Most spam letters try to appeal to either your hunger for fame/glory/endless amounts of real-cash-now or pluck at your heart strings, playing a sad little violin whose notes beget notions of sorrow for poor kids in “select popularized so-called-poor country”.
The following letter does neither (and, frankly, is only somewhat related to Terry in the global-issues sense), which makes me especially suspicious of it. Here’s a snippet of it:
CONFERENCE/ INVITATION
Dear Sir/Madam
We are cordially inviting you to our twin combined conference which will be held.In Dakar senegal From the 21st -23rd of February 2008 and Anaheim California from the 27th -30th of February 2008.
If you are interested to participate and want to represent your country,you may contact the secretariat of the organizing committee for details and information. You should also inform them that you were invited to participate by a friend of yours (Ella Dover), who is a member of the American Youths for Peace and a staff of (WORLD YOUTH ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS).
The benevolent donors of the Organizing Committee will provide round trip air tickets and accommodation for the period of participants Stay in the U.S, to all registered participants.You will only be responsible for your own hotel booking in Dakar where the second phase of the conference will be held.
What utterly despicable bastards. Here’s the thing – there is a World Youth Organization (now called the World Student Assembly), and they appear to have a noble cause:
The Student World Assembly is a non-governmental, nonpartisan organization created to represent students globally. It provides a deliberative assembly where students around the world can exchange views, vote on global issues through online discussion forums and in annual international conventions, and translate these views into meaningful actions.
Great, so when you google “World Youth Organization”, and determine for yourself their validity, you might be more inclined (if, for example, you’re either half-witted, prone to take anything free from people you don’t know, or suffer from severe activism – i.e. you have a soft spot for any cause) to reply.
I think I will count this under the “misappropriation of rational discourse” Terry category.
Now, If only they offered 10 ka-gillion franks/british pounds/bolivars/hyrven/kapeek, I might be more inclined…
Dave Semeniuk spends hours locked up in his office, thinking about the role the oceans play in controlling global climate, and unique ways of studying it. He'd also like to shamelessly plug his art practice: davidsemeniuk.com
By Far the Weirdest Spam Letter I’ve Ever Received.
By Dave Semeniuk,
[Image attachments of spam messages I collected during the last couple of weeks – semi-randomly put together ]
Most spam letters try to appeal to either your hunger for fame/glory/endless amounts of real-cash-now or pluck at your heart strings, playing a sad little violin whose notes beget notions of sorrow for poor kids in “select popularized so-called-poor country”.
The following letter does neither (and, frankly, is only somewhat related to Terry in the global-issues sense), which makes me especially suspicious of it. Here’s a snippet of it:
What utterly despicable bastards. Here’s the thing – there is a World Youth Organization (now called the World Student Assembly), and they appear to have a noble cause:
Great, so when you google “World Youth Organization”, and determine for yourself their validity, you might be more inclined (if, for example, you’re either half-witted, prone to take anything free from people you don’t know, or suffer from severe activism – i.e. you have a soft spot for any cause) to reply.
I think I will count this under the “misappropriation of rational discourse” Terry category.
Now, If only they offered 10 ka-gillion franks/british pounds/bolivars/hyrven/kapeek, I might be more inclined…
Related Topics
Dave Semeniuk spends hours locked up in his office, thinking about the role the oceans play in controlling global climate, and unique ways of studying it. He'd also like to shamelessly plug his art practice: davidsemeniuk.com