Japanese friend of mine would bring the artwork in person to meet with Tomoca and they immediately answered a very long apologetic e-mail, explaining that Tomoca suffers from side-effects from her medication etc. that she cannot see anyone, but that an older brother of the mother (who calls herself Yuriko Sumitani), would be there to receive the artwork. This would take place at the home address mentioned in the original e-mail. So this is a man in his 40's, I guess. Why did this person come up with this sob story to ask for artwork and autographs? Intriguing.