Again with the British Lottery. Really, now, people, how many times do you think I can win this thing without entering one? This one’s not as much fun; still has bad grammar from supposedly English writers, still two people referenced in the email and a third in the return address, and still asking for my full bio for ID theft ahem, winner verification purposes, but not nearly so much entertaining filler to shoot themselves in the foot.

From: BRITISH LOTTERY INT, (ravenblack@bellnet.ca)
Date: 2/27/2008 6:00:07 AM
To: info@lottery.net
Subject: Lucky Winner!!!You won the sum of £1,000,000 GBP from our monthly Lotto Programe, you are to get back to us for your winning prize claim.

Resistance is futile.

Contact Person: Mr. Anthony Campbell E-mail: agent_anthonycampb@yahoo.co.uk

Uh-huh. Because all good lotteries have Yahoo email addresses for the winners to contact.

Claims Requirements:
1.full name:

Sorry, I haven’t fed it lately; try again later.

2.Home Address:

At the corner of the diamond, right in front of the umpire.

3.Age:

Of Reason?

4.Sex:

Is irrelevant.

5.Marital Status:

On hold. Indefinitely.

7.Phone Number:

Three. No, four. I think. Unless you’re counting all the landline handsets, and then I just don’t know. Lost count, years ago.

8.Nationality9.

No, no, no, that’s supposed to be “Love Potion Number 9,” not “Nationality9.”

Country Of Residence.

Why? Are you going to tell me I don’t win after all, because I’m not a UK resident?

Mr. David Brant
Online Co-coordinator

Not to be mistaken for a coordinator, noooooooooooo, he’s a co-coordinator. Except there’s really no reason to have a co-coordinator, is there? Why do you need three names in one scam? And get a load of the reply address: claims_redemptiondepot01@hotmail.com

Hotmail, UK Yahoo, and a Canadian Bellnet address, with two names listed and one they apparently hope you never notice, assuming RavenBlack is a name of some sort. All seems like a lot of juggling for little useful purpose to me, but then, I suppose if they get one or two good dupes, they’ll have plenty of money to make up for it, at least until the cops catch up to them.

I think I rather like MSTing scams/spam, as long as 1) it’s not vulgar, and 2) there’s enough substance to be useful. I had one tonight with an amusing subject line, but the whole message was in images, and I wasn’t about to unblock the images just to see if it would be funny enough to use. Too dangerous. Anyway, I’m thinking I may make this a regular thing, though I’ll stick with what shows up of its own accord for now.

Strangely enough, I’ve been having bouts with a rather persistent gobbledygook spammer here, which seems to have tapered off in the last day or two. I deleted one obvious spam account registration, and I’ve got another one that I’m leaving alone for now (they probably won’t post anything - that’s been my experience so far). It’s kind of sad, really; there were one or two spam comments in the queue with links to sites I might have found interesting - if they hadn’t spammed me. I make a policy of never buying from or promoting spammers. If they’d tried emailing me with something along the lines of, “Hey, I noticed you’re advertising products related to mine - would you consider advertising some of mine?” I might have considered it, though I’d certainly have been more inclined if they offered me a benefit to doing so; the ads I have on my blog promise to pay me if sales come from me. Eh, well, all I can do is stick to my policies and ward off the jerks.