A Day With an E-mail Scammer [telecom]

A Day With an E-mail Scammer

David Pogue DECEMBER 23, 2010

I love this time of year. It's a time of giving, sharing and unexpected surprises - like the one that just popped into my inbox.

It comes from reader James Veitch, a London-based theater writer and director, who sent me the transcripts of a back-and-forth he had with "a not terribly clever e-mail scammer." It's a long shot, he said, but he thought "it might be good for publication." He's not kidding. I LOL'ed, I ROFL'ed, I LMAO'ed.

The scammer was posing as Alex, an actual friend of Mr. Veitch (the scammer was using a lookalike of Alex's e-mail address-"ymail.com" instead of "gmail.com").

Somewhere in Nigeria, Mr. Veitch's correspondent is probably telling a similarly amusing tale.

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[snip of heartwarming story of a spam/scam recipient who, well, didn't do much except waste his time replying to the spammer...]

Mr. Pogue really needs to get a dose of maturity into his columns. This oh-so-cute story simply shows someone wasting his time by replying to a spammer correspondent.

There's no there, there. The vicarious enjoyment at the presumed suffering of the spammer is illusory.

But even more critical here is the whole concept of engaging in such communication.

If I were a betting man, I'd betcha that a small, but very real, percentage of people on the recipient side, once they've gotten the tenth or so re-re-reply, will, in fact, fall for the scam.

Similarly, a good number of them will believe the spammer when he says "As you've asked, I've attached a photo showing our office staff. It should show up in a few seconds. If your system has trouble displaying the picture, just click on the 'OK' button..."

You can all guess what happens next to the recipient's computer...