Sponsor's Message

Most of us have already had a life-time's worth of unsolicited emails pitching breast enlargement creams, herbal viagra, porn sites, and a raft of other stuff of dubious origin and quality.

Sometimes the offers are little short of laughable, a good example being the spam I sometimes receive that tries to sell me anti-spam software -- yeah, like that's going to work!

While various bits of technology and new laws do their best to cope with the vexing problem of spam, sometimes you've just got to lie back and enjoy it for what it sometimes is: free entertainment.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

Between my various mailboxes I now get around two or three Nigerian email scams every day and I diligently reply to each one, requesting a contact phone number.

When they reply, with broken english and over-caplitalised prose, I then reply by giving them another scammer's number as my own. It's also fun to forge your sender address and respond to one scammer using another's email address -- and I'm sure they all get as much fun out of it as I do.

But, being the kind-hearted person I am, I'm also given to donating my "LUCKY EURO LOTTERY" winnings to the scammers -- forwarding all the details to them along with a covering note advising that they can claim the prize on my behalf and use it to cover the costs of freeing up the TWENTY MILLION US DOLLARS that's on offer.

If it's a slow day (not common these day's I'm afraid), I might even add DOCTOR MIKE ABUKO (second cousin to SONY ABACHA and executor of his ill-gotten stash of cash) to the bottom of the chain emails that fall into my mailbox. I then forward them to the other spammers who obviously think that it's quite okay to fill other people's mailboxes with their dross.

Sometimes all this gets a little disappointing though, because you don't get to see the smiles on their faces and the joy that comes from seeing one's philanthropy in action so one day I'll get a Skype or Teleo account so that the Nigerian scammers can call me via a US-based phone number and we can chat for hours on their dollar.

Of course spammers are blatant opportunists so I strongly expect the next wave of junk email to offer the sale of Tamiflu by the litre, allowing us to protect ourselves and families from the evil bird-flu by simply handing over our credit card numbers.

For those who would doubt the veracity of such pitches, or who have an aversion to the products of the nasty pharmaceutical companies you'll doubtless also be offered "Herbal Tamiflu" as an organic alternative.

The most worrying thing about all this is that these scammers will almost certainly rake in millions of dollars from idiots who believe that they'll be getting some measure of protection from a disease that might not even become a pandemic at all.

What's the most ridiculous thing you've ever been pitched via spam and how do you retaliate or have fun with spammers?

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!