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Saturday 21 April 2012

S Is For Spam

And I'm not talking about the tinned meat... although I do like that sort of Spam... it's very nice in sandwiches. I could probably write an entire post about eating Spam...



But that's not what I was talking about. Spam - the crap that infiltrates your emails and tries to plant itself on your blog comments.

I'd never really had spam on my blog comments... until I changed the settings for the A To Z Challenge so that anyone could comment. Now I know some of the regulars are probably thinking that you haven't seen any spam. That's because it doesn't actually appear on my blog... I just get emails telling me that a comment was added... but when you look for it it has gone.

I wouldn't have know that it was spam if I hadn't have copied and pasted the comment to Google and translated it... it was in Russian.

The junk folder on my emails is usually full of online casino invitations, messages from banks and the occasional pharmaceutical related email (I'm female therefore I don't have much use for that sort of thing ;) ).

The messages from banks usually tell me that my online account is going to be closed unless I click this dodgy link and give them all my personal information. In a lot of these cases I don't even have an account with that particular bank.

I'm not trying to help these cretins (I can't believe I spelt that right first time!) but it would help if they could spell - posibile? Imformation? You seriously believe that a real bank wouldn't spell check these things?

But occasionally you get some real gems that make you laugh. I've had the odd one or two telling me about some long lost estranged relative who had died... and I'm the first living relation he has been able to find... but the inheritance is all tied up in probate and things... and I just have to give them a huge chunk of my hard earned cash and they can unlock it... and then I'll never hear from them again!

But the funniest one I've ever received is one that I actually mentioned in this random thought. I actually laughed out loud at it. Back in November 2011 I received an email from the financial adviser of...

Wait for it...

Colonel Gaddafi's son!

Apparently he had fled his country and was having trouble getting at the cash he's hidden away in a secret account and was I mug enough to give him money... I'd be made a partner and get loads of money out of it... I think not somehow.

I laugh about these things but I feel sorry for the people who are taken in by some of the more convincing ones.

Has anyone else had any entertaining spam?


4 comments:

AuthorAlden said...

Ahh yes, the scourge of the internet! I got my first spam comment since the A to Z Challenge began, as well. Like you, I found that the comment never actually made it to the blog, it just came to my inbox.

I've read some funny ones over the years. Have you ever seen 419baiter.com? They reply back to spam emails and string the scammers along. It's pretty entertaining sometimes!

J.W. Alden

Lynn Proctor said...

not really---i don't even notice spam--my daughter will have to point it out--it's not like i fall for it though :)

Precy Larkins said...

Oh my! LOL!!! You do get funny spam. Me, not so much. I get the occasional enhancement pills (I'm female too, so what am I supposed to enhance??), and the dead relative or even the super "nice" Christian woman who is in her deathbed and doesn't have any relatives and wants to will her possessions to me, a complete stranger, because apparently she's so Christian she doesn't care where her money goes to.

XD

Sara Hill said...

Yeah, funny spam. But I wanted to comment on Operation Mincemeat. Very cool story!