For years and years and years I have been receiving spam. Interesting, sometimes, especially when I realise exactly how many beloved friends I have in West Africa, and how astoundingly generous they are. However, so much of the mail has been woefully misdirected.
Gambling: I don't gamble.
Job offers in the USA: bit far to commute.
Become a driving instructor: I have never, ever owned a car.
Laser eye surgery: I have 20/20 vision.
Beautiful girls wanting marriage in Foreign: er, yeah, a bit off target.
Herbal or counterfeit viagra: REALLY off target.
Penis enlargement: So far off target it's almost back on.
Well, today it came, in two messages in my junk file: breast enlargement!
Finally, I had a processed pork e-mail that had some relevance!
Still got no intention of opening or answering...
Comments
What puzzles me ...
... is when I get offers of both penis and breast enlargement in the same day :) These spammers should learn to co-operate.
I rarely get spam on my 'real' email address unless you call regular updates from Wiggle or St John's St Cycles etc offering me new bike bargains spam, which I don't.
Robi
You mean...
You mean those messages I get from my boss aren't SPAM?
St. Johns seems like a very nice town (based on one day's observation)... Probably not the same St Johns you're referring to though... :-)
Anne
SJS Cycles
An idiosyncratic manufacturer of quality bikes set up by Robin Thorn. I got my tandem there. Based in Somerset, in Bridgwater. On St John Street....
Er, no, not quite
"Herbal or counterfeit viagra: REALLY off target."
Not quite. It seems that Viagra also has an effect on female body parts. It is even prescribed for women with low libido.
Still...
Penny
Penis Elargement
I did the penis enlargement and now when I take viagra LOOK KING KONG hehehe giggles LOL-- HUGS YA AL --RICHIE2
When you take Viagra, you
When you take Viagra, you pass out for 16 hours due to blood loss?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Look, King Kong
No, she falls off tall buildings...
Penny
Processed pork
I very rarely get any through either my Fastmail or Google accounts - and when I do, it's usually a phishing attempt (although more recently, all I get is a notification that the mail server found it and deleted it).
My last 419 was back in September, someone purporting to be "MRS KARABO CHIOCHI" from "UNIVERSAL CROSSING SA" claiming I'd won $2.1m in a "Computer promotional draw". Apart from the usual 'highlights', it was a bit ambiguous over where it originates: the telephone number was South Afriacan, the 'From' email address was Polish, the 'Reply to' address was Ukrainian, and it even referenced a web address which is currently a parked domain!
-oOo-
However, I do get a lot of spam recorded on my telephone answering machine - a company that's used 50 different numbers to date using an autodialler to advise me of "...a new government scheme that can eliminate 100% of your debts in just 12 months", payment protection insurance refunds, or ambulance chasing: "Our records indicate you had an accident or injury at work within the last 3 years that was not your fault..."
My bank accounts are (just about) in the black, I don't have any outstanding loans, don't have any credit cards (I prefer to use a debit card - that way I know exactly how much money I have [not!] got available), and although I had a car accident a few years ago, it was a low speed collision with no injuries to either party.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Telephone Prefence Service
In the UK, you can subscribe to the Telephone Preference Service, which in practice means you get added to a national "Do Not Call" list. Anyone who then rings you from an unsolicited company is committing a criminal offence.
Sometimes it can be difficult finding out just who's at the other end but if you politely tell them you are registered they'll usually go away quite smartly. If they persist then you can make a complaint.
It also helps to have an unlisted phone number, but I know that this: (i) isn't helpful to everyone and (ii) often doesn't make any difference.
Penny
Telephone Preference Service
I'm on it and have been since I was connected, so while it might reduce the number of companies calling who can be bothered to find a human to call you, in my experience it does diddly squat to prevent companies using computerised autodiallers. Of course, the very fact the call's picked up by my answerphone probably sends a message to the company informing them that my number is active so can be targeted again. Repeatedly. With a different originating number every few days. According to numerous reports at sites like whocallsme, the numbers are usually owned by an outfit that resells / leases the numbers to other companies (and doesn't keep track of who or what they do with it), so taking the company to task is usually impossible.
Probably the only solution is a £100 gadget that sits on your master socket, grabs the caller ID, and uses a user-defined ACL to determine which calls to let through and which to drop.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Solution?
Probably the only solution is a £100 gadget that sits on your master socket, grabs the caller ID, and uses a user-targeted X-ray laser to remove the generative organs of the caller.
If you have enough spare...
Computer odds and ends there's some open source software out there that actually picks up on ACL-designated calls and answers with one of those irc-bot type things, except telephone, with computerized voice.
It's actually quite nifty. After they get a few recordings of computers talking to each other, those companies usually blacklist your number as one NOT TO CALL EVER WHATSOEVER PERIOD.
Can't possibly imagine why... I think getting bots talking to each other is rather amusing myself...
Abigail Drew.
Abigail Drew.
Yebbut
Isn't it more fun to imagine sizzling dangly bits?
not particularly...
My own kinda still needs to be there and in some kind of decent shape to be... corrected... when that time comes, and other guys... well, I think once I have my own little defect corrected I could find use for one of those. Sizzling ones wouldn't be of much use to anyone... Granted... I'd have to be married to the guy first, and he'd have to know about me and love me anyways. REALLY love me... Which might never happen. I won't be the kind of girl who just puts out to anyone. I want a long-term committed relationship.
Abigail Drew.
Abigail Drew.
Amusing when bots talk to each other...
Abigail, you won't think so when it leads to Skynet trying to kill us all!
Lisa "I'll be back" Danielle
Nah...
If the war of the machines ever occurs, I'll be on their side. Well... Up until one of them turns on me and guts me, but hey, it'd be fun while it lasts.
Personally, though, I prefer the backstory to Dune and the Butlerian Jihad over Skynet and Terminator. Terminator's a fun bit of action movie, but it doesn't take the science bit seriously.
In the case of a Butlerian Jihad ever occurring, as I said, I'd be on the machines side, and, if I remember my Dune backstory correctly, the machines never really did turn on their human allies, and eventually ended up running off the both of em to a different area of the universe only to start coming back later to wreak havok on a society that no longer understood machinery... This, at about the same time as the Honoured Matrons started showing up from ANOTHER corner of the universe, wreaking another brand of havok, subverting the Bene Gesserit teachings... Too bad Dune was never properly finished before 'ol Frank croaked.
Abigail Drew.
Abigail Drew.
I receive a lot of junk phone calls
asking me to participate in market surveys (I don't), or I can't understand the accent of the caller. I just hang up. I know they're only doing their job but...
I have a good SPAM filter on my emails. Trouble is, it reckons most of my bills are SPAM. Maybe it's correct!
S.
I don't get a lot of Spam but
At work I'm part of a huge computer network and my big complaint id the jackasses who send all. I have to go through official looking stuff that has nothing to do with my job or even my hospital.
Although I get less and less telemarketers by being a perv to them on the phone. Do that long enough and they'll blacklist your number:)
*Hugs all*
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
I' gorra' filter ...
I' gorra' filter an' it works.
Bev
Growing Old Disgracefully
Back to normal now
Car price finder.
Edit: but followed by a bra one! What a metaphor for my life!