Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

Editor's Note: Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are forced to dip into the Tube City Almanac archives and reprint some "classic" (?) columns this week. These articles originally appeared on Tube City Almanac (then known as Tube City: The Blog) on Thursday, March 18, 2004, and Wednesday, March 24, 2004.

Postscript: When I wrote these columns, I noted that I was getting about two dozen spam emails today. Almost a decade later, email spam has been completely eliminated.

HA! Right! And I am the czar of all the Russias. (Tube City hard-hat tip to Walter Koenig and Charlie Pierce.)

. . .

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Orlando Soto.

Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again.

"Everyday people call it spam," says Mr. Soto, who prefers calling it "unsolicited" e-mail. "But I'm open to everything."

If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money.

One such somebody is Mr. Soto. He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself. His bookcases are lined with first-edition mystery novels he bought via spam. In a corner of his two-bedroom midtown-Manhattan apartment stands an antique pinball machine bought via spam.

He plays Internet bingo at five cents a game on a Web site pitched to him by spam a few weeks ago. He buys stuff via spam for himself and to resell on Web sites he sets up -- a business idea he got from a spam pitch.

Mr. Soto, on behalf of those of us who receive upwards of two dozen emails daily selling "C!h!e!a!p V!i!a!g!r!a!," offering to "Make Her So Horny!!!!" and "Refinance High Interest Debt!!!," I have a message: Go (spam) yourself, moron. You're the reason these clowns stay in business.

. . .

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

A new twist on an old scam arrived in the mailbag overnight:

From: Marc charles Taylor,
URGENT ATTENTION !

My dear, Please do not be surprised to receive this letter from me because having gotten your contact information and profile from your country's trade journal, i am highly impressed by your track records, I will be very Most grateful, if you can champion this transaction that I am about to propose to you.

My name is Marc Taylor, the Son to the Ex-PRESIDENT CHARLES TAYLOR OF FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. First,I must solicit your strict confidence in this transaction; this is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret.

(Oops. Guess I shouldn't have posted it here. Well ... I'm among friends, right? Can you keep this secret? Thanks.)

Before My father left office, through diplomatic immunity, I made a deposit of huge sum of money amounting to USD$255,000,000.00(Two hundred and fifty five million United States Dollars) with a security company in Europe which was intended for the purchase of war equipment by my father, during the civil unrest in my country to remove my father from the sit. I took the decision of depositing the fund in the security company, because of the pressure from the international community on Father, to leave office; I presume then, that there was no need in buying more arms.
After my father left office, he and the rest of my family, are currently in ASYLUM in NIGERIA, but myself I have been here in Cotonou since November last year as a political refugee, because in Nigeria all our movement is being monitored by security operatives and the western world most especially the united states of America is demanding that my Father should be tried at the international war crime tribunal in HAGUES.

So, let's cut to the chase; the rest of the letter is the usual blah-blah-blah; he wants my bank account numbers so that he can wire the money to me. In reality, of course, he wants to clean me out.

Of course, I'm not sure what he's going to do with $154.73. Maybe I should wire him the account number on my car loan instead, and he can start making the payments with that $255 million.

I'm used to Nigeria scam emails, but this is the first one that I've received that incorporates the Liberian unrest. I have to admit to being somewhat impressed. Not much, but some.

I really have to question the logic of his approach, however. Does "Marc charles Taylor" think I'd want to begin "this transaction" with an indicted war criminal? Might as well send out an email that says, "My name is Heinrich Himmler Jr. Before the fall of Berlin, my father smuggled artwork, statues and gold teeth out of Germany .... "

On the other hand, if this is Charles Taylor's son "Chuckie," I don't think I want to make him mad. Maybe I better humor him.

So, hey, Chuckie Baby, send your next email to me in care of 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov. Send it to the attention of my Uncle Sam. He'll get right on it.

You should type something in the 'comment'-field. Be sure to click on 'Post Comment' to store it permanently.