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bad language

Lottery spam from the future

It should be well-known that e-mail addresses can’t win lotteries – especially without actually participating in them – and such “win notifications” only are interested in address and bank data and possibly advance-fee fraud.

Also known should be that automatic translations can produce funny results.1

But that such mails come from the future – wow!

This one specimen arrived on July 7 at 17:11 (that’s 5:11 pm), but would be will sent on July 8 at 11:09 UTC in order to will informed have me on July 9 about the “drawing” from July 8 had. Or something to that extent. It’s so difficult with these tenses…

(The mail is also funny for its “German”, but there’s not much point in showing it here in the English part of my blog…)

  1. especially if they need two steps, e.g. Russian → English → German []

The best time for an ad campaign

Ball! Let’s imaging the following, of course completely hypothetical scenario in the advertising department of a German bank:

It is early June. One employee says: “Ey, boss, the European football championships are beginning soon, many people want a new, large 16:9 TV, but not everybody can afford one right away – wouldn’t that be a good time to advertise our credit offers?”

The boss (looking up from the championship schedule he was studying intensely): “Hmmm… yes, might be good. Best would be a bulk mailing, nationwide. You take care of that, will you? I’m currently busy.”

“Yeah, sure, boss, I will! Oh, by the way, I’ll take 3 weeks holiday – championship, you understand? Is that okay?”

Boss (was already looking at the championship schedule again): “…huh? Yes, sure, alright.“

Fast-forward until early July, i.e. the present (and the reality), the Euro 2008 ended three days ago. What’s in the mailbox? A pull-out cardboard bulk mail saying “16:9 for our boys?” with two cheering German fans on the front, pull out left → “No”, right → “problem!” and a third fan. Back:

“Public viewing during the European championship now also at home – with your new wide flat TV and the […] credit. By the way: You receive up tp 18,750 PAYBACK points on top!”

(“Payback” is a data-collecting discount point system, and “public viewing” is actually the “officially made-up” term used in Germany for a public (outdoor) screening.)

Well, that’s perfect timing, isn’t it?
:loll:

I’d prefer dating scam spam…

100% safe…since there’s ususally a photo included, but you can’t have it all, another Anghela is hard to find. So this mail here (the image on the right was not included) is just a generic 419 scam – except that it’s not from Nigeria but South Africa (or at least claims to be) –, promising a multi-million sum for a pretended money transfer.

And, alas, the senders translated their English (which is maybe not completely perfect, and at any rate quite complicated for automatic translation) automatically into German, making it somewhat funny – in German, that is, so this is not really something funny for you English readers, sorry… Let me just mention that their statement about this business being “100% safe” turned into “100%-Safe”, i.e. a 100% safe/vault, hence my little image on the right.

Their English original (which they also included) isn’t really worth reading, but for the sake of completeness, I included it here:

Show the English scam text ▼

Guardian angels cause internal injuries and broken bones

An Australian base jumper’s parachute did not open properly when he jumped down a waterfall – reason for the radio news of Antenne Bayern to praise “multiple guardian angels”, AFP’s German report sticks with the singular, saying “The guardian angel apparently didn’t let him down” (my translation); “the man suffered a suspected broken leg and pelvis and internal injuries”, full report without “heavenly help” in English here.

:thumbsdown: Hello, dear guardian angel(s), how about fixing the guy’s parachute to make it unfold properly? (If you actually existed, that is…) I think it’s rather (unintentionally) cynical of the news writers/speakers to actually praise the “guardian angels” in cases like this, if you indeed believe in them.

(By the way, the jumper may be charged by the police due to jumps being illegal there.)

“You can see more my photo’s”

Dating scam spam just keeps on flowing – now it’s a pretended Helen from the USA who wants to find friends, and if it really was an American who wrote this, (s)he’s not better than an automatic Russian–English translation program, not only because of the silly plural apostrophes:

You can see more my photo’s

Hallo, my name’s Helen

Im 28, i live in Ashville NC, USA.
I am woman who’s looking to meet some new people and friends.
You can see more my photo’s and about me
at my Website Home Page: http://[…].110mb.com
if you wanna chat plz send me letter.

my peronal e-mail: kurey.helen@gmail.com

i’ll be wait 4 your letter with a great impatience :-) :-) :-)

Helen

p.s Du darfst mir auf dem Deutschen schreiben.
Ich verstehe ein wenig Deutsche die sprache.

The last two lines in wrong German re-translate to “You may write to me on the German. I understand a little Germans the language.”

The page (on a normal free hoster; I downloaded it with an editor, so there might actually be a browser switch that tries to infect e.g. Internet Explorer) is kind of a profile page with a few brief specifications where the city now is called “Asheville” and where she dreams about the sea and finding friends, “and if any good things developed from a solid friendship, then it would be a great bonus!!”

Yeah, sure, that’s why “she” sends the mails via a Norwegian PC (probably a zombie) with a different sender name & address.


I won’t publish the enclosed photo this time – not because it were pornographic, but because I’m scared its kitschiness might scare off my visitors. :mrgreen: Just as the other photos that are linked to on that page (which were apparently grabbed elsewhere, as the path names indicate, and which don’t contain any malware according to VirusTotal) could hardly be more kitschy.


Update: To summarize the German comments below (thanks!): “She” kept mailing the same mails to many others, mentioning “she” were back in Russia and the language becoming typical for automatic translation, “she” hardly or never reacted to what the men replied, wants to know address and airport, and finally wants money – and there you have it, just a typical love scam. So just ignore “her”!

In October, “her” name’s now Lauren…