a new low

Spammers should be ashamed of themselves. There are few people in this world who have a more hated profession. Until this morning, I was ready to just lump all spammers into a single category of "decroded pieces of crap." However, the spirit of innovation and industry moves forward! This morning I discovered that there's a higher tier to spammers, a plane of existance more repugnant that just those who blanket the world on a single-minded crusade to enlarge the Earth's penises while refinancing our mortages. Spam writers are the content creators. Spam writers are the inventors of the image spam. Spam writers are the inventors of the literary quote spam and the garbled nonsense spam. And spam writers are the originators of the "I have lots of money waiting for you, if only you'll email me in Nigeria" spam.

But this morning, I got a new variation on that one and I find it to be completely disgusting. This morning I got a piece of spam claiming to be from Ron Miller, Account Manager of the Yorkshire Bank. It's the same story: someone deposited millions of dollars into his bank and in a few months time, all of that money will transfer over to the property of the government because it's being unclaimed. Now, aside from that just not making any sense, this email that is usually set in Nigeria with a list of Nigeria nationals as its main players had a few notable changes to it this time around. Particularly, the person who apparently deposited all of the money and "did not declare any next of kin in his official papers" was - in this email - a man named Joseph Grzelak.

Why is it so bad that it's Joseph Grzelak? Because Joseph Grzelak just happened to be a Battalion Commander for the New York Fire Department who died during the September 11th attacks, or as the email itself puts it:

"Joseph Grzelak DIED during the bomb blast that strook[sic] World Trade Center"

First of all, it wasn't a bomb blast that destroyed the towers. Anyway, here you have spammers trying to make it seem like this bullshit scam is routed in reality by claiming that a New York fireman deposited $43,600,000.00 into a random bank in Yorkshire and left no next of kin notification. Unfortuately for "Ron Miller", the victims of 9/11 are all well-documented. It doesn't take more than a simple google search of Joseph's name to discover that he had a wife, two daughters, and numerous cousins - all of whom miss him, all of whom loved him, and all of whom would probably be sickened and appalled to discover that their husband/father/cousin's name was being used to try and scam idiots out of money.

And just in case there was any doubt that the whole thing was bullshit, the name Joseph Grzelak vanishes half-way through the email and is replaced with the name "Gen. Hassan Fazi."

"I have contacted an attorney that will prepare the necessary document that will back you up as the next of kin to Gen. Hassan Fazi, all that is required from you at this stage is for you to provide me with your Full Names and Address so that the Attorney can commence his job."

The whole thing is disgusting.