It seems I’ve always been an angry man. I recently received several copies of the same stupid damn email. You will have seen it, it’s the “Bill Gates is going to give you some money for forwarding this email” bullshit. Here’s a sample..
Title: PLLLLEEEAAASSSSEEE REEEAAADDD! IT WAS ON GOOD MORNINGAMERICATODAY!
After scrolling through pages and pages of email addresses you get to some text:
“To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages,
But this is from my friend Pearlas Sandborn and she really is
an attorney.
If she says that this will work – It will work. After all,What have
you got to lose?
SORRY EVERYBODY.. JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!! I’m an
attorney, And I know the law. This thing is for real. Rest assured
AOL and Intel will follow through with their pr omises for
fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one
filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long a go.
Dear Friends: Please do not take this for a junk letter.
Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent
later .
Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies
and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the
most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail
beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will
track it (If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a two weeks
time period.
For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay
you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on,
Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives
it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact
you for your address and then send you a check.
Regards. Charles S Bailey Genera l Manager Field Oper ations”
Blah blah blah etc. Obviously such a load of crap. Yahda yahda.
Why am I mentioning this? Because I was blogging about the same damn thing, way back in 2004! So I was just as angry then, and people nowadays are still as stupid. Nothing changes.
It’s not a new concept to fight the scammers, but it’s something I’d forgotten about. Sites devoted to the wonder of the 419 style scam are plentiful, but there’s none better than 419 Eater. Chock full of scammers getting a spoonful of their own, you could spend weeks and weeks on the site and not have finished reading. So I’ll save you a little time – the best I have come across is right here, entitled Busted!. Sheer genius for these reasons:
1. He gets the scammer to send him a hand carved picture of his own head
2. He gets the scammer to (at least pretend to) paint a mural of a fake book cover
3. He gets the scammer to re-enact the famous Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch, with Nigerian actors and everything
4. Tells the scammer directly, that he enjoys bestiality pr0n
5. Strings the scammer out for over 8 months (at least) wasting huge amounts of time
Shiver Metimbers, Sir, I salute you!
And on a related note: what happens when an eBay sale for an Apple Powerbook goes wrong. Wrong for the scammer, that is. You end up with a $550 debt and a P-P-P-Powerbook. Read it to the end, it’s worth it. What’s worrying, however, is the conclusion. (I won’t spoil it.) But seriously – anyone got any news?
Top work people. I’m seriously considering getting involved next time I receive a Father Brother Dr Dougal McMikeMatthew Dave wants to give you $8000m dollars type email.
I love spam. But the timing on this was perfect.
WHAT A GREAT IDEA!
We provide a concept that will allow anyone with sufficient work experience
to obtain a fully verifiable University Degree.
Bachelors, Masters or even a Doctorate.
Think of it, within four to six weeks, you too could be a college graduate.
Many people share the same frustration, they are all doing the work of the person
that has the degree and the person that has the degree is getting all the money.
Don’t you think that it is time you were paid fair compensation for the level
of work you are already doing?
This is your chance to finally make the right move and receive your due benefits.
If you are like most people, you are more than qualified with your experience,
but are lacking that prestigious piece of paper known as a diploma that is often
the passport to success.
CALL US TODAY AND GIVE YOUR WORK EXPERIENCE THE CHANCE TO EARN YOU THE HIGHER COMPENSATION YOU DESERVE!
4-6 weeks? If I’d known that I would never have spent 7 YEARS at University getting my first degree and Doctorate.
I was dismayed to receive an email from the honourable Mrs. Felicia Jones, who wanted my assistance in getting some money out of Zimbabwe. My dismay was due largely to the shock news : her husband was dead, and she was a widow…
My husband was one Of the best farmers in the country and knowing that he did not Support the president’s political ideology, the president’s Supporters invaded my husband’s farm, burnt down Everything, shot him and as a result of the wounds Sustained, he became sick and died after two days. And After his death I became a widow over night…
I can’t help feeling how lucky she was that her husband had wittled away a mere $18m during his lifetime and simply needed brokering to an account in South Africa through a “reliable foreign partner”.
Yes, that’s right, I’m no longer a virgin. On my cricket blog, over at Six and Out, I got some Chinese spam! I have no idea if this will display correctly, but here goes nothing:
经理/财务你们好! 贵公司内部如有需要做帐或冲帐而要用到发票的请跟本公司联系人联系
广州市鑫龙贸易有限公司有部分结余普通（国税、地税）发票、增值税发票可优惠对外代开!
代开范围 1 增值税专用发票,代开税率为6.5%左右。
2 饮食业、广告业、房屋出租、旅店业专用发票，服务业、建筑安装、旅游业
技术贸易统一发票，代开税率为2%左右。3 商品、商品房销售发票,医疗发票（个体）水路货运发票、水路运输服务发票，
代开税率为1-1.5%左右。注:以上税率均可根据客户代开金额大小来电商讨
本公司郑重承诺（广州市鑫龙贸易有限公司）为证照齐全的合法公司，所用票据均为本单位在
税务局所申领，可上网查询或到税务局抵扣验证。欢迎来电洽谈!!
广州市鑫龙贸易有限公司
联系人： 陈先生
which according to Babelfish, which was sketchy as best, has something to do with electricity, tickets and and a company of some sort. I know China is strict on their control of the web – surely SPAM should be included in their cloak?
It’s like an episode of Little House on the Prairie or summat:
Hey Family!
Just wanted to write you, and let you know, how the degree program I tried out went.
Well, six weeks later, I graduated, finished & received my Masters Degree with no study required and tgcwaywu verifiable.Yeah mom, I know you and Dad doubted it at first, but this turned out to be qqfqnchhc legit. This opportunity was given to me because of the professional experience and previous course work I had accumulated.
Im so excited mom and dad, this was a life altering opportunity & for once in my life I took advantage of it.
I already have jobs, that wouldnt have given me a chance before, now they are calling off the hook! This really is a godsend.
Tell Susan and Cousin Joey that they better hurry up and call that # I gave them the other day.
Again these are the degrees they offer, BA, BSC, MA, MSC, MBA and PhD, and the number to call is 1-xxx-436-xxxx, tell them to leave a brief message with their name, the degree they are interested in and their day and evening phone numbers. They will contact you soon after,
Anyway, much love, and tell the rest of the family I said hello
Love,
Your son,Len
P.s.
Mom, why dont you send this email to a few of your friends? My professor told me that if we send over referrals the school can give us a scholarship.
Well gee whizz, Billybob, I guess you gone got all edumacated and sumunsumun. Don’t forget Cousin Joey now, y’hear?
Hell no. (Well actually, yes it does because there are an awful lot of idiots out there. But I’m not one of them.)
For the millionth time, I received this email:
Hello
As a designer, you know how competitive the web design market is right now.
It is essential that your websites not only look great, but that they are technically perfect and search engine friendly as well.
This is where Ocean Bear comes in, to act as your strategic partner providing the technical excellence behind the scenes.
You can now offer more !
We offer you the technical support to expand your range of services and your company as a whole, leaving you free to do what you do best – to design great websites.
Anything that your client can imagine involving data acquisition or data processing, can be engineered to fit in with your design. We do not provide scripts, We build impeccable, robust internet applications, and we aim to develop ongoing business relationships with graphic design companies like yours.
The principle is simple. Well-engineered software is reusable. This means that we can deliver to you quickly and predictably. We work on a fixed-price bid (our bids are quite accurate) and our prices are quite low due to the nature of software reusability.
Feel free to give us a call at any time at (+44) 2070 602 327 to discuss your needs, or click on the link below to request an immediate call back through our website.
Click here to request an immediate callback
We look forward to being of service to you.
Regards,
Christopher David Bear
Ocean Bear Ltd.
(+44) 2070 602 327
39 Gibson Square
London, UK N1 0RB
2A68
What’s more, is that, from the outset, they look like a fairly reputable company. London offices, nice looking website, reasonable portfolio. Yet they ruin that by resorting to SPAM tactics. There’s no question it’s SPAM, even in spite of their “I’m not SPAM honest” message:
Removal
This email is not SPAM (see below).
Please know that I personally discovered your company in good faith by visiting your website
But most importantly I want to respect your wishes and not to inconvenience you in any way so I will not contact you again if you are not interested in my services.
I also wish to act in accordance with The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 Section 22 – specifically Item (3) where
a) I have obtained your contact details in the course of my efforts to provide you with my personal service,
b) my services are in respect to your your similar products and services only and
c) I am providing a simple means of your refusal for me to use your contact information in the future.if you are not interested in my services
please click on the link below and I will delete your contact information from my notes immediately. Thank you for your understanding.
I’ve already told them on more than occasion to remove my details, and equally, the email address they used to send me the mail is not publically available on my website. Sitting behind one of these flimsy messages is not good enough. Why should I be forced to remove myself from his list? I did not ask to be added to this list, I did not ask to hear about his services and therefore his message was entirely unsolicited. Aka SPAM. “Thank you for your understanding?” – that’s a bit bloody presumptuous. I understand why they do it, but it does not mean I accept it, which is the implication of this statement.
It won’t do any good whatsoever, but I did reply to their SPAM (I did not use their “click here and we’ll definitely remove you, really, and of course won’t send your valid email to all sorts of other people” active email confirmation link):
1) Stop f*cking SPAMMING me with this crap.
2) Your website is NOT Valid HTML 4.01 as you so proudly suggest.Maybe you should use one of your so-called partners to sort your f*cking website
out. At the same time, sort out your f*cking email list and stop sending me this
sh*t.
In the actual email, I didn’t include the *’s. And admittedly sending them the email does confirm that I have an active email address so I guess could have used their link. But this is more fun. It was definitely very petty (especially the bit about their website not validating) but it “makes me mad”. Or something. Time for coffee.