Just a note this morning to ask a certain party to get off my blog. I don’t do this very often. Most spam I just delete. But I’m now into double digits on this thing and I figure the time has come to give somebody a kick in the butt about it.
Before I do, I will recall one of the great moldy oldies of our common spamtastic past. Do you all remember the Nigerian 419 scam, which started, I believe, well before the Internet but has continued for some reason in the new era, in spite of all the writing that’s been done about it, my own included? I suppose it’s proof that there will always be credulous people in the world. In that appeal to global stupidity, somebody e-mails you and tells you that she or he is the tearful relative of a former member of the Nigerian military/government/royal family and that, due to uncertain conditions in the nation or the execution of their loved one, they are now sitting on a huge amount of money which they would like you to come to Nigeria and take out of the bank, at which point you will get a hefty piece of the pie. Incredibly, people have done this. But there’s now quite a bit of awareness about the scam, so maybe a few potential idiots have been saved.
So now I’m going to send up a flare. About three times a week now, I get the following comment, which is immediately sent to spam:
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
The message is then signed by a name: Ruth, Marvin, Pete, whatever, and is always then followed with some lame internet link that has something to do with finance. Interestingly, the link is never the same. So I don’t really get it. But you know what? I don’t want to.
The first time I got this form of spam, I was kind of flattered, until I saw the link and realized it was a creepy ruse to get people to contact the nefarious denizens of those web destinations. Now I know. Nobody “recently came across my blog.” Nobody “has been reading along.” It’s just another bunch of scuzzy losers trying to get over on people.
So get lost, Ruth, Betty, Bob and Ingrid. Unless, of course, you have $111 million dollars in an African bank you’d like to withdraw. Then I think I could help!