The Weekly Spam Report

Week 2 - September 08-14, 2002

Number of spam messages for this report: 949

Notice how I've got more messages this week ? That number gives me an average of almost 137 spams a day. If I got a penny for each one, I would get almost exactly $500 in a year. Which would not be bad at all.

And $500 is exactly what two of the messages promised me: "Get up to $500 in two minutes or less!". Curious ? So was I. Turns out that they are actually giving loans against your paycheck, which is not quite what I had in mind.

However, if I settle for just $400, someone is offering that, too. But it's a casino, and you have to pony up $1000 before they give you $400. Not good.

Among other free offers this week, I got inumerable messages trying to give me a free PDA (I've already got one, thankyouverymuch), one giving a CD player, a few giving college money, *several* giving cell phones (and why is it that all of them want to know my driver's license number ?), and a weird one trying to give away a free "ball shagger". What the hell is that ? Looks like something out of a Austin Powers movie... Oh, another unusual one: "get laid for free". I did not check it out, but I'll be glad to forward it to whomever asks for it.

Spammer of the week: Columbia House. Many, many, many messages from them, or from someone acting on their behalf. And I honestly used to think that they were a reputable company. I'm deeply disappointed.

Sleaziest one: "free Lord of The Rings DVD; free shipping, no credit card needed". They do need your e-mail address, though, in order to send you a confirmation message. How does it work ? You sign up for "special offers" from one of their partners and, once you've paid it, you (supposedly) get your DVD. Netflix and, guess who, Columbia House are among the partners.

Best one: "get a free car or SUV!". Wow, I've got to see that! Their website claims that hundreds of companies worldwide give cars for free, and one of them can be yours! The catch ? You have to pay $24.99 to join their (the site's, not the companies') application service. And, if you click on "more details" under the "secure site" mmessage, what you get is

   There was an error fetching (or sending) the contact details for the owner
   of this site, request code: AFYFP912
   Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.
   The thawte team
   Thawte Digital Certificates

More people not to vote for: Ezequiel (PSB) for Congress and Graça (PSB) for state legislature.

Most honest: "We want your skin!" Sorry, I'm still using it.

Most ironic: "ELIMINATE SPAM". Only $39.95. Lawyers out there, does this qualify as blackmail ? I'm glad to see that this website was shut down before I got there. Kudos to godaddy.com for the quick action!

Stupidest spammer of the week: well, there's a story behind this one. A few months ago I sold my car. To do that, I used the services of a company that specializes in that: you give them your car and your price, and they sell it for you. I had to fill a form (pen and paper, not web), and one of the fields was my e-mail address. They claimed that they'd use it to let me know they'd found a buyer. They did sell the car, in less than two weeks, for a good price. A few weeks later, I started getting messages from them saying "we can sell your car for you!". Well, duh! You already did it! So I write them back to tell them that. No luck. The messages are still coming, once or twice a week. Guess whom I won't be doing business with, ever again ?

That's it for today, folks. Oh, by the way: a reader from Germany told me that there is no such a thing as a 1 Euro bill, so those guys from last week wouldn't be able to give me one even if they wanted to. That must be the reason why they did not call back.

No report next week, I'll be out of town. Check back in two weeks!