Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Devastating Spam

When I was 14 I created a Yahoo account. I therefore have a yahoo email address. As a result, whenever I am on messenger, all the emails that I receive pop up in the corner of my screen with a little *ding*.

I never give this email address out and so usually they are spam. No, they are ALWAYS spam. I will be chatting away and then suddenly a little *ding* noise will sound and at the bottom of my screen with show "New email alert!, From: Suzy Q, Subject: Come make sexy time with me!" or something offering "Free pills FOREVER!" or "Want to Make 41 MILLION DOLLARS in Two Days?" to which I say, "um... yes please! Wait... you almost had me Nigerian scammers."

The reason why today's emailing scam was so heartbreaking is because lately, I've been networking in Connecticut regional chatrooms with my yahoo email address. I know... lame. Whatever, it could work.


Today I get this email, the most dastardly email ever. "New email alert!, From: Michael Vincent, Subject: ALYSON, I found you a new job."

I get immediately excited and rush to my inbox because I think that even though I don't know a "Michael Vincent" I must have networked with him in some chatroom at some point. No surprise, it is yet another scam to do those survey things online where you pay like 40$ to learn how to do surveys that end up not paying you any money. Does anyone ever wonder who originally came up with that idea? Think about how many times you have been asked to do a survey for free over the phone. Do you really think people are gonna pay you $75 for 15 minutes for your opinion? It's not a medical study. Come on people.

You know what my favorite part of this ad was? It wasn't the claim that I could "Ear $150,000+ from your place" filling out surveys online. It was the claim that one of ONLY TWO listed benefits of this job was the ability to "spend more time with your family." Yeah... They clearly haven't met my family. I want a job so I can move as far away as possible from my family. The other benefit kind of made no sense, "start making more immediately." I assume they meant money, but at the same time, this also assumes I already have a job. Even the subject of the email already assumes I HAVE a job, "ALYSON, I found you a new job."

What was even more quality about this email was that after "start making money from home" there was an asterisk, as if there was a special term or condition that needed to be explained, but no asterisk anywhere in the rest of the five line email to explain what those terms or conditions were.

Alas, despite my 3 minutes of hope, because that is how long it takes to log into Yahoo email, I am still unemployed.

What an adventure that was.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

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