Spam, spam, egg and chips…

Who am I? According to my spam folder for Nov 10th-15th I am:

• a heterosexual woman unsatisfied by her boyfriend's small penis
• a lonely heterosexual man
• Fat
• the laziest of academics
• unobservant when it comes to how major corporations' names are spelled
• greedy
• about to be a millionaire
• cold
• sick
• American
• bored
• a Labour member
• uneducated
• a future Captain of Industry
• hobbled by obsolete IT
• a small business owner
• low in confidence
• missing some parcels
• quite racist in a creepily sexualised way
• bald
• paranoid

…

but capitalism will save me.

Here's the found poem of the spam list. 

Lonely Russian Girls Looking for Boyfriends!

If you're "Curvy" this will change your sex life

Re: Revistas Academicas Journals

I need your help taking on Grill'd

Your Amazon.co.uk Account

More than 50 Million $ to invest in your project

Canada Gooose Parka , Big Discount

RE: Dear Account Owner,

Find Your Medicare Supplement Plan Today.

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Christmas Time Gifts

BMW LOTTERY DEPARTMENT

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RE: PASSWORD MANAGER

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Get your limited edition Labour Calendar today

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15% OFF – Perfect Luxury Gifts For Christmas – 

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Re: Your Abandoned Package For Delivery

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For_More_Information_Contact_The_

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Welcome to the University of Spamford

Not all Business Schools are alike. For every Critical Management inquiring programme, there's a shonky institution dedicated to handing out gold stars to every get-rich-quick chancer who hands over their credit card. That's why mainstream economics departments entirely failed to spot the crash: they were essentially lending a patina of respectability to what amounts to alchemy, and hoping to make a few quid from 'consultancy' along the way.

So far, so normal. But when universities join the ranks of business's bottom-feeders, you've got to worry. I got an email today which looked like the kind of spivvy-spam that we all get every day.

Executive Courses from the University of Salford

Not being an executive (or a leader), I assumed that is was a phishing exercise, especially as the reply email address looked, well, phishy:

Salford.Professional.Development.Ltd@dotmailer-email.com 

Not a standard .ac.uk UK university address, but one generated by a mass-mailing organisation.

So what 'Executive Courses' were on offer? I was hoping for 'executive relief' (at 29.00), but sadly that was off the menu.

Ooh, look at those logos. I know that the Institute of Directors is a legitimate organisation (legal anyway: its economic and ideological positions are far from legitimate). I've never heard of The Pacific Institute (though its webpage and twitter feed look like what we call 'a load of old bollocks'), and I know that Salford University brutally slaughtered its humanities courses to pay – presumably – for this kind of rubbish. 

I've a short fuse when it comes to spam at the best of times. When it comes to universities, I tend to think that Business Schools should be (in a colleague's formulation) 'about business, not for business'.  These courses look pretty weak: the kind of rubbish institutions with little class use to generate a quick buck, but the use of spamming as a recruitment tool really makes me worry. Surely this couldn't be true? 

So I looked up the Executive Leadership Programme, carefully not following links on the email in case it led me to some Internet Oubliette in which I'd be stripped of money, credit and reputation. Lo and behold: it's real! For only £1499 I could learn all about Leading Through Change,  or Potential To Performance. See how many Bullshit Bingo words you can tick off in the course synopsis:

People are the cornerstone of organisational success, and Investment in Excellence® develops this most valuable asset. It is a powerful development experience that enables leaders to achieve much more of their potential by changing their perception of what is possible, and then providing the skills, knowledge and application to cause a change in what they actually accomplish.
This module comprises of the development of personal transformational skills to equip participants to address limiting behaviours, empower self and others to set and achieve consistently high goals, and to release untapped potential.
The starting point of this element is that performance is driven by behaviours which in turn are driven by beliefs. In order for leader-driven collective improvements in performance to happen, there needs to be time built in for them to work on their own beliefs and behaviours.  This is an essential stage in enabling them to become more personally effective and thereby creating the constructive cultures that enhance the performance of others. The learning process links back to, and builds on, the first module and the impact of the individual on organisational culture as a whole.

But don't worry. It's a University! There must be a core of solid research informing all this. What's 'Facilitator' Lynne Oliver published? Well, nothing as such but she did work closely with Rabobank of the Netherlands. And what a great job she did with their leadership:

Rabobank boss quits over £662m Libor rigging fine

But I was still curious. Was this real? How did they get my name? Surely a reputable university wouldn't be simply spamming people? So I emailed the Salford Executive Leadership Programme's contact address to ask if the email was genuine.

Hello.
Could you confirm that this is a genuine message, and that I subscribed to your mailing list?
Yours, Plashing Vole

Back came a reply from Paul Bolton (not that he signed the email, but that's the name in the 'from' box':

Thanks for your email, this is a genuine email to your work email address. We have now removed you from our database. Thank you 

Not, you notice, an answer to the second question. So is a reputable university simply spamming? Or is it buying mailing lists from other organisations with a relaxed attitude to data protection. Last week I was on a course about Leadership in Higher Education. Surely the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education isn't flogging its mailing lists? I surely hope not. I've mailed Salford and the LFHE to ask.

I quickly got a reply from Paul.

As far as I am aware you did not subscribe, however we buy data from a reputable company and your email would have come from this. By law, we are permitted to email on a business to business basis, so long as we offer an opt out facility on the email.

I can see that the email did go to a non-personal email address and we did offer the unsubscribe option. I would however like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

He's wrong about the address, of course: it's my name followed by my institutional domain. I'm even less impressed by his defence: 'it's legal' and I can unsubscribe from something to which I didn't voluntarily subscribe in the first place. Wow. So many things are legal, without being reputable, effective or polite.

Why does this bother me? Because universities should be better than this. They should be better than striking brand-name deals with flaky organisations and they should know better than to besmirch their reputations by indulging in bottom-feeder behaviour like spamming. If this is the kind of thing they teach on their courses, you should save your money.

Stay classy, Salford!

Update: ironically, Salford's SPD unit also offers an Introduction to Digital Marketing for Higher Education including:

• Considerations for establishing a Digital and Social Media Policy

• Knowing Your Audience/Market

• The importance of Customer Relationship Marketing

On this evidence, I'd be awarding a fail. 

Your daily charlatans

Got this very spammy email today.

Are On-Line Comments or Bad Reviews 

Destroying Your Reputation?

 

It is vital to remove them because 83% of people who are about to book YOUR service will "Google" you to see what people are saying about you and if you have just one bad review

You WILL Lose business!

 

So if a disgruntled client or someone who is just being malicious puts a bad review about you or your company you need to get it removed. FAST!

 

We can do this for you. Guaranteed!

 

Find out how we can remove your bad reviews and protect your on-line reputation!

 

Please PRESS HERE and we will send you more information about our service.

 

Reputation Protectors

"The On-line Reputation Defenders"

 

This is a B2B communication. If this is sent in error please accept our apologies

So what these people are promising is censorship – a service many PR firms sell their clients too. Unlike PR firms though, these muppets are so professional that they have a Yahoo free email address: 'reputationdefenders1@yahoo.co.uk' although the link goes to badreviewremovers@europe.com: another free address.

So let's see how good they are. Reputation Defenders: you are rubbish. Nobody should ever use your service, particularly as you are SPAMMERS and probably just phishing for personal details.

Let's see them remove that!

He gets spam…

My good friend The Rise and Rise of Tim Lovejoy gets spam. This time, the quality of writing on The Plashing Vole led the poor saps to believe that HE is the author of The Plashing Vole (he's not the only one confused either). Annotations are my own.

My name is Isabel [I am a bot] and I recently stumbled across [software harvested the address of] your blog plashingvole.blogspot.com. I work for [live in a server rented by] a company [of spammers], Blog Services Inc. [who lack the imagination required to come up with a better name that that], that connects bloggers with advertising partners [pretends to connect bloggers with advertisers but actually charges the naive money for allowing them to cover their blogs with porn links]. I currently have clients [don't have clients] that are interested in [have never heard of you] developing a sponsorship with you [i.e. covering your site with porn links, as before]. This helps them with brand awareness [they need the 25 nerds who read your blog] and is a great opportunity for you to make some money [isn't a great opportunity to make money] from your blog [simply in exchange for any remaining integrity and independence].

Check out BlogServicesInc.org for more information and testimonials [which are entirely made up]. Please feel free to contact me directly [an automated reply will be immediately despatched from the bot] if you are interested in a partnership [serving Satant] or have any questions at isabel@blogservicesinc.org. There is no need to submit the form on our site, as contacting me directly will lead to a quicker response [because I am a bot].

If you are interested, contact me at this email address to begin the process.

Best,

Isabel Reed Project Manager – Blog Services, Inc. 

isabel@blogservicesinc.org

For the record, I am not a figment of TRAROTL's already warped imagination. I'm the product of my own warped imagination. And it's better to be the product of a warped imagination than a bot residing on the servers of a spammer.

No adverts on Plashing Vole. Sometimes I say nice things about products. Rest assured it's because I like them and not because some git has paid me $4.

I'm Jen Rhee, so Jen Rhee, so Jen Rhee inside…

Odd email today:

Hi [Vole],
I came across your site while searching for resources related to ‘Mac Rumors’ and noticed that you had referenced their site. That said, I wanted to reach out and share an interactive graphic that my team and I created which takes a closer look at the lifecycle and true cost of an iPhone. Would you be interested in taking a look?
I'd love to get your readers' feedback as well as yours!
Thanks, Jen R.

Strange because 'Jen Rhee' had managed to find my real name and real university email address, yet couldn't write a sentence which doesn't sound like a Bulgarian laboriously translating sentences from a 1930s English-Latvian phrase book.

The idea that she'd appreciate my readers' feedback implies that she hasn't actually read any of your comments. Does she really want Ewar's views on anything? (Except Anna Kournikova, his specialist subject).

Anyway, a quick wander round the internet reveals that Ms. Rhee and her friends have been pretty active, sending similar 'infographic' offers to all and sundry. It seems that infographics are the latest 'link bait', used by unscrupulous search-engine optimisers to drive traffic to their spammy sites. We're all savvy to the random links posted as blog comments, fake Twitter accounts and so on, so the SEO scum have turned to circulating pretty images which are actually links to spam sites.

I have an infographic for you, Ms. Rhee:

Spammers: lazy and culturally incurious

My latest missives from the Land of Spam:
From: "Dwyer, Bobby (US)"

But they don't even bother making the incoming and outgoing address match:

I am Mrs Helen Moore, a devoted Christian. I have chosen you for an inheritance. Please contact me for more details. Private contact email mrshelenmoore@hotmail.co.uk  thank you.

Not even a salutation. Even St. Paul, who was a particularly unpleasant Christian, greeted his epistolary friends as 'Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ' (usually before telling them to keep their filthy hands off themselves and others).

Presumably Helen here thinks that her marital status is relevant: after all, St. Paul did say 'better to marry than to burn'. I'd be more likely to respond positively if she knew the difference between 'devoted' and 'devout', but we'll let that pass, because the real question is why her Christianity is relevant. I'm fully aware of the Big Man's love of charity and egalitarian values, but thought that most Christian sects to cough loudly and insert footnotes in those clauses relating to poverty, sharing and altruism. The big movement now is the Prosperity Church network: millionaire pastors telling you that if you're rich, God's bestowing his favour on you. If you're poor, it's a sign that you're hell-bound.

Anyway, I'm deeply gratified that I've been randomly chosen for an inheritance. It reminds of the days when I started getting post addressed to me, around 17 years old. All those lovely glossy gold Reader's Digest Prize Draws which claimed I'd DEFINITELY been selected for a GUARANTEED EXCLUSIVE PRIZE. It was around then that I learned about small print, but not before I'd made several sneaky and rather expensive calls to the EXCLUSIVE PRIZE REGISTRATION LINE. At least email spam is free.

Anyway, I think I'll leave MrsHelenMoore to enjoy her inheritance alone. But if you're lonely, you could always dive into the ecopoetry of another Helen Moore.

May Gaia,

our Great Mother,

speak through me...

may I be a channel,

a conduit for Nature's words!

I'd rather gnaw off my own nipples, but you go ahead.

I'm getting my coat, I've pulled

Apparently word of Plashing Vole's charm and good looks has spread beyond these shores.

Hello,
My Name is lilina I am girl. I will be happy if you can reply me because i have
something to discuss with you and also send my pictures to you
ok
Thanks yours, lilian1987@yahoo.com)
from lilina

Lilina is clearly a sophisticated woman, despite the dyslexia implied by two different spelling of her name. She has two email addresses for a start: this was received from

lilian.lo@libero.it. 

Which does it for me: all those l's put me in mind of the internal rhythms of Welsh cynghanedd, or Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'sprung rhythm'.

And who could resist a girl who works for Libero? As Berlusconi's devoted cheerleader, there's a newspaper which knows how to party! I wonder if she's related to Kellen. Or - looking through the IP addresses,  J. Visser of Viper, Maaskade 1, in the Netherlands. He has an email address too: 

I assume that the 'something to discuss' is English lessons. Shall I reply?

Ooh, a new job!

I've just received a completely out of the blue job offer. They must have heard about how brilliant I am. Fantastic. This is how I replied to them.
From:

Reba Waiters (rnhallerce@hotmail.com)

Brilliant. You must work for Hotmail. I've always wanted to work in email. Odd that your name isn't in your e-mail address. Another Reba Waiters must have got there first, eh?

Dear name. 

Oh. You've got my e-mail address but overlooked the usual salutation. Oh well, perhaps it's a secretarial error. 

My name is Reba Waiters and I'm an HR manager with IDS Ltd. 

OK. It's not Hotmail, but it's a Ltd, with exciting initials. Perhaps they use Hotmail because they like to look after the pennies. You must not be the IDS Ltd recruitment agency near Doncaster. After all, that low-rent outfit uses Yahoo e-mail addresses. The cheapskates. Nor, presumably, are you the IDS Ltd of Dublin, which makes prostheses and orthoses. That would be cool though, wouldn't it?

I would like to take this time to welcome you to our hiring process and give you a brief synopsis of the position's benefits and requirements. 

You're very welcome Reba. I've always found that the jobs I haven't applied for are far better than the ones I have. And a 'position' is far more impressive than a 'job'. If you don't mind me saying though, a synopsis IS a brief statement. Tautology is a dangerous thing.

If you are taking a career break, are on a maternity leave, recently retired or simply looking for some part-time work , this position is for you. 

Oh dear. I think your underlings (and may I say how impressed I am that the director of HR is personally writing to me) have slipped up slightly. You've written to someone with a male name, at an institutional address: it's unlikely that I'm pregnant, retired or 'on a career break' (which I assume is a euphemism for unemployed'. But I'll stick with you. After all, I'm not averse to 'some part-time work', or 'moonlighting' as my employers might see it. And maybe you're hiring to rectify minor deficiencies in your current workforce

The successful candidates shall possess excellent organizational skills as well as the ability to efficiently multi-task. The ideal candidates shall have a strong focus on day-to-day operational performance, and a personal style that builds trust and induces loyalty. 

Exciting. Lots of multisyllabic words and a lovely split infinitive. I do like a good split infinitive. Captain Kirk did it so well. I must say, the idea of corporate loyalty towards me appeals very strongly. So many companies treat us a disposable proletarian scum. I should say that I am indeed in possession of excellent organisational skills and I can multi-task. Right now, I'm replying to you, listening to Pop Will Eat Itself and admiring my rippling pectoral muscles. A good morning's work, wouldn't you say? 

The candidate shall be self-motivated, proactive, able to learn and adapt quickly. 

I'm sure that from the ranks of the unemployed and retired, you'll find someone who fulfils these requirements. They've just been waiting for the right offer: your offer! This 'position' must be seriously good given all the skills and characteristics you're looking for. I'm thinking 8 figures, a helicopter allowance and a dedicated cocaine room. May I say at this point how pleased I am by your delightfully retro use of 'shall'? 'Will' is so common, don't you think? 

Occupation: 

Now we're getting down to it. And 'occupation' has a real ring of the Nobility of Labour about it, doesn't it?

Flexible schedule 2 to 8 hours / day. We can guarantee a minimum 20 hrs/week occupation

Oh, well you're not going to tell me what the work is yet. You're building up to it aren't you? You cheeky tease. 

Salary: Starting salary is GBP 1500 per month plus commission , paid on a four-weekly basis. 

Oh Reba. All that build up. All those requirements, and the salary is £18,000 per year. I could get a job which doesn't care whether I'm a multi-skilling Stakhanovite and earn more than that. Although this 'commission' sounds like a secure and stable route to riches. It's true that I currently earn considerably more than that now, but your position sounds so much more mysterious and exciting. Tell me honestly: will I have to sleep with exotic women in the line of duty? I think I should point out before we go any further that I'd have some minor moral qualms about that, but I'm sure once you'd explained it to me, I'd swallow my doubts. 

Business hours: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, MON-FRI, (your local timezone). 

Region: United Kingdom. 

So you're offering a distinctive new working schedule of 'all week', in the country in which I live. I have to say, that's a tempting offer. 

Please note that there are no startup fees or deposits to complete your paid training evaluation period. 

You're not one of these fly-by-night outfits are you? You couldn't be. They'd charge me for the 'training evaluation period', however long that is. 

We offer team members flexible schedule, including telecommuting and in-office assignments, and basic entry-level positions for recent graduates and those looking to start a new career with a stable company with foreign capital. Working for us provides employees with a challenging and fast-paced work environment that is sensitive to the needs of its workforce. 

I'm sold. If you're using the metaphor of membership of a sports team to evoke the cameraderie and mutual dependence prevalent in your company, then I want in. I assume of course that 'sensitive' means that you're fully unionised? I'm very relieved that you say the company is 'stable' and funded by foreign capital. I always say that a company with a Hotmail address must be a subsidiary of Microsoft. This foreign capital's hot stuff isn't it? I meant to say, there's no capital around here what with all the banks going bust. If you've managed to locate where all the capital's gone, your finance directors must be the horse's nostrils of investment banking. I salute you, Reba. 

If you are interested in getting more information and taking this position with us, the next step in our process is to fill out our application form and to make out an interview. 

To request an application form, schedule your interview and receive more information about this position please reply to this email with your personal identification number for this position IDNO:-2NVH0GQK1D. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. I look forward to reviewing your application paperwork. 

Sincerely, 

Reba Waiters 

HR department IDS Ltd. 

I'm in. I don't care that you've inadvertently forgotten to include the paragraph which explains exactly what my duties would be. You've dropped enough hints, and we can iron out the details at my interview. What do you say? Little Chef on the A303? 

Madam, I remain your devoted servant 
Plashing Vole.

PS. I hope you don't mind, but I've taken a liberty with your e-mail. Even though your letter was clearly targeted at me for my obvious skills, I've shared your details with the Internet. After all, nobody should be denied the benefits of working for such an illustrious organisation. They'll all be in touch soon. Will there be some kind of bonus for helping with your recruitment?


Update: I've just received the same e-mail, this time from Freida Bechtold, dyurantrbella@hotmail.com. These fraudsters really are lazy…


Like some of you, I've notified Amazon. Keep an eye on your accounts.


Update 2: reply from Amazon:

Thank you for contacting at Amazon.co.uk and bringing this to our attention. 

The e-mail you received wasn't from Amazon.co.uk, and we're investigating the situation. 

I didn't suggest it was 'from' Amazon - but did ask them to consider whether their databases had been hacked. It seems increasingly likely.

Public Service Announcement

If you have a Google account (unfortunately necessary as they own Blogger), you may get this message:

Dear user accounts

Due to congestion on our users emaill and removal of all unused accounts, which will close by all accounts not used on 25 May. You must confirm your account as soon as possible so we can update your account before the deadline.

To confirm your account SEND THE REQUIREMENT.

Full Name:

E-mail:

Password:

Phone Number:

After following the instructions on the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

It's an attempt to steal your details - the poor English should give it away. Ignore it.

Look out for this one

If you get an e-mail like this, it's probably genuine.

Dear Western benefactor,
my name is Muammar Ghadaffi/Hosni Mubarak/the King of Bahrain and I am sitting on a major pile of bullion thanks to some wise investments in British defence exports, Swiss Banks and London property. I have now decided to have a short holiday in Europe/Saudi Arabia and would like to offer the opportunity to share in my good fortune. If you would like to look after my pension fund for a short period, send me your account details and may Allah (peace be upon him) bless you for your kindness. I will deposit several billions of my oil money in your account for safekeeping.

h/t Mark

Well, that's the love life sorted

Someone called Eve Desmond from Ougadougou wants to marry me.

Hello

My name is Eve Desmond, I saw your profile today through the help of chamber of commerce in ouagadougou the capital of Burkina Faso) and became intrested in you, I will also like to know you the more,and I want you to send an email to my email address so I can give you my picture for you to know whom I am..Here is my email address (evedesmond@voila.fr)I believe we can move from here!I am waiting for your mail to my email address above.

Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life

Best regards

Eve Desmond

What a very strange name. Must have some tribal significance.

Love may matter 'alot' but so does literacy.

Anyway, greetings to my brothers and sisters in the Chamber of Commerce: sorry my subscription lapsed. I'll send Eve my account details and she can take my subs from that.