| Can the Spam |
| 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 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 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 legalised 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 and I want to
deposit $300 million 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?? |
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