This email rolled in to my gmail account:
You have been choosen By the Board of trustees of the UNITED NATIONS as a winner of $500,000.00. being awarded to you on Monday 06, April, 2009. Contact Dr. Henry Mccartney on email address below to claim your grant.
Email: mccartneyhenrylive2009@hotmail.com
Telephone: + 447031919587
Failure to send an email to (mccartneyhenrylive2009@hotmail.com ) would result to a disqualification
What complete and utter tossers these twats are! Who, I mean who on this planet is ever going to be stupid enough to fall for this?
Added at 20.43:
OMFG, you’ll never believe this. There are people out there who are googling the text and/or the email address in this blatantly unconvincing con email. I think this scammer might be on to a sure bet, the shallow end of the IQ pool looks as though it has some live ones just waiting to be hooked and rolled aboard. Shall we give them a clue folks? Just a tiny teeny weeny clue? Here’s some help:
1. The United Nations doesn’t even have a board of trustees. It is a self-governing entity. Wake up and smell the coffee for fuck’s sake!
2. Why would someone allegedly representing the UN would be using… a fucking Hotmail account? Der!
3. One would really have thought that Dr McCartney would know how to frame his name correctly in English, no?
4. Why is the contact number for an alleged representative of the UN a United Kingdom mobile phone number?
5. Remind me, when did the United Nations move away from the business of world government and in to the business of granting cash prizes? I must have missed that press release.
6. One would have thought that Dr McCartney (being a PhD or a medical doctor of some discipline or other) would have staff (or the personal wherewithal) capable of composing an email in English, not – as this one plainly is – in an abbreviated form of communication.
7. While we’re examining the text, it’s of such poor English standard the average Secondary School student would be embarrassed to put his/her name to it. Failure to send an email would result to qualification. To?
There are more howlers in the email, but isn’t this enough? Come on people, get an education. Please?
So, did you reply? 😉
Might be interesting to email them and ask whether anyone did actually reply!
A fire engine on its way to a fire, merely 10 feet away from you, is less obvious than this email. BUT…
I don’t agree that point 7 is as big a spam-alarm as you suggest. The fact is that the world’s edumuhcashun systems are turning out people who communicate like this every day. Even sparing those for whom English is not their first language (actually quite likely at the UN, BTW), I come across stuff this bad quite often – from fairly senior people in various organisations and often in public communications.
But then, I have a theory. The best spam filter would be a good quality grammar checker. Not only would it automatically capture most spam, but it would also throw away some emails that don’t deserve an audience, even though they don’t meet the definition of spam.
I wonder whether your ‘average’ secondary school student would actually bat an eyelid at that sentence unless it featured in an exam paper. Even then…