I’m one of those rare individuals who actually likes reading ad spam. Really. And I say so without a hint of pretension. The pieces with colourful (read appalling) grammar or syntax don’t do it for me. It’s my delight, however, to read a particularly well-crafted piece of spam and discover an errant misspelt word that instantly collapses the whole deceit.
Judging from the morasse of scam spam doing the rounds, I can picture third world boiler rooms filled with dubious copywriters, whose maternal tongue might not be in sync with the target market’s culture, churning out creative variations on, say, the 519 scam.
In essence, the cash offer appeals to the receiver’s greed and this inducement is usually sufficient to bait the unwitting email recipient to disclose their banking details. The confidential details are then used by the scam perpetrators to abscond with the duped individual’s funds. Stung.
The elemental psychology of the Nigerian scam occasionally becomes the art of high cunning. The most deceptive versions involve a deceit within a deceit or what amounts to a ‘reverse double bluff’. In a double bluff the individual aims to deceive by telling the truth and hoping the audience will think it’s a lie. Classic reverse psychology. In 519 psychology you have what I label a ‘reverse double bluff’ – the perpetrator intends to deceive, so the initial communication premise is untrue. However, the follow through is true.
Here’s an example: You receive an email, ostensibly from your bank, on official letterhead, with all the usual legal riders in place such as ‘We are a registered financial services provider, reg. no. xxxx etc.’ and ‘Please email or call us during office hours for further information’. The communication is usually to inform you that an amount was erroneously debited from your account and that by ‘logging in’ you will be able to reverse the error. Not.
The email usually arrives in your inbox between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, local time, so it’s impossible to reach the call centre. Alternatively the call centre numbers take you directly to the boiler room of the scamsters and the heart of the deceptive web.
To lend greater ‘credibility’ to the con, the communication is closed with a warning, supposedly from your bank, to be wary of ‘phishing’ scams i.e. the very thing which is being perpetrated upon you. Mala fide. By spamming tens of millions, sufficient unsuspecting members of the public are filched of their funds to keep this practice alive and well, becoming increasingly refined over time.
While unravelling spam psychology and hunting spelling clangers in unsolicited trade emails, I occasionally chance upon some remarkable neologisms. Today’s was my best. The otherwise word perfect deluxe piece of spam ended with one arrestingly refreshing word: instead of ‘unsubscribe’, the ever-so-quirky: ‘unsume’.
