"Spammers losing their creative edge?" Topic

Seems these days lots of them are just 'phoning it in'. Time was, when they wanted me to send them my bank details, national insurance number, birth certificate, or just cold hard cash, they'd at least spend a little time on backstory.

You know, someone stranded in a poor african country, surrounded by corrupt officials who had thankfully missed that $27,000,000.00 in their bank account, and only YOU could liberate it! Sometimes they were the spouse of a deceased government member, sometimes they were the victim of some awful disease or natural disaster and had only survived thanks to clinging on to a branch for fourteen days. They put something into at least…

Now all I seem to get is rather testy little emails saying this is the SECOND time we've contacted you, we still have YOUR money, now will you stop wasting OUR time and contact us so we can get this thing done. I mean really, where's the attempt to form that crucial link between swindler and victim that's been the basis of fraud since Og persuaded Ug to part with that big slab of meat in return for a rock?

And why's the money gone down so much? It always used to be tens of millions of bucks, now you're lucky if they offer you five mil, tops! What's become of the pride they used to take in their trade, their craft, has an instructor retired, have they dumbed down the syllabus, or is the national college of personal enrichment still open even?

I don't know, perhaps it's just the modern generation of spammers. Anyway, can't bleat on anymore, got to reply to that nineteen year old Anya to finalise her travel arrangments ;>

I'll talk to "Anya" about improving her efforts. The Nigerian Oil Ministry strives to provide only the finest direct electronic mass marketing efforts for your reading pleasure.

Still, the amount of people falling for these tricks have quadrupled over here (Netherlands) in one year, to over 500 cases.

Don't know about the values going down. I just got one with 500 million available. Just posted it. It was quite creative.

Now all I seem to get is rather testy little emails saying this is the SECOND time we've contacted you, we still have YOUR money, now will you stop wasting OUR time and contact us so we can get this thing done

That's usually an excuse why they are not addressing you in person. We've already contacted you, this is a the last time we will contact you (again) and we will not give the details here because they were in the first email (which was never actually sent, of course). It's a bit like pressure selling, this deal is only open now, the minute you walk out the door it expires, so sign up…

There is still some creativity going about though. I just got this one:

However, we received an email from one Mr. Lonato Paul, who told us That you are dead and he is your next of kin and that you died in a car Accident four months back.To our findings we discover that this Mr. Lonato Paul is a liar and imposer that is why we contact you before any release of funds.

So apparently I am dead, or Mr Paul is lying. I might email them back and tell them they are fine to release them as I am actually dead.

Are there many spammers?

I mean is it a finite number of them concentrated in Nigeria, Malaysia. Russia etc or are there untold 1000s of the perfidious little suckers spread over the world?

As my work email (heavily anti-virus protected BTW) opens all mail automatically, I've taken to answering some & teasing them.
My latest nom de guerre is a 17 yr old called Aloyisius Apademna who has no money etc of his own but has full access to his rich parents' accounts. The spammers almost wet themselves in anticipation before Aloyisius gets an attack of conscience & joins a monastery, urging them to join him in "a life of series contempletion of syn." (he can't spell BTW)

My latest nom de guerre is a 17 yr old called Aloyisius Apademna who has no money etc of his own but has full access to his rich parents' accounts.

Like it. I have used Dr J V Hamsterveil (from Lilo and Stich). I managed to get 3 (US) credit cards and a malaysian shipping address, so passed it all to the FBI.

I'm jealous.

From the half dozen I've spammed, they seem remarkably stupid. It takes them a long while to get suspicious and even then I have to break the bad news that I'm not serious.

Of course, this doesn't say much about the intelligence of their victims.