J M Wetherington Sr

Every once in a while, among all the Viagra, Hot Babe and Penis Enlargement spam I get, some really, REALLY strange ones that just jump out of my spam folder when I review it.

Here’s one I received this morning. Purportedly it is from “City of San Diego” (though the “from” email address is somewhere in Romania – contabilctsar@transfuzia.ro) for a parking violation of my TRACTOR-TRAILER COMBO (never owned one, much less driven and parked one in a city I’ve never been in) and that “this fines” “area” past due (love the mangled syntax and misspellings of non-English speakers/writers) must be paid in the next “ten calendar days” (nice touch with the semi-business language attempt).

Two things always amaze me about these spam and phishing attempts:

1. That someone even tries to convince me that there is a problem with a) a bank or financial institution I’ve NEVER done business with, b) delivery of an item I’ve never ordered, c) my computer sending “help” requests that they can assist me with, d) a huge motor vehicle I’ve never owned, driven or am even remotely qualified to operate legally. Oh, and that my good friend in Nigeria has a boatload of money for me if I’ll just kindly send my banking information so they can deposit it in my account.
2. That there really are people who respond to these attempts, thus making it obvious that, despite my number one amazement, these things work on some kind of scale.

Maybe it’s not really some kid hacking out of an Eastern European boarding house. Maybe it’s the NSA (Hi guys) trying to scrape up any last vestiges of personal information about me they may not already possess. Either way, it’s rather sad and amateurish and, in some ways, mildly amusing.