I like spam, I really do. The email variety that is,
not the questionable meat-like product in a tin. Now,
I'm not saying I want my inbox filled up with the stuff
on a daily basis, and here I'm speaking of both varieties
of spam. In fact it annoys the crap out of me when a message
occasionally manages to defy the normally very good filter
my ISP has and arrives on my pc, but when I'm in need
of a good laugh I will very often go into the spam folder
of my own accord to have a look at the hilarity within.
There we have everything on offer from dodgy products
to release the stallion within me, imitation Rolex watches,
job offers and get rich quick schemes, to kindly African
nuns who have picked me at random to deposit $30 million
US dollars into my bank account. It's such a refreshing
change to see this level of altruism in these selfish
modern times we live in.
I feel obligated then to assist these philanthropic souls
who have so kindly offered to help little ol' me, a complete
stranger to them. So, here's a little list of tips to
help would-be spammers, phishers, conmen and general all-round
bottom feeders to try and convince me to part with my
cash, bank account and/or personal details for their own
nefarious purposes:
1. Learn to spell.
I don’t have the highest regard for banks &
financial institutions at the best of times, but I will
say this for them, they at least seem to employ people
who can spell and have heard of grammar and punctuation.
So, when I see an email purporting to be from my bank
(which, 99.9% of the time, isn’t my bank anyway)
that appears to have been written by someone with the
literary capabilities of an oxygen-starved goldfish, I
tend to be a bit sceptical. If you struggle to spell the
words “bank”, “money” and “security”
or indeed, the name of the bank you are pretending to
represent, you may find it difficult to convince people
you are genuine. Unless of course you get lucky and your
email lands in the inbox of someone as illiterate as you
are. Oh, and by the way, a note to all you perverse purveyors
of pharmaceutical products: it’s spelled V-I-A-G-R-A.
Not Vaigra, Vigara, Virgara, Vigaria, or Vigaira.
2. Give up on the “Dear valued (insert company name
here) customer” emails. Does anyone fall for this anymore,
or did they ever for that matter? Why don’t you try a more personal
approach? Knock on my door, explain that you are from a bank (any bank will
do, it doesn’t have to be mine apparently), address me as “Dear
valued customer” and then ask me if I’ll hand over all my online
banking details so you can “re-activate my account” and see
what response you get. I hope four-letter words don’t offend you,
because you may have one or two of them hurled at you, along with some heavy
objects.
3. Stop trying to sell me
dodgy pharmaceuticals. Come on, I’m
reluctant to take the legalized poisons prescribed by
a licensed physician, or over the counter medicines from
a legitimate pharmacy. Do you really think I’m going
to ingest an unknown substance offered by some spam bastard
in a foreign country?! That’s assuming you would
actually send anything at all should I be stupid enough
to send you money of course, which is highly doubtful.
Get real.
Here’s an idea. Instead of trying to sell your products,
why not ask for an exchange? I’ll send you some
rat poison in an unlabelled container and you send me
an unidentified white powder of your choice. If you take
the rat poison I promise I’ll send you money for
whatever it is you’ve sent me. Of course, I won’t
tell you it’s rat poison, that would give you an
unfair advantage. You’ll just have to take your
chances that the substance I’ve sent you is every
bit as safe as the mystery product you’ve sent me.
Would I steer you wrong? I am a valued customer after
all.
4. Don’t send the
same message 38 times with 38 different sender names.
It’s amazing how often I see emails
in my spam folder from young “ladies” who
all seem to be smart, beautiful and live near me. Apparently,
I’m fortunate enough to have landed smack dab in
the middle of a thriving megatropolis of young, intelligent
and beautiful nymphomaniacs, all eager to meet me and,
even more incredibly, possessed of such fantastic mind
reading abilities that allows them to copy each other
word for word. It just never even crosses my mind that
it could be the same person – most likely male I
would imagine - sending the same message over and over
again under different pseudonyms. Nope, never thought
of that at all.
5. Try to avoid using the word “hola”.
It may be a common greeting in your country, but it’s
not a word you’ll hear very often, if at all, in the UK and we certainly
don’t put it at the top of job offers. At least not for a job that
anyone would seriously consider applying for anyway. I know you’re
doing your best to get me hooked up with that dream job I’ve always
wanted, the one where I don’t actually have to do anything, or even
get out of bed, but still get paid an enormous amount of money every week,
and I do appreciate it, I really do. But I’ve got to be honest, I’m
just not going to respond to an email that starts out with “¡
hola. amasing immploymant opertunnity fur yu, appley now!”.
6. I don’t know anyone called “me”, other than myself
of course. Nonetheless, that doesn’t seem to stop “me”
from sending an awful lot of emails, whoever he or she or it is. “Me”
is a kindly soul it would seem, as “me” desperately wants me
(the real me in this scenario) to increase the size of my manhood so I can
score with the ladies while flaunting my new fake Rolex watch. And if that’s
not enough, “me” has a great job opportunity on offer, one where
I only have to work 2 hours a week doing nothing more taxing than stuffing
a few envelopes from the comfort of my bed and for my troubles will pay
me (me, again, not “me”) in excess of $50,000 US dollars a month.
I hate to disappoint “me”, but I’m actually
satisfied with the size of my manhood (honestly!), I have
no interest in scoring with any lady other than my wife,
and I have absolutely no desire to own a real Rolex, let
alone a fake one. And the job offer? Uhhh… yeah,
go on. I’ll have that one.
7. Look, I don’t want to swap links with you. I don’t care if
you’ll put links to my website on two other sites in exchange for
one on mine. I’m not interested. And I’m certainly not going
to put a link to a competitor’s website on mine. Piss off.
8. Dear Sales.... Since
opening my own business I’ve recently started to
get a lot of emails from people in foreign lands who are
desperate to place an order, despite the fact that they
seem to have no idea what I’m actually selling.
Why, bless their little cotton socks and the horse they
rode in on, they’re absolutely frothing at the mouth
in anticipation of ordering something, anything. There
they are, credit card in hand, just waiting for me to
respond with a list of products and confirm I will accept
(insert name of credit card company here) as
payment. Strangely, they are gifted with the same psychic
abilities as the nymphos in my neighbourhood, as the emails
are all worded pretty much identically, despite the fact
that the senders claim to be in different countries.
Hey, guess what? I have a website.
It displays all the products in stock, has a very good
shopping cart system, and it tells you what forms of payment
are accepted. If you really want to place an order, use
the website and pay for the goods up front, just like
all my legitimate customers do. On the other hand, if
you just want me to respond to confirm my email address
belongs to a real company so you can add it to a spam
list or use it for some other annoying purpose, then please,
send me an email. I promise I’ll ignore it. Feel
free to email as often as you like. I’ll happily
ignore those too.
9. My personal favourite.
The ol’, “I’m sister
Mary Theresa Francis Mugwumpapppleby of the Divine African
Holy 5-a-side Untarnished All Saints Church, I have terminal
cancer, my dog has fleas, my husband was the president
of Dyslexistan before that unfortunate assassination incident,
and I want to deposit $300 million US dollars in your
account” ploy. So, let me see if I’ve got
this straight. You want to transfer 300 million of Uncle
Sam’s finest doneros out of your country and into
mine? And all I have to do is hand over all my bank details
so the money can rest its little feet in my account for
a while before it moves on to better climes? For my efforts
I get to keep 10%, or a mere $30 million? Well, that seems
reasonable. I mean, that kind of thing happens all the
time, right? Why, just the other day a complete stranger
walked up to me, shoved a giant wad of cash in my hand
and said “just hang on to this for a minute for
me will you while I go buy a coffee and a couple of doughnuts?
For your troubles you can keep most of the money.”
Do I have “born yesterday” stamped on my forehead and “just
fell out of the turnip truck” tattooed on my butt??
Back
to Rants Main