Over the past two years (12/18/2006 - 12/20/2008) I have collected hundreds of emails that tell me I have millions of dollars (or pounds) waiting for me, if only I would supply a small amount of personal information.  The details vary; sometimes the million dollars is ill-gotten gains of which I will receive a percentage by acting as an foreign agent who will claim it;  Other times it's a lottery ticket;  Still others it's an inheritance, or a bank error in my favor, etc.

I did not collect emails promising small prizes ($500 gift card from Wal-Mart; act as foreign check-cashing agent, keeping 10% of an unknown future stream of payments) or blatant account phishing tricks (e.g. an email that says: click here to verify your bank account), as (1) these scams are well documented elsewhere, and (2) why should I respond to such small promises when other emails promise me millions of dollars?

I also tried as much as possible to eliminate obvious duplicates.  For example, one group of emails, purporting to come from one of Fondazion DiVittorio, Foundation de France, Shell Foundation, The Russian Foundation for Basic Research, or the World Vision International Program, and asking me to respond variously to Sir Allan Buffet, Mr. Andrea Canavaro, Mrs. Angela Parrinelo, Mrs. Angie Randall, Mrs. Ashley Tyler, Mr. Brian Millavic, Mr. Carlos Gianlucci, Mrs. Claudia Diodore, Mrs. Claudia Lauren, Claudio Giovanni, Mrs. Finela Transofa, Mr. Forest Charlot, Mr. Francesco Villa, Mr. Henry Morgan, Mr. Jim Clark, Mr. Marchelle Fanny, Miss Andjella Anzhela, Rev. Owen Austin, Mr. Piretti Madini, Mrs. Pullvic Laura Sidigo, Dr. Sherry Williams (Mrs), Steven Alkin, Mr. Mr. Vikki Malcom (a man so distinguished he merits two Mr.'s), or Prof. Wendy B. Winds is characterized by the phrases "We found your email address from 100,000 shop's" and that the promised grant money is to be used for "personal, educational, and business development".  All of these people at all of these organizations are sending similarly worded offers of educational grants to me!  You would think these people would talk to each other a bit more, and maybe coordinate their efforts a bit better.

Exactly how stupid do these phishermen think I am?  I listed some aspects of their emails that defy logic.

• Throwing away duplicates, if I add up all these solicitations, and take them at face value, I stand to earn not just millions, but over a billion dollars!  That strikes me as unlikely, even if I were the only person in the world getting these solicitations.
• The "reply-to" address is almost never the same as the email address that the phisherman wants me to write to.  Why is that?  One logical explanation is that auto-replies generated by email servers for non-existent mailboxes or many other purposes would be a problem to a spammer who has sent billions of emails.  (For this reason, I will not publish the "reply-to" addresses here.  These people are as much victims of the spammers as I am!)
• How is it that the phisherman knows that coupon number PBL2348974321 won the lottery, and my email address, but not my name, address and phone number?  Surely if I'm the one and only winner of this huge lottery, they can discover this information about me before sending me an email.
• The sheer number of Internet lotteries is amazing.  In one seven-day period, discounting duplicate notifications, there were at least eleven different lotteries, and the most incredible thing about them is that I won all eleven of them!  What are the odds against that?
• Would a bank, even a stupid evil bank, send a message with spelling, grammar, and punctuation like this? "Beacause out team is working constantly for a good performance on our server,the database was restarted and somes dates was lost.For this reason we asking you to update your account whit your information.We are sorry for this inconvenient and remember that your informations are private.Thank you very much."  I didn't change a letter, I swear!
• Would a U.S. Marine say "This motivated me to connive with my best friend in our force"?  Or "untill my assignment elapses here"?
• Would a dignified (and very rich) lady on her deathbed speak of her "cancerous ailment"?  Would she rely on email as a way of preventing her husband's "bourgeois" relatives from learning she intended to bequeath her estate to a complete stranger? 

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