Editing Spam
Am I missing out on a primo opportunity to be pitching my services as an editor for spam? Because, really, take a gander at this hot mess:
Attention,
I wish to bring to your knowledge that your previous Won prize has been cancelled and you are now re-awarded sum of Seven Hundred and Eighty Thousand Dollars ($780,000.00USD) only on facts below :
A. Your Fiduciary Agent was discovered to be corrupt.
B.The Organisation want all Winners to claim their Won prize through Bank only and no longer want any of its winners to have anything to do with Agent.
C.The only Accredited Bank we now have as Affiliate paying Bank is Halifax Bank Plc. D. We also discovered that you were too delay in claiming your previous Won Prize.
Now what you are to do is to send a email to the paying Bank : Halifax Bank plc via email [the address was here].
and inform them of this development that you are One of the winners who the winnings has been re awarded.
What really got my attention, though, was the excessive capitalization. I’m always trying to remind my clients that capitalizing a common noun only for extra promotional value achieves the opposite effect — it’s like crying wolf. The more You Capitalize, Especially arbitrarily, The less People will Pay Attention to You and think You are Weird.
Just for kicks, I edited the spam. I wish I could post a track changes visible version, but the clean version will have to do:
Please note that we have canceled your previous prize. You will receive the sum of US $780,000 based on these facts:
A. We discovered that your fiduciary agent was corrupt.
B. The organization wants all winners to claim their prizes through the bank only; we no longer want any winners to have anything to do with the fiduciary agent.
C. The only accredited bank we now have as an affiliate is Halifax Bank Plc.
D. We also discovered that you were too late in claiming your previous prize.
Please send an e-mail to Halifax Bank Plc at [address here] and inform them that you are one of the winners whose winnings have been re-awarded.
I’d love to see some click-through stats comparing grammatically correct spam (if such a thing exists) versus the kind of spam we’re used to. I realize that many spammers may be non-native English speakers, but how is it that they’re also uniformly poor writers?
Maybe I’ve missed the point. Poor grammar and formatting is still noticeable. And isn’t that what spammers want?