Why do we still have spam?

by Kris Neri, with the Femmes Fatales

Why do we still have spam?

I understand why we did when the Internet was new. When we naively thought anything print had to be true. When grammatically and English-challenged grifters first grasped the idea that they could use email to scam a few bucks. 

Even back then, though, it wasn’t merely a few bucks. Once I read a newspaper
article about a woman who spammed for a living. It was a long time ago, and my memory of it isn’t perfect — but I vaguely recall that she claimed to work 4-6 hours a day sending out spam emails, and made $250,000 per year.

Is it any wonder the number of spammers exploded? 

When I lived in Sedona and owned a bookstore there, a woman used to come in periodically who always asked if we knew anyone who’d be interested in “Internet marketing.” I never asked anything about it, so I can’t share any particulars. Interestingly, she sometimes came to one of the writing workshops fiction authors often put on for us, though she rarely bought the author’s book. I am assuming she made more from “Internet marketing” than either most authors or booksellers.

But back to the question of why we still have spam…why do we? We’re not naive anymore. Is there anyone who still believes Nigerians struggle to give away free money? Are there any men around anymore who believe that young girls, who are the most horrific spellers on the planet, desperately want them, sight unseen?

Even worse than email — because spam filters catch much of it today — is phone spamming. And it’s just as ridiculous. Sometimes our caller IDs say the calls come from…us. That’s right, they use our names. Does anyone take a call from themselves? We receive calls warning us that some warranty is about to expire, and giving us the chance to renew it — for a fee, of course — on some non-specific product. We’re told we’re about to be arrested for some unnamed crime, but we can get out of it for, once again, by paying the caller a fee. We’re told our Social Security number has been suspended, and once more, for a charge we can have it restored again. And on and on with increasingly more ridiculous scenarios and offers.

So, I repeat: Why do we still have spam? Who still believes in these offers? Who still falls for these come-ons? 

As I wrote earlier, email programs today have spam filters that catch most of the scam or phishing emails. Do some people peruse their junk folders for offers too good to be true? 

According to Google, for every 12.5 million spam emails sent out, only one person responds. That sounds like shockingly few responses — until you take into account that a whopping 14 billion (billion with a B!) spam messages are sent out every day. 

Google also says that 34.8 billion spam calls flood merely the US phone market every year. And most present illegal offers.

Clearly, if nobody bit, they would all go away. If you’re that one out of 12.5 million who just can’t resist one of these offers, do the rest of us a favor and quit it.

How about you? Have any good spam stories? 

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NEVER SAY DIE: Hit by a car and left for dead on a San Diego street, it is only because of her indomitable will that professional triathlete Zoey Morgan is able to fight her way back from death's door. Too bad she left behind in that nether world, not only her memory of the vehicular assault, but the events that led up to it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZTS1FM (Kindle)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0615981836 (Paperback)

Comments

[Mark]

No fun spam stories to share. But you need to factor in the spam I get because of my reviews at Amazon. Seriously, that adds so many to my email box every day.

[Susan Neace]

Our 50 some year old neighbor lost her husband just after we bought our house 2 years ago. Her relationship with her adult children was not happy, she had physical problems that resulted in a dependence on pain meds and she was desperately lonely. She couldn't drive. The doctor she met on the internet who promised her true love was to be her salvation and she was happy to send him money. Her daughter was frantically trying to find a way to stop the drain on her limited resources when our neighbor died of an accidental overdose. I wish we could shut the scammers down.

[krisneri]

Mark, what a nuisance! Why should you have to sort through that every day?

[krisneri]

Susan, what a really tragic story. That poor woman. The memory her daughter has to live with is also sad.