Tag: Spam

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

I do get some weird and not so wonderful spam emails. We all do. It goes with the territory, I guess. Many are littered with schoolboy errors – sloppy punctuation, terrible grammar and lazy formatting. And some also promise riches only a fool would refuse/are too good to be true (delete according to level of gullibility) like this one…

Mrs. Maria Elisabeth Schaeffler, a German business magnate,Investor and philanthropist. I am one of the owners of  Schaeffler Group . 25 percent of my personal wealth is spent on charity. And I also promised to give the rest of 25% away to individuals this year 2025. I have decided to donate 4,800,000.00Euros to you.

If only I’d known about this before our trip to expensive Gay Paree. A few extra Euros stuffed into my bum bag would have come in very handy.

The thing is, Maria Elisabeth Schaeffler really is a German business magnate. I wonder if the good lady knows about all this funny business going down in her name?

And then, as if things couldn’t get any weirder or less wonderful, this fake news dropped into my spam folder…

Really? Do I look like a bible belt trumpeteer or a redneck devotee of that other total fruit loop, the malodorous Musk? What have I done to deserve this?

That leads to a very tenuous link to the Pet Boys’ 1987 hit with the late, much-lamented Dusty Springfield. I was a huge fan of them both back in the day.

Well done to the Boys for giving Mary O’Brien one last crack of the whip.

Money with Menaces

From time to time the odd genuine email drops into my spam folder by mistake, so I check it regularly. Spam-wise, I get targeted with a load of old crap. We all do – it’s the price we pay for being plugged in and switched on. They’re a mixed economy, often amusing and frequently daft. If I wanted Viagra, I’d buy it over the counter from Boots. And why would I need dodgy cut-price US car insurance or bargain-bucket bullets?

Sometimes, though, my scam spam turns more threatening. Recently, some pond life with terrible, often pompous, English calling himself ‘Fergus Bateman’ claimed to have hacked into my devices. Allegedly, he’d been monitoring my activity.

Fergus wrote…

“I found that you’ve been a frequent patron to erotic websites. It seems you have quite a bold side when it comes to finding satisfaction through these platforms.”

And that he’s…

“… come across some adult recordings featuring you, displaying intimate interactions I have that you might not want publicly shared.”

Erotic websites? My bold side? Intimate interactions? Oh no, has Fergus uncovered my saucy seventies Polaroids? And, he says he’s also stolen my address book and social media IDs so I’d better pay him the ‘trivial amount’ of $12,000 within 24 hours* or else.

Twelve grand? Trivial?

Well, Fergus, the bedroom blackmailer, social misfit and all round shit with your silly big words like ‘cognizant’ (US spelling) and ‘elucidate’, extortion may be the name of your game but the only money game I play is Monopoly.

So do your worst. Or better still, get a job.

All joking aside, there’s a serious point to all this. Scammers scam just like muggers mug because there’s money in it. Online or on the streets, theft is as old as the hills. And with social media becoming increasingly toxic, who knows who the good guys are anymore? Maybe it’s time to unplug and switch off?

*Of course, the 24 hour deadline came and went and still no one’s had the dubious pleasure of seeing my wee willy on screen. But I do sometimes wonder what happened to those old Polaroids.

Must Try Harder

QuickBooks is a handy accountancy package used by many small businesses and sole traders like me so it’s not that surprising that scammers target their users. Scamming is a highly profitable business – a digital plague bringing ruin and misery to so many. But really, when it plummets to this level of stupidity, it’s a miracle that anyone gets conned.

0/10 for language, spelling, grammar, punctuation and the wrong currency. Must try harder.

Another Day, Another Silly Scam

Spam is just like tax and death – unavoidable. Crafty spammers, scammers and crooks, enhanced by even craftier AI, are at it night and day finding even more ingenious ways to get us to part with our pennies. Sometimes, though, the attempts are just silly. I recently received this email from ‘Weebly’, a website hosting service. For a split second, it sounded plausible – I use Weebly for several websites. But then I looked more closely at the sender’s email address: sillysocklady@aol.com. What a silly lady.

Must be Kismet

Perking the Pansies runs on WordPress, the blogosphere top dog. And being best in breed, it comes with a catch-all spam filter called Akismet which keeps the smelly trolls at bay. It’s just as well. Like most regular bloggers, I’m plagued by spam comments – mostly smut or machine-generated silly-babble. But over the last few months, I’ve received a tsunami – and I mean thousands – of spam comments from an auto-bot named ‘Tuyetfruib’, each one using a unique web address. It was spamming on an industrial scale. And what was the main target of this onslaught? Only an old post called Desperately Seeking Doreen featuring none other than my elderly mother.

Then, quite suddenly, the assault stopped. Tuyetfruib must’ve blown a fuse.

But I do wonder what my flirty, flighty old girl did to warrant such production line attention?

Doreen Dowdall

In Need of Good Sex?

On top of the almost daily spam calls and emails supposedly from Amazon Prime, the taxman (or woman), my internet provider, various banks, blah, blah, yawn, yawn, I also get pestered by Faceache friend requests from scantily clad, pouting ladies offering me a really sexy time. Here’s one…

join the Snapchat group that I have founded. in the Snapchat group There are many lonely women who need a date … so if you want to join the group, it’s FREE without spending any money. click here

And here’s another enticement…

Hello. Hello. I started a WhatsApp group for sex. Here’s to many single girls who need good sex. You can participate here without spending money. Can you love a girl like you here, looking for a partner? Are you interested?? Join a group and find your date??…

Barking up the wrong tree springs to mind. Can this old dog learn new tricks? Not a chance. I know the theory but I’m a bit short on the practicals. In any case, the second invitation – badly machine-translated from Russian or whatever – suggests I’m a girl looking for some girl-on-girl action. So not just the wrong tree but the wrong forest too.

There won’t be a lovely lady at the end of the line, just some sweaty mafioso ripping off the sad and the lonely. And what are the ‘names’ of my sexy new friends? Brünhilde Schultze Schierokauer and McCrackeno Khava. You couldn’t make it up, except, of course, it was.

Image courtesy of Consumer Affairs.

Spamalot

I’ve been plagued with spam comments ever since I started this blogging malarkey – nearly 370,000 so far. Just like Domestos and germs, my spam filter kills off 99.9% of ’em so I don’t have to. I used to get an eclectic mix of spam – the collective weaknesses, desires, vices and foibles of humanity laid bare, blended with endless machine-generated auto-babble. These days the slut and smut stuff is mostly absent, and I generally just get pseudo-clinical gibberish, all targeted at a single post from way back in 2012. Here’s an example:

Decrease of a stage of hemoglobin at males up to 120g/l, at girls up to 110g/l is possible. This can imply dependence on male breadwinners, abandoned opportunities for paid work, and exhaustion that extracts a physical and psychological toll. The former is shown, for example, in exams for cutaneous sensitization, whereas the latter is proven in impairment of the power to resist infection erectile dysfunction for women Correlation of preoperative depression and somatic percepRecommendation #2: tion scales with postoperative incapacity and quality of life afer Collecting data concerning the preoperative characteristics and lumbar discectomy. In the course of therapy, the following duties are solved in every particular affected person: fi reduction of exacerbation; fi selection of adequate primary remedy; fi reduction of the danger of development of complications; fi decreasing the danger of side effects in the course of the course.

The post in question is Goodbye to the Turkish Living Forum. It caused quite a stir at the time, I’m pleased to say. Has the post been deliberately targeted? Who would do such a thing? Who knows. But anyone searching online for the forum will often find my ancient post on the first page of Google – the sweet spot for any website – just below the entry for the forum itself. Perhaps all these spam attacks are keeping it there? Happy days!

Cops and Robbers

The deluge of GDPR emails has finally dried up, thank the Lord. For the uninitiated, GDPR stands for the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. It’s the latest wheeze from the European Union intended to strengthen the law about the collection, privacy, security and retention of personal data. The new rules are fairly straightforward, if a little OTT – like so much that comes out of Brussels. I’m all for protecting the little person from the exploitation of corporate bigwigs but I can’t help thinking the reputable will comply, the disreputable won’t bother and those squeezed in the middle will be bewildered – think brown owl trying to chivvy up the girl guides or some poor sod juggling the mailing list of a local am-dram society. I doubt it will stop nuisance calls from India or spam emails from God knows where. A case in point was the mailshot that recently dropped into my inbox from a US company. They were trying to flog me such must-have products as a concealed ankle holster perfect for a sneaky armed robbery, a decorative bracelet knife because Saturday night’s alright for fighting and a magnetised holder for the loaded pistol I keep under the sink next to the Fairy Liquid (that’s a joke, obviously). Every trailer should have one. Did I subscribe to this crap? Nope. Did I unsubscribe straightaway? Yep. Will it make the slightest bit of difference? Not a chance.

If you like to see my own half-cocked GDPR kinda-compliant privacy thingy, you can see it here. Happy reading.

My Brokeback Mountain Moment

My Brokeback Mountain Moment

Recently, I received a solicitous email from an ‘admirer’ who wrote:

You look nice and charming, to be honest, I can’t pass your page without saying HELLO to such a gorgeous person like you. I am really very sorry if my message upsets you, but i just can’t stop looking at your profile on Facebook.

My name is XXXX, I am from Callaghan, Texas, USA, I live in IOWA city, not that far from City center, i am gay and what about you?

Usually this kind of thing comes to me via Facebook. And most contacts are from young ladies who haven’t checked my profile despite it virtually screaming ‘poofter’ at them. Delete and block.

As this was an email, curiosity got the better of me and I Googled Callaghan, Texas. According to Wikipedia, it’s a small ranching community near the Mexican border. Images of strapping cowboys flooded my mind – sweaty chaps in chaps, saddle-sore after a hard ride and in need of a good rub down. It was my Brokeback Mountain moment.

I’m not daft. I know the message was either from a scammer or some Third World likely lad trying to climb out of poverty. And who can blame him? Whoever he is, he brought some brightness to a dull day. Sadly for him, I’m not in the market for a new model nor am I sugar daddy material. I just don’t have the ‘handbag’ for it as they used to say in Polari. My adoring ‘Texan’ was consigned to spam. Sad face.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Lonely hearts1

I’m used to receiving tons of emails telling me that a little blue pill will put the spring back into my step or I’ve hit the jackpot in the Burkina Faso National Lottery. The spam filter on my account picks up most of them and after they’ve been screened by MI5, I’m only troubled by a trickle. Now Facebook is getting in on the act. Hardly a week goes by when I don’t receive a private message from ladies in faraway lands looking for love and, no doubt, bowled over by my sharp wit, winning smile and Judy Garland vinyls. This is the kind of thing:

“Hello Am linda, i saw your profile today and became interested in you, i will like to know you the more, and i want you to send an email to my mail so that i can give you my picture for you to know whom i am. Here is my email address (xxxxxx{at} yahoo.de) I believe we can move from here. I am waiting for your reply in my mail don’t send it in the site. Remember the distance or color does not matter but love matters allot in life Note!!! that am not always online on facebook, so do not contact me in facebook contact me directly in my email address at (xxxxxx{at} yahoo.de)”

“hello, My name is Alina, I saw your profile here as i was just browsing through facebook, I will be much pleased to have communication with you,I have a very important thing to discuss with you please reply me on my email address:(xxxxxx outlook com) because am not always on facebook but we can communicate through my private email ID, i will send my pictures to you and more details about me. God bless you.”

Spot the similarity? Me too. Whether it is just an attempt to scam me (and a thousand and one others) out of my bank account details or a genuine international mating game for the lost and lonely, you’d think they’d do their homework first before barking up the wrong tree.