4.05.2010

Strange Spam

A spam email this weekend got past TWO spam filters and ended up in my inbox. Most spam is concerning pharmaceuticals or good-looking women or better SEO, gets caught by the filter, and I tune it out. This one slipped by. The subject was a dubious "hello". I opened it, curious as to what could have bypassed both filters, only to discover it was in a language I didn't recognize. Gmail did recognize it, however, and offered to translate it from Croatian to English. Hmm, that's odd. I don't know anyone in Croatia. Here's what the email said, in English:
Make a pact with Satan for riches now! this is your chance to be very rich. Make a pact with Satan now. You'll be the richest person in the world. I am a priest at the alter of his temple and I will guide you through the pact. now contact me for more information and to be rich in 2 days.
First, the Croatian email isn't that enticing. On Easter weekend, would I really make a pact with the devil? Or, really, ever? It's a new tact I haven't heard of- I thought all riches on the Internet came from Nigeria. Second, besides the subject of the email being in English, something in the text of the email makes me suspect that the message was written in English, then translated to Croatian before being sent- what is it?

4 comments:

Molly said...

That is so WEIRD! I would say that it was written in English first because the grammar is way to perfect to be translated. I was translating things from Turkish to English the other day and because of the structure differences it read weird in English. It was like "the cat black down jumped." Maybe this is the new Nigerian scheme. Thanks for posting because it was interesting.

"The Queen of Free" said...

Ok that is pretty funny. Didn't realize Satan had upped his game to include an e-mail campaign for pact making. I'm guessing the misspelling of the word "alter" is the reason you think it was in English first? Do I win?!

Joanna said...

Cherie wins!

There's no way they would have coincidentally used the wrong word in Croatian that translated to the English word "alter" instead of "altar". Way to go!

"The Queen of Free" said...

I LOVE winning! ;)

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