Personalized Spam?Take a look at this piece of junk mail. Dtwitch Capture Your DreamEarn Financial Independence You can now for the first time, own a business in your area with the most unique, innovative product in America today. Work less a week with the potential to earn $100,000 a year. There is no selling and not MLM. Join a Multi-Trillion Dollar Market. Now, you may be looking at the first line of that and saying 'what in the world is a 'dtwitch'? And the answer, of course...it's a fragment of my name. My Name is Douglas Twitchell. So the 'D' is from Doug, and the 'twitch' is from Twitchell. So how did the spammer come up with this salutation? Simple. One of my email addresses (in fact, the one being spammed) is dtwitch@[mydomain]. So apparently, this spammer sends out 'personalized' spam by including the first part of each recipient's email address in the first line of the message. So, what's the problem? Well, this seems a little too obvious to have to explain, but no one calls me 'dtwitch'...to my face or otherwise. To me it's just plain mind-boggling that a spammer thinks I'm more likely to read and act on a piece of spam which is addressed to 'dtwitch'. It's like the telemarketers who call and ask for 'Douglas Twizzle'. Uh...sorry. He's not in. He probably won't be anytime this millenium. Of course, I know what the spammer is thinking. He's thinking, "There's got to be lots of people who's email address is their first name. So those people will think this is a personalized letter." Nice try. Just for kicks, scan through your address book, and see how many people you know whose email address is just their first name. For me it was a whopping 3.4%. That's just a little more than three out of a hundred. A Helpful Hint This tip is for spammers. If you're going to waste your time spamming people, at least get their names right. When you address people by the incorrect name 96.6% of the time, it makes you look stupid. Oh...wait a minute. Ha ha. Never mind. Previous Section Index NextClick Here For Recent PostsHelp Protect Others From Scams |
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