more content in German | mehr Inhalt auf deutsch- A mashup of numerous cover versions of Bohemian Rhapsody by The Kleptones: description, MP3 direct link (via Spreeblick).
- A funny speech (in two videos at Friendly Atheist): “All Your Religions Are False”.
- Browser game 1: Who Wants to Live a Million Years? – for Darwin’s birthday (via @gwup).
- Browser game 2: Bubble Spinner (via The Swedest Thing).
- A font from your own handwriting (free and online) at YourFonts (via FamLog).
Gott oder Geld? – Zitat des Tages (16)
Sorry, but this post is not available in English
Re: Inquiry to the Management
Some spam again – not strangely translated, it’s “only” questionable how anyone could actually be interested in an offer made this way… (originally German, I translated it).
Dear Sir or Madam,
we are a dynamic and strongly growing M&A – consultant company.
Dynamic with changing domains1 and with a mail address database you’re spammin to that’s strongly growing over the years. Did the letters in your “M&A” slip that much that the & actually is a rotated superimposition of an S on a P?
(You have to look very closely on their site to see that this “M&A” is actually supposed to mean “Mergers & Acquisitions”.)
Our core competence is the placement of companies who seek a succession plan or a share investment.
Can’t tell about placement, but finding them certainly isn’t if you’re writing to addresses harvested on personal sites like mine.
Our brokering department currently has requests from potentially interested buying parties and investors in your company and your branch of business and your reagion. We noticed your company in this connection.
I’m sure you got no idea at all what “branch of business” my “company” is in and which region this is about.
If you are planning to sell your company or seek an investor, please leave us a brief message by e-mail or phone.
No, you can read this here in public!
Do you intend to sell or are you looking for an investor?
Which price/sum of investment do you want to achieve?
Reason for your plans?
Until when do you want your plan to be completed?
This certainly is the most important thing you have to know about a company… Let’s answer the questions: An investor without any voting rights with at least 10 million Euros without any refund demands, because you can always use money, and until the day after tomorrow at the latest.
Shouldn’t be hard for such competent broken, erm, brokers such as you.
Our specialists will contact you after your reply without obligation. Of course all information and data will be kept strictly secret in our house.
Oh, you got specialists? Didn’t hear from any yet.
Yours
D[…] S[…]
– Backoffice Account Management –
Does this stand for: back-room spam transmission?
If you wish no e-mails of this kind anymore, then you please write a brief e-mail to […] or reply directly to this mail.
The bold emphasis, by the way, is according how they wrote it (in German), actually. Just wondering if a reply would do more than just confirm the ail address as active…
A “disclaimer” is included too, of course (and this one in German and English):
This e-mail may contain confidential, privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorised copying, disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden.
A mail that is spammed to numerous arbitrary recipients is (without error) always at the intended recipient. And I don’t think that anything unauthorized has at any time not been forbidden. But the uselessness of such disclaimers isn’t spreading fast…
See also (German): Antispam forum (with the first of their spams from June 2007).
Photos: mikecco/sxc, mikecco/sxc
- even it it’s just the .com version of the .biz domain that redirects to a .de domain [↩]
I’m a gold expert!
When some time ago I extended my Premiere pay-TV subscription (the German pay-TV provider), I also got a cheap receiver as spare for a few bucks, and its package also included (all quotes translated by me):
- A leaflet: “Voucher for playing lotto for free 4 times”.
- An envelope with “A thank-you for Premiere subscribers”: A cell-phone offer.
- An envelope with “For you as Premiere customer!” on it: An electricity provider switch service.
- And an envelope “Expert survey 2008” from Bayerisches Münzkontor, a coin mail-order company.
The latter says:
We picked you representatively – your opinion is especially important to us. Our expert survey 2008 has the motto “Do you consider gold a secure investment?”.
Aaah yes, Premiere receiver buyers are representatively selected… Maybe they should use that text only for their direct mailings (which doesn’t imply that it’s necessarily correct then…); at least in the past years they did some mailings, see e.g. (in German) here or with other topics here.
Included was a questionnaire – “Opinion sheet no. 842/7452”, is that really a unique number? – with 8 questions such as “Would you invest in gold?”, “Should Germany, considering the current economic situation, sell parts of its gold treasures?” and “Would you consider giving gold in bars or coins as a present […]?” At least some of them, it seems to me, are likely to influence the advertising you’ll receive in the future.
The return envelope with its print “Important documents!” and a field for entering the date of arrival are probably “a little” exaggerated, kissing up to the potential customer…
A “personal thank-you package” is also available: A coin at a “preferential price” of 10€ instead of 49,99€ – for acquiring new customers, selling something below value isn’t uncommon, there’ll probably be nice margins later on for regular prices –, a collector’s box and a wrist watch.
And if you don’t read the fine print, you’re also about to receive, “as a special service”, more coins every month – at least this can be canceled and the coins returned at any time, they say, and that’s what one can expect anyway. Well, it should be known anyway that you have to read everything attentively… At any rate, you might be in for some advertising in the future, I guess…
0.06% articles reduced!
It is somewhat funny1 if a large mail-order company like Neckermann is advertising “Over 50 articles reduced!”, isn’t it?
Alright, that of course only applies to the articles that are advertised in the ad letter (with the usual 10€ voucher, of course) – however, it’s still odd, given how many articles they have in total: 85,958 when adding the numbers they give in their categories on their website, maybe plus 6095 chrismas things if they are not also listed in the other categories.
(Of course I should mention that their bargain category contains 14,988 articles, so really not just those few they mentioned in the letter.)
- if not to you, then, well, ignore this post
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