Please forward this to everybody that gets SPAM.

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Swimsuit Model Seeks Soul Mate

This article is presented as a public service.
Copy and forward the link to this page at will.
http://themediadesk.com/files7/maude.htm
And Help Stamp Out SPAM!

There are some email subject lines that are just simply too good to be true.

You have WON Fifty Thousand Dollars! Yeah, that's one of them. So is... Free DreamBox64 Video Game Console and 25 Games!    and Earn Money For Reading Email!
     And there are those gullible people out there that not only believe they have won free gasoline for a year. They open the email, go to the site, fill out the survey with their credit card number and shoe size, then they forward the email to all their friends and co-workers as well.
     The Desk knows some of them.
     It gets email from some of them.
     It gets a LOT of email from some of them.

     Besides the blessing poems and tests of true friendship, it has started getting emails 'highly recommended by...' some acquaintances of the Desk. They have signed up to 'Earn Money Surfing the Web' even though that Almost- Hoax was proven to be a fruitless waste of perfectly good electrons two years ago. Another one was somebody that actually signed up to be a 'Mystery Shopper', or was it 'Test Marketer for New Products', no wait, it was 'Ground Floor Organizer for NEW EXCITING COMPANY!' or maybe 'Partner Needed for Urgent Business Proposal'.
     Face it. The Spammers best friend is your Aunt Maude who is brand new to email and has just discovered all these remarkable new things.
     Good Old Maude isn't liable to forward you the one about 'Men: Grow three to six inches...' or 'I became Multiple Orgasmic at age 35 and after I had 2 kids', although she might. But you can be sure you'll see 'If you care about them, send them this', and 'My Cousin's Best Friend's Paralegal's Sister in Law Warned Us About', and 'Earn A Fortune Working at HOME'. We all love Maude to death, but after the fifteenth 'Urgent Virus Warning' and the thirtieth 'Angel Poem' and the umpteenth 'Tribute to a Loving Mother' it gets old. But please, break it to her gently.

And the other ones, oh please. There is no reason for some of them.

The Desk, in its multitude of email accounts, has one under the name of Elvis that is a magnet for SPAM of every description. For this article the Desk counted the number of different types for two days this week in that one account. Further note, the Desk has NEVER used that email address when it signs up for mailing lists or registers for access someplace or whatever. The Address simply Exists. Anyway- It got:

Nine DIFFERENT Credit Card Offers for four different kinds of cards, not counting duplicates of the same offers.
Eleven Discount Mortgage or other loan offers. Four Duplicates.
Twenty-odd various Adult Emails. At least six of those from the same outfit with different headers and From addresses claiming to be out hunting sexy mothers.
Seven variations on: Hi, I saw your personal ad and ... Note, Elvis has never had a personal ad.
Sixteen Product Promotions. Hotels, cars, DVDs, one from a liquor company, etc.
Almost twenty from casinos and related outfits. Some promising Cash to Play NOW! Elvis don't play.
One from the Democrats offering Elvis more info on something or other. Note: Elvis is not registered to vote in this state under ANY party.
Two from somebody claiming to owe Elvis Money.
Three from Classmates saying that Elvis's Class Reunion is coming up.
And MORE but you get the idea.

Two Days. Forty-Eight Hours spanning September 16 and 17. Nearly ONE HUNDRED SPAM EMAILS! 86 by actual count.
Elvis has never gotten anything in that account he even wanted to read. The Desk simply goes in once a week or so and dumps it after looking through to see what the SPAM flavor of the week is. Sometimes its real estate, other times it might be gold futures or naughty cheerleaders. You never know.

     For this article Elvis carefully cut and pasted some of the addresses into various search engines and looked at things such as what was linked to them, related pages, and in a couple of cases, host information. Guess what?
     No matter who the ad was for casino wise, there were only two or three actual different outfits that they were aimed at. For the adult stuff, most of them came from the same pusher using a ghost program to mask their true identity. The hotel's were all for the same online booking agent. And so on.
     So the truism you see floating around the web is probably true. Only a handful of perpetrators are responsible for most of the SPAM on the Net today.
     Irma the Internet Used Appliance Lady simply cannot match the SPAMMERS with lists of millions of addresses. Her ad gets lost in the mailbox with the eighty others that Elvis simply deleted when he didn't see Aunt Maude's name on any of them. Maybe Irma has the microwave Elvis wants for half the price of the national chain store. But it doesn't do him any good if he deletes the ad without reading it because his mailbox is overloaded with crap.

     And the SPAMMERS are their own worst enemy.
     Congress hears complaints every day from businesses whose email servers are full of 'Get Curly Hair Overnight' and 'All Natural Sex Booster Pill' and the email to the home office from their salesman in Pittsburgh can't get through. Sooner or later the Politicians (curse - spit) will act. And when they act, they will most likely overreact and things will get worse instead of better.
     Yes. They will make it worse. When has Congress acted and actually improved the situation? Say with air travel or the dollar coin or national educational standards?

So Once Again.

From Elvis and the Desk...

DO NOT Open the SPAM-

-Yes it could happen... viruses can and do ride in on email and SPAM is one of the biggest offenders. The SPAM message is nothing you really want to read, trust me.

DO NOT Forward SPAM-

-We've all taken the Good Lover's Test and read the thing about Hillary and the Gold Star Mothers. Thank you.... No thank you.

DO NOT Reply To SPAM-

-Unless you really want more SPAM. Replying to it simply confirms your address works. And while that SPAMMER may take you off his list, he'll sell your address to the next one as a Known Working Email Box.

DO NOT Click on the Link in the SPAM-

-Nobody is going to send you a travel alarm clock for taking their two minute survey about toilet paper. It Ain't Happening! Clicking anything in the message is the same as replying to it. You'll just get more.

DELETE IT!-

-What part of 'Delete It' didn't you understand?

BLOCK IT!-

-Some email programs, other than Microsoft's Hotmail, and Yahoo! have filters that actually work. Outfits like AOL and MSN and the others that sell their mailing list to SPAMMERS for fun and profit guarantee that their filters will not block the SPAMMERS emails. Which is why you still get 'PayDay Casino' ads when you have specifically blocked that subject line or address or both.

COMPLAIN ABOUT IT!-

-Sign your ISP's customer service email address up with the SPAMMERS. Let them sort that crap to get to your complaint about the overflowing SPAM. When you pay your bill, ask them about their SPAM filters. When they call to sell you more and better service (tirade about Telemarketers coming next week) ask them if they're doing something about SPAM.

And Lastly....

QUIT SENDING ALL THAT CRAP TO THE DESK! Thank you.

Now if you pardon the Desk, it's going to check out the personal webcam of that swimsuit model that is seeking a soul mate to share her long distance minutes and win cash on the Big Online Casino.

-30-

See the Desk's Urban Legend Page for links and info about various SCAMS and SPAMS and HOAXES and other nonsense in your inbox.

Back to the Desk's Main Page

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