They're a cyberspace scourge, technology's version of a pestilence. And there's no real cure. The sad fact is spammers are here to stay. Yet just as diseases have varying degrees of menace from, say, the common cold to the plague, the same is true of spammers. The common cold are the idiots who fill our e-mail boxes with offers for ED cures or drugs. Near the other end of the spectrum are those whose sole purpose is to try to fleece people, most often the gullible or the elderly, out of thousands of dollars.
The latter are the targets of Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Hilarious Exchanges with Internet Spammers. Written by "Bob Servant," with assistance from Neil Forsyth, this slim volume contains the e-mails Servant, of Broughty Ferry, Scotland, exchanges with a variety of e-mail spammers as he strings them along with daffy questions, requests, information and demands. The premise is akin to that of so-called "scam-baiters," who seek to force scammers to actually go somewhere or take stupid actions. While scam-baiters are in search of barnyard justice, Servant's take is aimed at fun and perhaps showing the spammers are as gullible as the prey upon which they feed.
To a North American or European of average intelligence, it's plain that Servant's responses were as over the top as they were eager. For example, when he receives an e-mail and picture from "Alexandra," purportedly an attractive 25-year-old Russian woman looking for a husband, his reply exclaims "what a pair of bazookas" she has and he gives it the subject line, "By Christ You Could Take Someone's Eyes Out With Them.". As the e-mail exchanges continue, he sends a picture of an elderly man, later mentioning that although he is 62, he has "a hell of a lot of cash at my disposal." Alexandra desperately wants to meet him. All she needs is 1,000 Euros to get a visa. As Bob continues to string her along, he even gets her to apply for a job as a waitress at the local pub.
Article comments
1 - Yvette Kelly
Hah sounds good.My family who owns a water bottling factory had advertised on some website that we were looking for 15 gallon water bottle and lo and behold,we received a mail asking us to quote on supplying water to a refugee camp in Togo as well.We went ahead even though we had done our homework and all info they gave us were duds.After submitting our quote we were immediately informed that we had won the contract.All we needed to do now was transfer EU7000 into a bank ac to secure the contract.We made up a dud bank deposit slip for EU 70 000(our country's laws stipulate that we pay 10% at least in deposit when securing a foreign contract,remember???).After a few days we contacted them to tell them that their bank had rejected our transfer and returned our money.Boy was that fun!! The e mails that went flying,the panic,the horror.We eventually had to end that business relationship!!!!!!