PeeperStorm on 14/2/2012 at 16:44

---

The internet gave me a little gift in my inbox this morning, so I thought I'd share. It's one of those official notification spams that tries to trick you into clicking a link:

(http://i43.tinypic.com/33aealt.jpg) Screenshot link

Where to begin? The beginning, of course. Official government notices seldom begin with "good day", but perhaps the IRS decided to temper their threat with a pleasant greeting, so I'll let that slide this time.

Moving on the the first sentence, we find an arbitrary comma plunked down right in the middle, like a grammatical Berlin Wall running between East and West sentence. And you can tell which part is East, because it thinks that the deadline for filing tax returns is January 31.

Next paragraph, another inscrutable comma after the word "account" intimidates me further with the fact that the IRS is exempt from even the laws of punctuation. Furthermore, I can't hide from the kind of internet-savvy tax agents who use words like "expirey".

We then learn that my fate depends on a determination by "The Company". Sounds ominous, like some black ops squad that's going to assassinate me in my sleep if I don't measure up. And the phrase "caused by substantial reasons" is a hilarity unto itself.

The link confuses me, because the link tells me to click the link below. But there is no link below! STOP MESSING WITH MY HEAD!!

The fact that they've informed me that I owe a metric ton of money, and that covert goons are after me, isn't going to stop them from closing out with a polite "sincerely yours", because good manners are important when you're trying to terrify people. And I'm not clever enough to figure out why "United States" is on a different line than "Department of the Treasury", unless it means that the Treasury has assumed control of the US. All hail our new overlords!

Finally, there's the little link up in the right corner that tells me to "Conta ct IRS". Surprisingly, it does point to an IRS URL, so you know the whole thing must be legit!

:thumb:

Ulukai on 14/2/2012 at 17:51

---

Thanks guys we needed more spam

demagogue on 14/2/2012 at 21:26

---

Haha, it's not bad enough when spam comes to us. Now we go out and bring the spam back ourselves... That's terror.


No, but seriously I get a laugh out of bad spam. I can't help surfing that site where they're trolling Nigerian 419 scammers. They're all the same basic story, but I can't help reading every one and lolling anyway.

Edit: The site is (http://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm) 419eater.com for the record.

Ulukai on 15/2/2012 at 17:23

---

I guess mentioning Nigeria immediately rules out anyone even remotely savvy and leaves you to suck dry the totally clueless. Which is good, if that's what you're trying to do.

demagogue on 16/2/2012 at 00:35

---

Yeah, if you go to the (http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=10) forums and notice the bottom of a lot of posts, members will have little icons -- like a piggy bank, an expedition hat, a little craft, etc -- and I figured out they get a piggy bank every time the scammers send them money, an expedition hat every time they get the scammers to fly to another country, and a little craft when they get the scammer to mail them some very labor-intensive craft like a handwritten copy of the entire Harry Potter or 100 wooden duck statues, lol. Some of them have earned some astounding swag at these guys' expense.