Taunting Spam

Some Mondays are tough, and other Mondays are super-tough -- for me, the fact that this is really the first work Monday of '07 means this Monday hit me particularly hard. In what is already a dreary and rainy day (at least in NYC, where this morning, the smell of gas permeated the entire city, which always immediately makes me think of 9/11, but as of this post I remain unblown-up), from now on I am going to take a moment out of each Monday to try to add some levity to the day by taunting spam.

Although this in no way reflects the policy of my company, Message Partners, and we have much better tools to stop spam then a rude taunting, well, who knows, maybe if I taunt spam hard enough, maybe spam will finally decide it's had enough and go straight home and refuse to come out anymore. Hey, anything to help Message Partners beat spam is all right by me.

So, today I received the following spam:

Dear Friend,

Greetings to you and your family, I am David Xueqing, a staff of
Private Banking services of the Bank of china, Shenzhen China. I have an
obscured business proposal that I am sure will be of interest to you.

Please respond to me via my private email address:
dxue10112@yahoo.com.hk

Upon reciept of your response, I will give your more information on the
business.

I will await your prompt response to this email.

Sincerely,

David Xueqing

My taunt:

Hey fellow email user from China. Thank you for taking the time out of your very busy crime-ridden schedule to contact me. I know you probably are very anxious to hear from me, as you probably have to purse-snatch a couple of little old ladies later. And your mother probably still has no idea you've stolen her identity so you can opt for the extra-special nail-spa treatment.

Thanks for calling me your friend, David. I've never met you before and already I'm your friend. That's really great. In America, friends send friends extravagant birthday presents, so I'll let you know when and where to send it.

I know, I know, enough small talk, let's get down to the business at hand. You say you have an "obscured business proposal." Obscured, huh, does that mean it's obscured from you? If I get into a business deal with you, I'd prefer you knew about it, friend.

And you say you are a "staff" of Private Banking services of the Bank of china. I've never done business with a staff before, but if you were a walking stick, or better yet, a magic wand, then you might really have my interest.

Also, David, one easy bit of advice, USE A DICTIONARY. While the fact that you're using English is quite exemplary, as it's probably not your first language, you misspelled receive, man. Not that big of a deal, but your whole email revolved around receive, you see, because you simply cannot proceed to the next step of the scam unless you receive something, anything, from me. So receive is a key word, the crux word, the word you really want to get right, my fiend David. And no, I didn't mean to write My friend David. You see how that spelling thing works.

But altogether, David, I can only say I have contempt for you, my friend. I mean, aren't you really just running a scam that the Nigerians have been doing for years, and a scam that they do better (they use much better details). And from what I've read, Nigeria is a seriously depressed country, whereas China is booming, so here's some unsolicited advice for you, David.

Go get a job. I mean a real job. Something your mother would be proud of. And I don't mean you imitating your mother so you can get a bunch free credit cards, I mean the-woman-who-gave-birth-to-you mother.