1.26.2004

 

As far as I can tell, three general types of spam exist. They have become so common place that what used to annoy me greatly has become less of a hassle, as I just summarily delete 98% of the email I receive without more than a quick glance at the subject list to make sure that I have not received anything of actual importance.

Surely you have some familiarity with these three genres of span. Category One consists of efforts targeted to your frail psyche, those that promise you increased penis size naturally with no embarrassing side effects. Completely confidential and guaranteed to work. An important sub-category here is free porn, since you need to do something to periodically confirm that your free and confidential penile enhancement (or herbal breast enhancement, for the ladies) has begun to work.

A second category (and my personal favorite) collects all those VERY poorly made efforts to try and scam you out of money. Emailers have offered me chances to invest in no fewer than 15 different up and coming African nations, 21 potential business partnerships with guaranteed futures (but strangely in need of but a little additional capital...) in Jakarta, Tunis and Algiers. I have also had chances to fund the cure for Alzheimers, inoperable tumors and arthritis. And I almost jumped at the opportunity to make the dying wish of a 10 year-old quadrapalegic of going to see the wreck of the Titanic a reality.

The third general category of spam deals with actual crap you can buy and use, like loans, furniture, household goods, etc. You know the boring category that probably gets as many people as unconfident men buying from Category One.

But a recent email I received has made me want to create a whole new category just for this one. Perhaps you will understand after reading it:

Dear OnlineCitibank Client,

This e-mail was sentt by the Citi-bank serevr to veerify your email
adress. You must cepmtloe this prsecos by clicking on the link
below and enttering in the litle window your Citi-bank Debit
full Card number and pin that you use on local ATM.
That is done for your poetcrtion -t- becourse some of our members no
logner have acsces to their email adredsess and we must verify it.

To veerify your e-mail address and access your Citicards account, klick on
the link bellow. If nothing happnes when you clik on the link -B copye
and passte the link into the adderss bar of your web broswer.

http://www.citibank.com/?mN60xVeiVmfaJRMmu2ZNYOW5MlMVDcR00Z1xUfQOC70m0NJuPJ

---------------------------------------------
Thank you for using Citicards!
---------------------------------------------

This autotmaic email snet to: goosefood@yahoo.com
Do not rpely to this email.

Clearly this sucker would normally beg to join Category Two, but I cannot in good conscience group such an item with efforts to bring democracy to the people of the Sahara. At least those scammers generally take some effort to make their scams appear legitimate. Like spelling.

Seriously, could anyone with half of a brain read the email and think it might have even the smallest inkling of legitimacy to it? Would anyone really think to verify (excuse me, veerify) their account after reading this? And that assumes the fact that I even have a Citibank debit card, which I do not.

So I guess this signals the creation of Category Four of spam emails, made for those emails that are so ridiculous as to make you laugh out loud and share them with the Internet community. Good times.