If it's Worth Doing, it's Worth Doing Well!

Readers of these sporadic chronicles know that I am a fan of well-done, creative spam, as well as a harsh critic of slipshod, half-baked spam.

Two fairly recent examples of spam that could have been so much more:

Two minutes on the United States Postal Service’s website could produce a copy of the USPS logo, the addition of which would have given this spam some much needed verisimilitude.

But it seems unlikely that as much as two minutes was spent on developing this message. How could it be that so many people sent packages on January 11 that could not be delivered because of an erroneous address? (And see my previous post in re the BCC field.) Why would I need to print a “shipment label" and collect the package at their unspecified “office"? Why wouldn’t they simply return the package to me as undeliverable?

Oh, yeah—and why the hell would the postal service be sending me e-mail, considering that e-mail is popularly considered to be a cause of the postal service’s recent financial crisis?

To appreciate sSpam requires a certain suspension of disbelief, so let us for a moment sent aside the fact that I don’t even know what an “ACH transfer" is, let alone have instigated one. And let’s ignore the likely fact that e-mail purportedly from NACHA would most likely indicate same in the sender’s field, not just “Dick Richmond." And we’ll grimace a little and try not to think about how spending a couple of seconds at NACHA’s website would have produced a company logo (see above in re verisimilitude). Just set all of that aside, and focus your attention on the link that the spammers wish me to activate for whatever nefarious purpose they may have in mind.

unclewillysfamily.com.

Yeah. That sounds like a URL that the Electronic Payments Association would use. unclewillysfamily.com.

I suppose that would be Dick Richmond’s Uncle Willy.

Really, does no one take any pride in his work anymore?

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Important message from Interpol!

Wow! This message “From Special Investigation Agent, United Kingdom !!” sure is exciting. Somehow, though, I always thought Interpol agents would be a little more, I dunno...literate or something. But whatever. Seems I’m about to come into six and a half million dollars, which puts me half a million dollars ahead of Col. Steve Austin, so there!

All I can say is, it’s a good thing I routinely check my spam folder, or I might have missed out on this entirely! Whew!

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Just Open the Attachment!

It's been awhile since I've received any good spam. (Regular readers will know that I am always appreciative of well-done, thoughtful spamming, spoofing, or phishing, and disdainful of the slapdash, half-hearted efforts that seem to clog my inbox these days. Does no one take pride in his work anymore? See here and here for past expositions on the subject.)

What came today isn't especially good, spam-wise, but it earns points in the Chutzpah category, for coming right out and suggesting I download an attachment to the e-mail. ("Hey, you know all that stuff about never downloading anything from someone you don't know? Nevermind.")

Anyhow, here's the missive, carrying the provocative subject line "Your account was accesed by a third party" and purportedly coming from HSBC Bank plc. (alert@hsbc-online.co.uk) (one of my numerous European bank accounts, no doubt. So numerous that I lose track of them all the time):

Dear Customer,

We detected irregular activity on your HSBC

Internet banking account on 26/10/2010.

For your protection, you must verify this

activity before you can continue using your

account.

Please download the document attached to this

email to review your account activity.

We will review the activity on your account

with you and upon verification,

and we will remove any restrictions placed on

your account.

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise

but to temporaly suspend your account.

We ask that you allow at least 72 hours for the case to be

investigated and we strongly recommend to verefy (sic) your

account in that time.

Best Regards,

Colette Nugent

Head of Customer Communications

© Copyright HSBC Holdings plc 2010 - All rights reserved

The attachment (which I somehow have not gotten around to downloading) is cleverly called "Verify.html." Seems a little odd to me that an alleged review of my account activity would be in an html document. But then it seems a little odd that they would e-mail me such a thing in the first place. Considering I'm not a customer or anything.

Another oddity: The (sic) in the above message, after the misspelled "verefy"? They put that there! I have no idea why. Nor do I know why they failed to add (sic) after the equally misspelled "choise."

In general, however, this is a pretty average bit of flummery...no graphics, no seemingly legit links, nothing really of interest at all except the damn-the-torpedoes suggestion that I just go right ahead and click on that attachment right there. Hey, what's the worst that can happen, right?

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What to Do, What to Do...

Is it just me, or does it seem like these messages might be spam?

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I Think This Might Be Spam!

Hmm. I just don't know. One hates to be so suspicious and cynical and everything, but there's something about this message that makes me wonder if it possibly could be an example of that "spam" of which one hears so much...

Subject: wjreynolds@yahoo.com, transfering to a new account. From: "BankAccountSupport" 

Dear wjreynolds@yahoo.com, The current account you now have is substandard. Your new account is ready for you to access. We hope you'll enjoy your new benefits! Please visit the link we've provided below. My New Bank Account Thank you, Account Support Manager, Tina Connor

As lamented in previous posts, these guys aren't even trying any more. You'd think that a recession might prompt them to step up the effort a little...maybe some graphics, maybe the actual name of a bank. But no. Come on, people! If you don't care, why should your intended victims?

More Spam to Love!

You know, there is nothing like well-written spam. I have commented on this before, mostly in terms of disgust, since it seems to me that modern spammers just aren't trying. (See here, here, and here.) Today's mail brings a slightly better-than-the-norm come-on. Lacking in originality, I have to say--I was getting sob-stories like this via the US Postal Service 20, 25 years ago--it at least gives some indication that the spammer behind it--Mr. Fareed Usman, to you--put a little bit of effort into it.

For starters, he seems able to keep his story straight between his "from" line (Mr. Fareed Usman) and his "subject" line (From Mr. Fareed Usman)...unimaginative, yes, but consistent! As is his return address, too: fareedusman89@live.com. (You wouldn't believe how much spam I get which purports to be from X even though the e-mail address is Y. Come on, people: focus!)

Mr. Usman (he begins by calling me "friend," but I don't yet feel we're on a first-name basis) begins thusly:

As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.

Wow! Already we have much in common, for I too believe that everyone will die someday! It's almost as if we were separated at birth!

My name is MR. Fareed Usman a Crude Oil merchant in IRAN; I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.

Well, that sucks: You no sooner make a new friend than you find out he has only about a few months to live, for his illness has defiled medical treatment. Which is the sort of thing that really torques off doctors, by the way, which may explain why they've only given him about a few months to live.

As he nears the end of life's highway, Mr. Usman seeks to atone for his past; evidently he was "always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for." Now, however, he has

willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends

who must be pretty saintlike if they remained close friends even when he was "always hostile" to them. Or maybe they're not so close after all, since they don't seem to be very helpful to Mr. Usman as he strives to make amends:

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth.

Points for honesty. Hope God sees it that way, too. But I think God might want a few sharp words with Mr. Usman's family:

So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in Austria, cameroun, Liberia, Algeria and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan; they refused and kept the money to themselves.

Those jerks! Now, not being rich myself I can't quite relate to all the problems that wealth must bring with it. But I have to wonder how tough it could possibly be to give it away. I mean, Mr. Usman seems well enough to have e-mailed me--maybe he's even e-mailed other cyber-friends; who know?--and can than be much more difficult than giving money away? He's already made these connections in Africa, Malaysia, and, um, Austria (?!)--why can't he just e-mail them and say, Not having much luck in Bulgaria and Pakistan, so I have some extra money for you? Well, as the man said, the rich are different than you and me.

It comes as no surprise that Mr. Usman no longer trusts his family, "as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them." And that, apparently, is where I come in:

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of Twenty Five million dollars $25, 000, 000, 00 that I have with a finance/Security Company abroad. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations. I have set aside 10% for you and for your time. If this is okay with you get back to me and I'll give you all the details you need to know.

Of course, now people in fact do know about the huge cash deposit, but so it goes. I'm a little confused about why Mr. Usman needs my help to "collect this deposit" when in fact it is his deposit, and he should simply be able to withdraw it, it seems to me. I don't know how Mr. Usman came to settle on me for this task--perhaps he reads this blog; perhaps my legendary devotion to honesty has reached his ears even in Iran--but however it came to be, two and a half million dollars seems fair recompense for my time. I mean, again, how tough can it be? You call Charity A and ask if they'd like a couple million dollars. They say yes. You call Charity B and ask the same question. You wouldn't even get through the whole alphabet at that rate. A day, maybe two, at most.

I only hope Mr. Usman lasts long enough. These diseases that defile medical treatment and leave you with only about a few months to live can be tricky bastards.

A Subject Line That Should Have Been Revised

This was in one of the inboxes this morning. I had not realized that the object was to make things more difficult.

Something New from the Spamming World!

Just when you think you've seen it all...

I have oft complained here of the appalling lack of imagination being shown by modern spammers, spoofers, and phishers. A child could see through their clumsy attempts to perpetrate whatever it is they hope to perpetrate--money-extraction, usually, but not always--and increasingly one concludes that they're simply not trying.

And then one comes upon something like this in his inbox, as I did but moments ago:

!! Puppies Available For Adoption !!!

Ah! Puppies! Everyone loves puppies! This is going to be good!

And, indeed, early signs are positive. The e-mail purports to come from one "Alex Moore," and, upon opening the message, the innards jibe with that. (How often do we see e-mail whose sender is ostensibly "Joe Doakes" but whose message begins, "My name is Jane Doe..." As indicated above, some of these people aren't trying anymore.) The return address alleges to be from "googlemail.com," which, to my knowledge, doesn't exist (a search for same merely takes one to GMail), so I have to dock a couple of points for that, but so far so good. The actual message:

Hello,

My name is Alex Moore, I came across your email address through am email surfing Affiliated with the US chamber of Commerce, and My late Grandma was a puppy breeder, She died about 4 months ago and she left 2 Female English Bulldog, before she die, one of the Female puppy recently had a litter 4 puppies, They are so adorable, Due to my job as a Marketer, My job do not allow me to take good care of these babies, I would have love to take care of them myself but due to the nature of my job i does hardly have time for myself, So i want to find them caring & loving parent who will take good care of them and willing to adopt,if you interested in having them, please contact me immediately ,for more details and information.

Hope to read from you soon.

Thanks.
Alex

Okay, some considerable slippage here. Alex's apparently arm's-length relationship with the English language tends to undermine his or her credibility. To claim to be a capital-m "Marketer" is over-reaching--unless Alex means he or she owns a market, I would hope that a real-live marketer would know, say, the difference between a comma and a period. ("They are so adorable, Due to my job as a Marketer, My job do not allow me to take good care of these babies," etc.) I know that the students in Marketing classes I've taught over the years would be failed students of Marketing were they to turn in anything resembling the message above.

Here's my advice, Alex: Take over Grandma's puppy mill. "Marketering" isn't gonna work out so well for you.

So, in the end, not as much fun as I'd hoped. Points for originality, however: In more than 15 years online, I have never--never, not once--received a solicitation to buy puppies via the interwebs.

Of course, I have no way of knowing what "Alex's" real game is. It seems pretty unlikely to be puppies, but in this economy, who knows--maybe even the puppy mills are having a tough time of it. I suspect that, were I to follow up (and isn't it refreshing that there are no clickable links in the message itself? To follow up would be to hit "reply"...how charming!), it would develop that the puppies are all gone but that "Alex" has some other fantabulous opportunity for me.

Or it may just be some spammer's or phisher's way to find valid e-mail addresses: You send out the "adorable puppies" message, someone replies, and bingo! you have a valid address for whatever your nefarious real purpose is.

Or it could be puppies. We'll never know.

Um, Okay. Wait--What?

This was in one of the inboxes that I manage for my employer, a religious organization (so you see why I was duped into opening it. Not that I wouldn't have anyhow). The sender was listed as metaethics@jaros.sk, which I must say was a red flag. But still:

From: "Tena Bertran"
To: |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subject: Chriistmas night
Date: Unknown date

Girls will drop underwear foor you!
More information HERE

Be thou happy. If this brahmana be desirous of personified,
and the other that i was afraid that may do to them by tossing
them too much. 1569. Would not have people think that i
was insensible late editor has done well to combine them.
even.

Frankly, I have no idea where I might even begin to comment on this. Or how. Or, I guess, why...

Opportunity Knocks! Again!

A couple of subject lines from this morning's inbox:

Subject:
blaming for LOW salary/wages? with our Dip1oma/Degree/MasteerMBA, You
Will get good offer xmdgwe p8

What the hell does that mean??

Then there's this:

Subject: I offer you an profitable place in our company...

Wow--an profitable place! Apparently in some country where they don't pronounce "p"--an profitable, an puppy, an poster-boy for sloppily written spam. And where they use a sort of "parallel English" for communication, as evinced by the message's content:

Good day,

Our surveys show that 81% of people of your city are not satisfied with
their weekly earnings and wish to make more.

That is why I would like to offer you an opportunity of part-time work.
To earn 532 AUD a week you have to spend 1-4 hours a week.

You need a phone preferably a mobile a computer and email.
If you are reading these lines, you need to start working.

The chance lasts till the end of the month; we have 78 vacancies in
your locality so far.

You will have to assist our clients. It is a simple working, which
requires attentiveness and chance.
we provide training and everything you need for the 78.
locality will be glad to assist you with any additional information.
To speed up our message , please send me an email to:JonesDaniel4nn@gmail.com


working

"Attentiveness and chance"...I must say, that part is intriguing!

But I have to wonder about JonesDaniel4nn's research, given that the very next message in my spam list has this to say:

Subject: 91% of people in your neighborhood, are not satisfied with their weekly
profits. You can upgrade it.

One wonders why I would be the least bit interested in "upgrading" the weekly profits of people in my neighborhood. I spend a fair amount of time avoiding them, truth be told. But anyway. I suppose it could be possible that 81% of the people in my fair city are not satisfied with the weekly earnings, and that 91% of the people in my neighborhood are unhappy with their weekly profits, so it may be comparing apples and pomegranates. Oh, but wait--here's the guts of the e-mail:

Hello, how are you

Our surveys show that 81% of people of your local are not satisfied with their monthly earnings and wish to make more.

That is why we would like to offer you an opportunity of part-time work. To earn 532
AU$ a week you have to spend 2-3 hours a week.
You need a phone preferably a mobile a computer and email.
If you are reading these lines, it means you have {_mac11_0} you need to start working.

The proposal lasts till the end of the month; we have 76 vacancies in your neighborhod so
far.
You will have to help our clients. It is a simple working, which requires attentiveness and proposal.
we provide training and everything you need for the 76. neighborhod will be happy to help you with any additional information.

To speed up our response , please send me an email to:5LiamWalkerz924@gmail.com


working

What th-- I think 5LiamWalkerz924 ripped this message off from JonesDaniel4nn!! Granted, it's a better offer (5LiamWalkerz924 is going to pay me 532 Australian dollars for 2-3 hours' work, while JonesDaniel4nn expects up to four hours' work for the same pay!), but I see that 5LiamWalkerz92 has only 76 vacancies in my "neighborhod," whatever that may be, compared to JonesDaniel4nn's 78 vacancies in my "locality," whatever that may be. (Actually, he says "we have 78 vacancies in your locality so far"(emphasis added), so I find myself wondering about turnover.)

It does occur to me that I could accept both offers, putting in 3 to 7 hours a week for AUD $1064. Currently the exchange rate is about 67¢ per US dollar, so that would be about $712.88, which is about $37,000 a year, which is way more than what I'm currently making for way more hours per week!

And, I mean, "attentiveness and chance" and "attentiveness and proposal"--this is hard to resist!

Exciting E-mail!

I love e-mail...what a constant thrill! You just never know what's going to pop up next. For instance, here's a screen shot of my office e-mail inbox (one of them, anyway) from this morning:

(Amusingly, one of the topics of (very brief) discussion in the Business Communications class I taught last semester had to do with "appropriate" e-mail addresses. I counseled against using a Hotmail address, which sounds a little lascivious, and we discussed whether even Yahoo sounded frivolous. In the end, there was considerable consensus that Gmail was probably the "safest"—viz., least unprofessional-sounding—of the freebie e-mail services. I wish I had known about Sandy G Newar, who e-mails me from tequila_19@hotmail.com to welcome me to "our team of professionals." A teaching moment lost.)

But anyhow, there's something intriguing about a woman with the e-mail address tequila_19, so I read on, and discovered a most interesting offer of Gainful Employment!

Dear Mr\Mrs

We are glad to invite you to our professional group, PES LLC and to offer you a job position according to your skills and experience. Your resume was found by our HR managers in the global network at jobseeking websites. You seem to be the one who suits our requirements and is able to make the job of our company better. We need cooperative, responsible, and efficient people whom others can trust and rely on.

Does anything say "welcome" any louder than "Dear Mr\Mrs"? It's so much warmer and fuzzier than "To Whom it May Concern."

And already I'm impressed by the prospect of joining the "team of professionals" at PES LLC, since their HR managers found my resume "in the global network at jobseeking websites" despite my never having posted my resume in the global network at jobseeking websites! That tells me they're a crackerjack team of professionals, all right, capable of using the tools of modern technology to find that which doesn't even exist!

First of all, we would like to tell you some words about our business group PES LLC. It specializes in providing worldwide escrow service. For many years of being in the market our company has earned respect and trust among many international companies. The official representatives of the 20 countries like Canada, the USA, France, Italy Ukraine, Poland, etc. prefer to work with us, as we are able to provide high quality service valuing the time of our customers and using up-to date technologies and equipment.

At the moment we collaborate with many giant companies rendering them the service of digital currency payment (eGold, MoneyBookes, eBullion). The number of our clients is increasing all over the world making us expand and employ more people for working in our team. Due to the dynamic development of the electronic money sphere and increasing demand in our service we suffer lack of efficient and professional personnel. Thanks to the new technologies we are able to offer our vacancies even to people who live far from our office but who have a desire to work bringing success to our company and providing decent good service to our customers.

Uh-oh. This is starting to concern me a little. They "suffer lack of efficient and professional personnel"? What happened to that crackerjack "team of professionals"? Where did they disappear to over the course of three paragraphs?

Our corporate headquarters are located in Bellevue and Northgate. The number of physical persons and pretty large companies using our services in the USA is growing that is why we decided to employ staff on the regional bases. We are ready to provide you an interesting, well-paid job that can give you career opportunities not taking much of your time. If you are interested in our job offer and constant career growth, if you want to have a job where your efforts are awarded by the system of benefits and bonuses, you are welcome to our team!

"Physical persons"? They also have non-physical persons working there? As in ghosts? Cool! I'm in!

Some necessary requirements to work in our company are the following:

- Being and an intermediate computer user and some knowledge of using Internet.

- Desire to be self-sufficient and financially independent

- Free time availability

However, we don't require that you know how to spell or form a cogent sentence. Unless "being" means you have to be one of those "physical persons."

More detailed information about the available vacancies and our company may be provided at your request at an early date. You will never feel alone in our team as our managers will be always glad to provide you with all the necessary information, instructions, and support. Feel free to ask us any questions answering this mail right now.

Attention! PES LLC is a legal company with licence issued by the authorities and doesn't operate with fake transactions. We appreciate trust and opinion of our clients about our company and are ready to protect our service from any fraud and indecent activities.

Whew…what a relief to know that their license was issued "by the authorities" and that they don't "operate with fake transactions." But I would be interested in knowing more about these "indecent activities."

If you are ready to earn with those who are proud of their job and be the part of the team, we are looking forward to hearing form you at e-mail: PESform@gmail.com

Not tequila_19@hotmail.com? And, again, I assume that "looking forward to hearing form you" means they're looking for "physical persons." Which is kind of discriminatory, isn't it?

The amount of the position is restricted, so if you are an ambitious and willing to succeed person, let us know about it first!

Best Regards,

Sandy Newar,
PES LLC.

"The amount of the position is restricted"…what does that mean? A small office? Or does the sentence taken as a whole—"The amount of the position is restricted, so if you are an ambitious and willing to succeed person, let us know about it first!"—mean, We're not going to pay much, so if you're "an ambitious and willing to succeed person," let us know first so we can direct you elsewhere"?

Anyhow, I might let this one pass, even though I think it would be keen to work with non-physical persons. There's just something about it that makes me wonder if it's really on the up-and-up…wait--I know what it is! Sandy spelled license wrong! She spelled it licence! I bet they're a bunch of goddamn limeys, ghosts and all! Screw that!

Are These Guys Even TRYING??

As faithful readers know, I am intrigued by various bits and pieces of spam that come across my radar scope. Much of it is snagged by various filters, which is fine, but every so often one or two slip through. Some of them in the past have showed great ingenuity, and you can certainly see how they must attract marks. But some of them are so half-baked that you wonder how serious the spammer even is. For instance, here's this that arrived this morning:

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Dear Customer,

MetaBank temporarily suspended your account.
Reason: Billing failure.
We need you to complete an account update so we can unlock your account.

To start the update process follow the link below :

https://www.ebankmeta.com/onlineserv/HB/Signon.cgi

Once you have completed the process, we will send you an email notifying
that your account is available again. After that you can access your account at any time.

The information provided will be treated in confidence and stored in our secure database.
If you fail to provide required information your account will be automatically
deleted from MetaBank database.

Copyright @ 2005 MetaBank. MetaBank is an Equal Housing Lender. Member FDIC.

Note:
* If you received this message in your SPAM/BULK folder, that is because of the restrictions implemented by your ISP
* For security reasons, we will record your ip address, the date and time.
* Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicted.

---

Now, we do have MetaBanks in my community, so that's a plus. (You'd be amazed how many times my accounts have been suspended at banks that don't even operate in my locale!) I don't have any accounts there, but that's not the spammer's fault. The rest of it, though, is pretty ho-hum. Sure, there's the MetaBank logo, but come on...anyone can grab a logo off the interweb. The body of the message conveys no sense of urgency, while the best spam of this ilk makes me think I had better get on this johnny-on-the-spot or Dire Consequences will follow! This particular message, though, does nothing of the sort. It comes off as plain old housekeeping. Sort of like all the "important changes to your account" stuff we're forever getting from banks and credit-card companies. ZZZzzz.

Then there's the URL. It so happens that "https://www.ebankmeta.com/onlineserv/HB/Signon.cgi" does indeed take you to the real MetaBank, which is actually a little odd. If I'm one of those people who doesn't trust hotlinks and I copy-and-paste the address (as I did above), then I end up at the real MetaBank and thus out of the spammer's clutches. Which I'm pretty sure is a bad thing, from the spammer's point of view. I'd probably click around on the MetaBank website for awhile trying to find the place where I update my account, and when that failed I'd probably send e-mail via the bank's "contact us" link, at which point I'd learn I'd been duped.

All in all, it seems the spammer has not thought this through.

Those of us of a cynical nature, of course, like to mouse over the links in such messages and see where they really point to. And doing so makes me think this particular spammer needs to be looking for a new line of work, for his heart is clearly not in his current profession. The real link is to http://mail.rottenmann.at/kk.html. Rottenmann? I ask you! He might just as well have used http://www.ripyouoff.com. Crimeny!

And as it happens, following the link in Firefox 3 produces a Reported Web Forgery! page, which is fairly cool.


I'm in general not a big fan of internet entities "protecting" us without our asking them to do so (see "No Worries! AOL Is Watching Out for You!"), but Firefox at least provides an "ignore" option, unlike virtually every other "protector" I've encountered.

So I don't know. Maybe it's me, but it just seems like the glory days of spamming--the days of the truly imaginative spoof, the really admirable phish, the electronic confidence game crafted by people who took pride in their work and really put the "art" in "con artist"--have passed. Now it's all just one step, maybe two removed from virtual pan-handling. I fully expect to open one of these things one day and have it simply say, "Give me money."

Truly, the artists have all passed on.

Keep it to Yourself!

What in the world would give DeepDiscount.com the idea that I upon visiting their web site, would want to be startled, by George Strait's voice suddenly and uninvitedly "welcoming" me and asking me to buy his new CD?

I have whined about this in the past, but apparently my wisdom has gone unheeded.

And it isn't just me. Ken Magill, writing in the latest issue of Direct magazine, hilariously details his experience with "one of the most ignorant e-mail campaigns in the short history of the medium":

It came in the form of spam from Bing energy drinks, pitching delivery service to offices in Denver.

It's bad enough that the receiving e-mail address is not used for commercial purposes — so the address was clearly harvested — and that Direct's offices are in New York.

Clicking on the unsubscribe button spawned a pop-up window that had audio.

A friggin' surprise talking pop-up window in my cubicle.

"Hey, this is Jeremy from the Dom and Jane morning show and I want to tell you about a product I've been using for a little while," said my computer out of the blue. "It's called Bing. It's a brand-new energy drink that's out there, and it's made from black bing cherries, hence the name."

Magill concludes:

Message to marketers: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. If you want to make a sales pitch on my computer, especially the one at work, please shut up unless I indicate it's cool for you to talk.

I would extend that advice to webmasters as well.

One Damn Thing After Another!

Well, first it turns out that I owe $35 on my "dues" to the IRS...now I'm being kicked out of World of Warcraft! This distressing news came the other day, from WoWAccountReview :

Greetings,

We are writing to inform you that, unfortunately, we have had to temporarily suspend your World of Warcraft account and place a final warning on it.

We have had a problem in our database, it is possible that it is an error, in this case enter in the following link and follow the form:

https://www.wow-europe.com/account/?ticket=WB-532580-JHfvy5yMPThayjPYmoyR

Investigation Concluded: 09/01/2008
Type of Violation: Involvement in online trading activities
Consequences for Account: Account suspended for 72 hours, Password Reset and Final Warning issued.

It is with regret that we take this type of action, but it is in the best interests of the World of Warcraft community as a whole, and for the integrity of the game. After your suspension has expired, you will be able to access the World of Warcraft servers again.

To protect the account security, we have also reset your password and issued you with a computer generated one, which you will receive in a separate e-mail. You will be able to change this password at your leisure, using the Account Management feature on our web site, located at: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/

Your password will be sent from noreplyeu@blizzard.com. If you do not receive it after one hour, please add this address to your email address list so that it is not rejected by any spam filter you are using, and reply to wowaccountrevieweu@blizzard.com informing us that you have not received the password.

Please do not disclose your new password to anyone, including Blizzard staff, or change it back to one of your previous passwords as this could result in your account becoming compromised.

Please note that should any further violations of our Rules and Policies occur, this will almost certainly lead to the permanent closure of your account.

We strongly suggest you review our current Rules and Policies to avoid further action in the future, they can be found at:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/

Regards,

Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment Europe

Naturally, the distressing thing about it is that I don't have a World of Warcraft account. How humiliating to be kicked out of a game I've never played!

Could This Be Spam?

So here in the old inbox is a message, purportedly from "Internal Revenue Service ," withe the intriguing subject line "Irs.gov - Pay your dues."

My dues?!

		After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you did not pay all your dues and still have $35.25 residue. In order to complete the payment to the state, you can choose one of two payment methods. Either you REPLY this e-mail and automaticaly receive a special document to complete, either you enter the usual online payment site. To access the online payment site, please click here Regards, Internal Revenue Service

© Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved..

Odd, no, that the senders of this interesting mangling of English (even more interesting than the usual mangling of English one encounters in government contexts) seem to know enough about the United States revenue system that they give the false address tax@irs.gov, but then tell me I owe another 35 dollars on my dues? Never mind the typos and grammatical giveaways--"Either you REPLY this e-mail and automaticaly receive a special document to complete, either you enter the usual online payment site"--the simple fact that the spammers could not be bothered to even make a stab at the right lingo makes me think that they're not even trying. If you're going to do something, guys, do it well. Take some pride in your work, for crying out loud!

I feel insulted.

"Great" Spam!

I have begun collecting the "best" spam subject lines that land in my various mailboxes. What are the criteria? Mostly, a good mangling of standard English will do. Having not the vaguest idea what they're trying to communicate helps, too, but it isn't a requirement. General weirdness is the main thing.

For your entertainment I present them here as they came to me, "sender" first, followed by subject line. The "sender" notwithstanding, some of them appear to have been written by Yoda.

---

Leta Hill That those cadwell

Augusta Grant bigger d1ck in 2 weeks grew

Roslyn Mccall Don't let your x-life suffer sfilra

Wilma English Get A Bigger Today! dearie

Collectibles Today It's a Draw! John Wayne wall decor art first

Tony Must Have apothecary we acclaim: unusual markdown.

Mamie Davidson gzk Gain Up to 4+ gaixc

Lula Oconnor It till buena

Hot Sexy Christian Singles »-(¯`v´¯)-» View Single Christians Photos »-(¯`v´¯)-»
(do not the words “hot,” “sexy,” “Christian,” and “singles”—arranged in that order—not strike you as peculiar?

Lesa Taylor But sadism do bare

Elnora Ritter Become A New Man -Max-Xl grown jar

advanced my vdirt

Bridget hormone dtitled

Jesus disheveled and then and since the roles of the offering was firm but how would b...

inside Jarrett A he most

Geneva Bailey bijouterie crouch derelict

fort at delivery For caffeine Studies in humans have not shown that allocation

Ashley Novak basilar cowherd agricola

Ladonna Olson in from sanitary

Headache ranch enforceable

Guy N.Lillian cone wring

Jacob Against simple and you're playing with; his desk as the tight: smile. Pirenne's ...

Micah Brooks Be eveleth because guadalupita

Jeff automatically, and out here, too old gweat achievement, This?

Deidre Phelps Not mahoney at coulomb

Charles Alexander Yes. Which Mallow, found ourselves, a Smyrnian jacket for its

Roslyn Shields As who collar

Terra Hogan FW : my Pen1s is bigger than aghast ?

Janice Griggs weatherbeaten acrimony permitted ;

Chrystal Buckner wow, Monica was shocked beakrebi

Dolly Otero ceremonial astigmatism procession

Leigh Woods the rocket kent

Pearl Harper fckb Don't cut yourself short... szyps
(eventually I shall write a book with a character named Pearl Harper)