Note to your sleezy, foreign, scamming, spamming self: If you're going to send out mass emails to recipients without benefit of a a formal introduction, let alone a shared language, you might want to study the vocabulary of your recipients a little more carefully, i.e., don't rely so heavily on Google Translator.*
Case in point. This was waiting for me in my personal, private (use only for communicating with friends, family, and teachers so how the hell did you find me?) email box this morning:
Second Attemption: Your Credit Card PreApproval inside
Your Prepaid Credit Card will be shipped soon!
Prepaid Credit Card Approval Enclosed
Poor credit? Instant Approval for Credit Cards!
We have a Credit Card card invitation for you
Enclosed: Cards for people with Bad Credit...
A. Is this an offer for credit or a last-chance opportunity to save my soul? Because, while in the lives of some the end result may feel similar, for most people money and soul suffer from irreconcilable differences.
B. Prepaid credit? Let me see if I understand. I send a thousand dollars to some unknown destination on the other side of the continent so you can issue me a credit card in the amount of a thousand dollars minus your most generous fee offer?
C. And why would I want to take that risk when I can go to my local grocery store, spin the metal kiosk and prepay in person? Am I not comprensating something here?
*Please don't take this personally, Google. You most definitely rank right up there at the very top of my list of favorite internets friends tools. But for language translation? Needs a little work.
Here's what I mean: I once used you to compose a note for my, then, non-English speaking house cleaner. I wanted her to change the sheets on my son's spare bed. I came home to find her looking at me very strangely. At the end of a confusing exchange, I deciphered her question: Should she cover his bed in notebook, printer, or wrapping paper?
Here's what I mean: I once used you to compose a note for my, then, non-English speaking house cleaner. I wanted her to change the sheets on my son's spare bed. I came home to find her looking at me very strangely. At the end of a confusing exchange, I deciphered her question: Should she cover his bed in notebook, printer, or wrapping paper?
23 comments:
The spam. Oh the spam!!
I'm on the verge of adding word verification to my blog, but I'm waiting for one good porn site first.
P.S. LOVE that spam cartoon, because seriously, how many positive hits do these people get? One born every minute I guess.
Good filtering is your friend :)
I had to add some safeguards on my blog for spam bots this week. I was getting 30 or so an HOUR. Drives me nuts. Don't even get me started on the email spam.
Ah well, a fact of online life. C'est la vie!
Have a groovy day!
I communicate with the Brazilian kids that have stayed at my house on Facebook via Google Translator. We get the gist, but not much else!
Oh, that's funny. I'm printing pages out right now...the segments of dialogue in my book in Spanglish courtesy of iGoogle.
I like the smile you put into everyday frustrations.
I'm flashing back to Amelia Bedelia...
The Nigerian Invasion is so onto me. I can't open my email account without a loving spam from them.
Great spam cartoon. It's so right on.
I keep getting emails telling me I've won $500000. All mine for claiming from multiple sources. I just need to provide my personal details.
I'm having a revival of viagara spams too.
Perhaps there's a link. Vast amounts of money to fund copious supplies of viagara.
The spam kills me. Best title ever.
I don' suffer too much spam in my email - but occassionally I do get it on the blog - always intriguing when it is written in arabic...
I don't get much spam, but yesterday I got one purporting to be from UPS. Because UPS obviously end every sentence with an exclamation mark.
Dear Pat Robertson: please direct your devil diatribes to the spammers. Thank you.
Thank you very very much for that pic at the top of your post. Now, I have the vikings singing the "spam spam spam spam we love spam" song running through my head. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!
Rachel -- that is so funny. UPS using exclamation points! Where DO these spammers get their punctuation pointers?
MPM -- yes, please! Leave the poor, suffering Haitians alone, Preacher Pat!
Nulanne -- I had completely forgotten that Monty Python was responsible for giving spam it's name! So, yeah, a laugh followed by (sorry) a slow hangover of the vikings singing spam song.
okay...first a message to ANYONE thinking of using the translators on Google or Yahoo.....STEP AWAY FROM THE TRANSLATORS! do NOT click that button...it will just confuse the hell out of the person on the receiving end of that message!!
some of my students use those and I have honestly saved some because, well....they're just so damn funny!!!
Oh...and if you got the one I got, it was from China...not Japan. I saw one over at another blog and that's what hers was.
love the cartoon....are you sure you don't want me to send you ALL ,my details? 'cause if you have a gazillion dollars you wanna give me, that info is yours!!!
We get lots of letters of people asking for tutors who want to send us a check more than our charge, so we send them change, and then their check bounces. Luckily... we have degrees... so we are smart enough not to fall for it.
I am apparently related, or share the same last name, with someone who died in Nigeria and I am going to be millionaire.
I know it 'cause they keep telling me so.
Oh I hate spam.
It is such fun to play with online translators though. I do it sometimes. I write a paragraph in English, use babelfish to translate it into German, then from German into French and then back to English. It is so funny what happens to the paragraph. Try it - it'll make you chuckle.
funny, i have a cousin in Nigeria that says I'm now worth millions. I'm so..wait, oh, now I get it.
Ha! This is a great post. I've been getting so much weirdly worded Spam about grand pianos lately.
A little bit of knowledge is a very, very dangerous thing.
The house cleaner story is AWESOME.
For the rest of the post? I think you're missing out, my friend. All you have to do is send a few thousand out, and then the riches of the world will return to you!
I should be getting my Russian bride next week! And I LOVE the spam cartoon!
Thanks for an amusing post. (I don't think you felt so amused with all that.)
http://caffeinatedglobe.blogspot.com/
Post a Comment