It’s The Language, Stupid

Like most, I get my share of spam. Since I use Thunderbird as my mail program, lots of it (not all of it and certainly not as much as when I used a standalone spam program) gets dispatched to a place I seldom see.

When spam does make it to my in-box, I often look. I’m curious about these scams and the lengths to which the scammers will go to make their email seems legit.

Today I got a congratulatory email telling me I had won the British Lottery! The return email address was an MSN account and the “DPU Information Officer Mrs Judith Mark who has been assigned to Assist you,” is using a free account from an Indian portal.

Meanwhile, if you look beyond that, my favorite part is this. I’ve won the “consultation” prize! Hey guys, don’t you mean consolation?

We wish to congratulate and inform you on the selection of your email coupon number which was selected among the 45 lucky consultation prize winners.

Your email ID identified with coupon No.PBL2348974321 and was selected by our E-games Random Selection System (ERSS) with entries from the 50,000 different email addresses enrolled for the E-game. Your email ID was included among the 50,000 different email addresses Submitted by our partner international email provider companies.

You Have won a consultation cash prize of US $2,500,000.00 (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) The BRITISH WEB LOTTERY. Have approved a Payout of your consultation cash prize which will be remunerated directly to you by the official Payment Agency Board.

Wow, I’m now a consultant.

Try as they might, these advance fee fraud phishers always screw up somewhere. Some day they won’t. Right now, they’re fun to watch… as long as you watch from afar.