E-Dribble

My wife forwarded a scam mail to me a couple of days ago because I like to reply to them if it seems that they’ve put some effort into their attempt to steal my money.  I can appreciate the time it takes to carefully craft a deceptive body of text, gently stroking my greed while being careful not to tug too hard and wake up my common sense.  If they are well thought out and executed, I reward them with what I hope is a funny reply that they can have a laugh with their cohorts over.

Here’s what was forwarded to me:

Congratulations, Your email address has emerged the winner of the MSW
WINNINGS PROGRAMMMES held on 1ST November 2007.You have been approved for a sum
of 5,500,000.00 GBP.To claim contact:
Mr. Garry Wool
E-mail: woolholdingscenter@hotmail.com
Tel: +4470 4573 3591
INFORMATIONS REQUIRED:
NAMES:
ADDRESS:
TEL:
Sincerely.

This guy does not get a reply.

I mean, what the hell?  I can overlook the spelling and grammatical errors, the fact that we’re supposed to believe that an entity wanting to give away 5 1/2 million pounds would use an adelphia and hotmail account and the fact that MS would deal in pounds  for their make-believe drawing.

Still, what the hell?  My six year old daughter could come up with a letter more convincing than this.

Is this what it’s come to?  Has phishing and 419 scams been dumbed down so much that every Tom, Dick and Harry just grabs a template, chooses a company and a sum of money then hits the send button? It saddens me to think that this is the type of scam email we can look forward to seeing in the future.  If it gets any worse, this is what you’ll be able to expect:

from: bogus@email.com
to: my@email.com

subject: I need your bank account number.

body: My email is fake, so just fax that information to me. 

Years from now, when I’m telling my daughter the way the world used to be, I’ll tell her about a time when scammers cared about their craft. A time when we could expect them to sing for their soup.  To weave a tapestry so rich with their words that we would want to give them our life savings.

Providing she can hear me over the crappy music all the kids are listening to nowadays.