Christ on a bike – have the spammers finally run out of ideas. Read the spam email I received (posted below) and imagine what it must be like being a con artist trying to think up new ruses to liberate cash from the feeble and the faint-hearted.
Con artist 1: Got any new ideas for scams?
Con artist 2: Yeah, I thought of this new lottery one.
CA1: Cool. Tell me about it
CA2: Well we can con people about that lottery the British Queen runs
CA1: Are you sure? I don’t think the UK monarchy are involved in any lotteries
CA2: Don’t matter. People are dumb and are greedy. They’ll fall for it, especially with my deft line in emails. I’ll have them eating out of my hand.
CA1: Great! Get to it
CA2: We are in the money, my Nigerian friend
Etc, etc, etc…
Anyway, here has to be the singularly worst con email I’ve ever received. There’s no promise of hidden gold, no dead Kings of far-off African countries, just a feeble attempt to spin a line about a lottery that doesn’t exist. Read on and enjoy:
From the Royal Palace of England
Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II
Buckingham Palace
London SW1A 1AA
England
Dear Lucky Winner,
Thank you for participating in Her Majesty’s, Queen Elizabeth II 2006 lottery program. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II 2006 lottery program selection has been performed finally at the Royal Palace of England, Buckingham Palace, England. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II lottery program is a private lottery promotion registered and organized in accordance with the World Lottery Regulation Act (W.L.R.A.) and the British Gaming Board (B.G.B.).
Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II 2006 Lottery Organizing Committee (L.O.C.) is pleased to officially notify you of the status of your email address application. An official notification of winning is hereby issued to you as your email promotional ticket number; ELIZABETH II-13-02-96-09, with serial number; ELIZABETH II/027/198, and ref no; ELIZABETH II/027/2006 in batch E/3233 randomly drew for the lucky numbers 000-000-1984 which selected your email address as a winner of our International Lottery Program. You have therefore consequently won Her Majesty’s 2006 lottery promo in our first batch of the year.
To this extent, we have officially approved a sum payout of GBP 5,500,000.00 POUNDS only to you as our 2006 lottery winner. This amount is from the total prize cash of GBP 27,500,000.00 POUNDS randomly distributed among our five(5) International winners selected by our Lottery Random System Selection (L.R.S.S.). All participants were selected via a computer ballot system drawn from 45,000 email addresses issued from Australia, New Zealand, United States of America, Europe, North America and Asia, as part of our International Promotional Program. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II 2006 lottery promo is the third edition of its kind and we intend to sensitize the public through this medium once again.
Buckingham’s Palace affiliate courier agency will immediately commence the process to facilitate the instant delivery of your lucky Winning Cheque to your own destination accordingly as soon as you contact them.
To begin the processing of your prize, you are to contact our reality courier agency immediately as stated below:
================================================================
NAME: ParcelUK Courier Services
Email:
Contact Person: Mr. Carl Davis
Telephone: +44-702-4068-065
Fax: +44-871-2474-939
================================================================
Please, also remember to contact them by please providing them with your ticket number; ELIZABETH II-13-02-96-09 and your reference number; ELIZABETH II/027/2006. You are also advised to provide them with the underlisted informations below as soon as possible:
1. Full name
2. Address where you would want the parcel delivered to
3. Telephone Number / Fax Number
As soon as your Winning cheque and certificate are in your own possession, you shall be invited for a live television show exactly one (1) week after at the Royal Palace of England, Buckingham Palace, England.
Remember, you must contact our affiliate courier agency using their mailing address not later than seven (7) working days from this notification or your funds will be returned as UNCLAIMED ***NOTE: IN ORDER TO AVOID UNNECESSARY DELAYS AND / OR COMPLICATIONS***. For security reasons, our lucky winners are also advised to keep their winning details from the public to avoid fraudulent acts / claim by unscrupulous members of the public.
Furthermore, should there be any change of your email address contact, do inform us as soon as possible. We hope that you will participate in our end of year high stakes of GBP 50,000,000.00 POUNDS coming up later in the year.
Congratulations once again, from my humble self and all members of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II 2006 Lottery Organizing Committee (L.O.C.).
Yours faithfully,
Evang. Celina Foster
Lottery Co-ordinator for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II 2006 Lottery Program
Do you think anyone will fall for that? I don’t know…I guess there’s one born every minute.
At the weekend, a CD-ROM fell out of the Guardian promoting the Sony Bravia TV. OK, normally I’d throw it away but it features the advert with all the coloured balls bouncing down a San Franciscan street. I think it is a great example of creative advertising (especially as it is promoting a Hi-Def TV). On the CD-ROM it showed how they actually made the advert and it involved 250,000 rubber SuperballsTM being propelled down the hill captured by 25 cameras. Amazing stuff. It could have so easily have been done by computer, but because it is real and the physics of those rubber balls actually happened, it makes it even more magical. You can read all about it here. The song that accompanies it is by Jose Gonzalez and you can download his album “Veneer” on eMusic.com. It’s rather good in a nylon-acoustic-folk-kind-of-way. There’s a touch of Simon & Garfunkel and Nick Drake in there – I quite like it and he’s touring the UK next month. The original song “Heartbeats” was recorded in 2003 by fellow Swedes The Knife. It’s a great pop song, especially if you like your pop with a dollop of “electro”.

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