Like most people, I hate spam. Most of it goes straight in the virtual junk bin. I do, however, skim through them to keep tabs on what kind of spam messages are making the rounds.

I’ll sometimes see people on forums warning about some “new” spam scams going around, and they’ll be things I recognize as having gone around before. They’re just “new” to some people. Or, there may be a slightly new spin on things. Still, if you do keep a skimming eye on these things, you can recognize spams and scams pretty easily.

At any rate, I received a spam just minutes ago. The subject was odd. It said “We are not familiar with you.” Okay, so if you are not familiar with me, why are you writing to me? Ordinarily, that would be enough to junk it. But, I don’t recall seeing such a subject line before, so I decided to see what it was they were trying to sell.

The body of the message has all the tell-tale signs of someone for whom English is a second language. In this case, however, that’s okay. The sender is purporting to be a single Russian woman looking for a husband. Lots of times, you’ll see something purportedly coming from a well-known company but with a message so poorly worded that it’s obvious (or should be) that the real company would never send out a message like that. But, in this particular case, it works. You would be more suspicious if “she” had written the message in perfect English.

One thing that this message does not do is claim that “she” found you through your online dating profile. If you don’t have any online dating profiles, you immediately recognize that as spam. Other variations are saying that “she” found you online through your web site or social networking site. This particular message gives no indication as to how “she” stumbled upon your address. And, if you are married, you would certainly know that your online profiles, especially on social networking sites, probably indicate that (otherwise, you may have some ’splaining to do to your spouse), so you can immediately recognize it as spam.

However, not mentioning how “she” found you and yet still saying that you sound like a “good man” is another cause for suspicion. How would “she” know anything about you? Where would she have found out? Why not mention where? The reason, of course, is because it is a bulk message sent to thousand if not hundreds of thousands of people. But, on an individual basis, when looking at the message, that should throw up some red flags.

Plus, if you are purporting to be a single Russian woman looking for a husband, you should perhaps make sure that the sender address uses a feminine rather than masculine name. In this particular case, the name could go either way. But, then the name “she” uses in the body of the eMail should match the sender name. The fact that the sender name and the name mentioned in the body of the message and the contact eMail “she” provided do not match one another is another huge clue that what you’ve received is spam.

Additionally, if you are purporting to be a single Russian woman looking for a husband, and you include a photo in your message, you should probably make sure that there is nothing resembling a wedding ring on the ring finger of your left hand.

If you’re not familiar with this type of spam, you may be wondering what the purpose is. Maybe you’re thinking “she” doesn’t know any better and just resorted to sending out a large number of messages to find the right guy.

Probably not.

From what I have read, the typical scam is that “she” will write back and forth with you, gaining your trust and trying to get you to fall in love with her and want to be with her and such. Sometimes, the person on the other end is a guy; sometimes, it may be a woman, possibly hired to do this “work.” Your potential “bride” is probably stringing along a few other guys along with you.

The objective is to get you to send money. “She” may need money for her mother’s operation. Or, maybe she’s struggling to pay rent. Maybe she needs money for an airplane ticket to come visit you. But, then her mother’s condition acts up, and she needs to stay with her, and can you send some more money so she can stay with her mother at the hospital and not go to work? And so on.

Until you run out of money (or come to your senses and figure out what’s going on) and then your little love affair will come to an abrupt end.

So, that’s why you need to be careful out there, especially when contacted by single Russian women with masculine names wearing wedding rings.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 4th, 2010 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Del.icio.us | Digg It | Googlize this post! | reddit | Stumble it! | Technorati | Twitter
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.