What would happen if you wrote back to the spammers—not to enter into the scam, but to mess with their minds? Jonathan Land decided to do this one day ("Did my insatiable mean streak miss a feeding? Did I see an opportunity to generate a few cheap laughs?"), and The Spam Letters was the result.
Land's replies are sometimes scatological, sometimes deviant, and always hilarious. Offered a chance for an Internet Shopping Mall, he responds with a screed about a misunderstood offer to a sweet young thing at the local shopping center.
...I'll give you my phone number and address just in case. Please think about it. I'm seriously just trying to help. I don't see you as a hot, shapely, naive young girl, just as a blooming flower who needs a good watering with a powerful hose.
No spammer is immune. On receiving an eMail ad from Jelly Belly touting the earwax and spinach flavors of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans, Land returns a request for George-Jetson-style full dinners in jelly-bean compactness.
Challenged to Help Slutty College Girls Make Tuition, "Dr Jonathan Land, Professor of Sexual Math at the University of Intercourse, PA" replies with a treatise that looks like a bona fide term paper, complete with graphs and formulae for calculating his trademarked "Slut Factor."
The best sequence in the book is the three-way "conversation" between a Nigerian finance scammer and Land in two personae. He replies to the scam with open arms (Land-1), then follows up with an eMail from his supposed agent (Land-2) with full power of attorney, in which he accuses Land-1 of insanity but expresses his own interest in doing a deal. Not for cash, though—Land-2 wants a property deal in Nigeria, and perhaps a bride as well.
I know you're the government, and this might be illegal, but what's your mail order bride industry like? Is that a legitimate industry there like it is Asia and the eastern part of Europe? I hope there are no weird overtones because of the racial issues involved. I assure you, I do not discriminate against ANYONE, pussy, is pussy is pussy. That what I was raised to believe. I would fully incorporate my bride-for-hire into my life in the customary American fashion. We'll take long walks on the beach together, she'll prepare and later clean up our candlelight dinners, and she'll have lots of my babies while she hangs out and maintains the property. I wouldn't be "buying a woman", I would be putting an investment into a wife that I will grow to love and respect as soon as I possibly can. I sincerely mean that.
If it is illegal... never mind, unless you're willing to look the other way... I mean, I am doing a big favor for you here.
The last thing you want to do is write back to a spammer. But if you've ever yearned to do this, do the next best thing instead. Read this book, and realize that Land has already humiliated these idiots enough for all of us.
Article comments
1 - L. Cue
I thought I was the only one that did that...damn, can I publish my leters now too?
2 - DrPat
Check out the links to Land's web site, and compare your responses with his - if yours are even half as funny, you've got a shot!
Probably the most impressive thing about Land's repartee is the consistent good writing he employs. Lapses from grammar are rare, and seem designed to achieve an effect, rather than from having a tin ear for such things.
3 - The Proprietor
Although the advance fee fraud artists are catching on to the game, for sheer amusement, you can read amusing stories of scam baiting at 419 Eater, a site dedicated to frustrating the "mugus". One of my favorite scam baiting tactics is when the baiter takes on the persona of someone in popular culture and plays with the scammer's head. A particularly juicy one was a rather ditzy Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward "dealing" with a scammer, and she was just full of gossipy details about her friends, the incredible Tracy family :-)
4 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
hmm, i just received spam which begins Dr Duke De Mondo. nice to know these scammers pay attention. And, would you believe, they were represting a Mr B.J Mondo.
Brilliant.
5 - DrPat
Thanks for that 419_Eater link, Proprietor! I dropped in on the site, but had to quickly segue off - this is a place that could be as much a time-and-effort black hole as Solitaire or (ahem!) blogging for me!
Really, if you have a yen to argue with the spammers that isn't quelled by reading The Spam Letters, this is a good site to start with!
6 - HW Saxton
Uh oh! Damn it. I knew I didn't have any
relatives in the Oil industry in Nigeria
that had died recently.Better call Bank
Of America pronto!