How Stupid Do You Think I Am?

I recently received this email via the address associated with my blog:

Hi,
I'm Elmer and I work at pacificadvance.com,a company
interested in blog advertizing.I found your blog camelsback23.blogspot.com engaging and I'm contacting you to ask if you are interested in blog post sponsorship.If you are interested,kindly mail back and I'll send you pricing details, guidelines and processes.Looking forward to doing business with you.

Sincerely,
Elmer
Pacificadvance.com

Elmer. Dude. You don't need to pay me. I'll give you free publicity right now.

The first thing I did after reading your spam was to Google Pacificadvance.com. Hmmm...it's linked to PayDay Loans , Inc. Since you have read my blog, you probably realize that the only thing I hate more than stupid people are the con men who prey on them, and predatory "payday" loan sharks are amongst the worst of that sorry lot. Normally, I would be put off by any "professional" correspondence wherein the writer failed to provide a full name, but since you are allegedly affiliated with PayDay Loans, I am willing to cut you some slack- I understand that you-as any right-thinking person would be- are ashamed of your unsavory business ethics and would therefore be reluctant to use your real name.

I also found dozens of blogs on which you had left the exact message that you sent me on their comments section, changing only the blog URL in the text. There sure are a lot of "engaging" blogs out there, Elmer. Curiously, none of those blogs had a Pacificadvance dot com 'advertizement'. (sic)

Most of the blogs I saw either scoffed at ignored your offer but I wanted to learn more...being an impatient man, I eschewed the email reply and went directly to the PacificAdvance homepage, called the toll-free number and asked for you by name. Imagine my surprise when I was told that there was no "Elmer" there! I was even more shocked to find out that they had never heard of PacificAdvance:

Operator: "Hello, FastCash. Can I have your social please?"

Me: " No, you cannot. I'd like to speak to Elmer, please."

O:"I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number."

Me: "Is this PacificAdvance?"

O: "No, this is FastCash. Can I have your Social Security number, please?"

M: "Not until I talk to Elmer."

O: "Sir, we don't have an 'Elmer' here but I'd be happy to help you with a loan."

************************************************

Dude, you need to let your staff know who you are and where they are working.

If I was the skeptical sort, I'd guess that anyone who responds to your email will be presented with some enticing but fictional numbers ( get rich blogging), fanciful, vaporous sums that the lucky blogger can 'earn' merely by agreeing to let you place ads on their blog. Of course, in order to get paid, that blogger will be required to submit their tax ID info ( Social Security #, bank account # and home address)...I imagine that they may even be asked to 'temporarily' give your company administrative access to the blog itself in order to place the ad on the site. Just a guess.

I can't see this as being anything other than a scam. My blog gets almost no traffic and is extremely hostile towards scams, legal and otherwise. I have not-and never will- taken out a "PayDay" loan. There is no legitimate reason for PacificAdvance (or whoever you are) to contact me. Ever.

*******************************************

Have you received this come-on? Did you answer it?

Sign in as 'anonymous' if you did. I will make fun of you.

Scam Alert # 9,014

Have you ever received an email or comment asking you about advertising on your blog?
I have.
The offer below is obviously bullshit, and quite possibly it's nefarious bullshit as well. I'll explain in italics below. This is a cut and paste of an email:


Hello,

We have reviewed your blogger.com blog on behalf of one of our
clients that would be interested in placing advertising with you.

Who would want their business venture linked to my blog?

Client profile :
DoingFine "http://doingfine.org/"
New projectTheme A forum dedicated to those things that came out right
and worked out fine.

When I read this I laughed so hard that I fell off my unicorn, bounced off of a pot of gold and landed in a field of rainbows and four-leaf clovers. Then I married the princess and lived happily ever after.

We'd like either a 150x150 button, 160x600 skyscraper or 468x60 full
banner (or footer). Alternatively, we may be interested in text-only
advertising.
This would be a weekly, monthly or yearly arrangement. In either case
we will require a one time, one day (24 hours) free placement in order
to test the quality and quantity of traffic your website can actually
provide*. Within this interval, we will make a final determination,
based on the traffic volume, quality, and your asking price. Should
we find your terms acceptable, this trial day will count towards the
agreed interval.

I only see two possibilities here:

1) The offer is "on-the-level", but the revenue is minuscule or less. A quick perusal of the site shows that it's only income stream is that which comes from Google ads. This is an offer to get paid a proportionate fraction of that revenue. Woo. Hoo.
If you have ever dabbled in Adsense, you know what I mean. If you haven't, don't.


2) The ad contains harmful code such as spyware, Trojans or viruses. You might lose your URL to hijackers and/or turn your reader's PCs into 'zombies'.

Kindly let us know if you would be interested, which arrangement best
suits your editorial needs, (my editor needs to point out this useless comma) and what rates you would like to charge.

(What rate I would like to charge? Golly, that sounds too good to be true!)

We prefer using PayPal but may be able to accomodate (sic) alternative
payment methods.

Thank you.

*Please note that we employ software that reliably detects autoclick
and autosurf bots, pay per click and paid to surf type traffic, and
other such non-human traffic. This may be a concern for you,
especially if you are buying "bulk traffic", or employing the
services of dubious "SEO experts".

Employing the services of a "dubious SEO expert?"
I am a "dubious SEO expert". Insulting me isn't going to encourage my participation in your venture.
I'm a dubious expert on everything, including job-searching, which brings us to our second alert. Hardly a day passes that I don't get email such as the example given below:

Dear Allan ,

We have an Executive Assistant we need to fill and the Administration experience you listed on your e-resume make you a great fit for the job. I'd like to invite you to take this opportunity to apply. Included is the basic outline of the opening.

They need to fill an Executive Assistant? Fill the Assistant with what? First, they need to hire a proofreader.
Grammatical and spelling errors are a good tip-off that you are dealing with spammers and hackers.
I hope that the unfilled Assistant looks something like this:

They go on to say that I am a good fit for the Executive Assistant that needs to be filled, but don't go into specifics. A real recruiter would make a specific reference to your resume: "Your experience as a widgeteer at Acme Co. caught my eye" etc.

Another clue is the company that is doing the purported hiring. It's always a good idea to research the company that is named. (If no name is given, it is spam.)

William Morris Agency

In this case, the company named is hugely famous and it's very unlikely that they would pull my resume out of the e-clutter for any reason whatsoever. Let's google them and see what turns up.

Gosh. Would you look at that? Right at the ding-dong top of the WMA career page:
The William Morris Agency has received numerous inquiries about job postings that do not actually exist. Prior to providing any personal information to any recruiter, please verify that the job posting is valid by contacting the office at which you seek employment.

Really? Who would have guessed? Anyway, back to the original email:


If you're interested in applying for this job or learning more about it, please click on the link below...<more deletion>

The link is to a site called Fast Job Openings dot com and it exhibits classic tell-tale signs of information mining. They ask for personal info and try to get you to sign up for "higher-education" updates and opportunities. You are given a choice of replying:
-Yes! I'm really interested in enbettering myself! Sign me up! Here's my home phone number!

-No! Me be dumb like rock. You no sign me up.

It's a ploy. If you are smart, you'll take my advice and avoid Fast Job Openings dot com and it's myriad ilk.

Certain rules are timeless and apply to all situations. Can you think of one that might apply here?
See bold-faced red text (above) for a hint.

Selling Out

( Note: This is re-published from The Obvious. )

In The Secret, author Rhonda Byrne writes:

The first thing to know is that if you focus on losing weight, you will attract back having to lose more weight, so get "having to lose weight" out of your mind. It's the very reason why diets don't work. Because you are focused on losing weight, you must attract back continually having to lose weight.

The second thing to know is that the condition of being overweight was created through your thought to it. To put it in the most basic terms, if someone is overweight, it came from thinking "fat thoughts," whether that person was aware of it or not. A person cannot think "thin thoughts" and be fat. It completely defies the law of attraction.

Whether people have been told they have a slow thyroid, a slow metabolism, or their body size is hereditary, these are all disguises for thinking "fat thoughts." If you accept any of those conditions as applicable to you, and you believe it, it must
become your experience, and you will continue to attract being overweight.

She flatly states: "A person cannot think "thin thoughts" and be fat."

The Obvious wonders how Byrne was able to reach such a conclusion. Does she possess telepathic powers? Perhaps she owns a device that measures "thin thoughts" vs. "fat thoughts"?

The Obvious conclusion is that spending more time exercising and less time watching self-help DVDs would be a better approach to weight management than any sort of ' thin thoughts' program.

Still think The Secret might be valid? Replace the problem of being overweight with a problem that is more difficult to control than body weight. We'll use the same jumbled syntax and fuzzy logic espoused by Byrne, The Obvious will simply change the specific problem that is to be overcome.

Read this:

The first thing to know is that if you focus on having cancer, you will attract back having more cancer , so get "having cancer" out of your mind. It's the very reason why medical treatments don't work. Because you are focused on having cancer, you must attract back continually having cancer.

The second thing to know is that the condition of having cancer was created through your thought to it. To put it in the most basic terms, if someone has cancer, it came from thinking "cancer thoughts," whether that person was aware of it or not. A person cannot think "healthy thoughts " and be sick. It completely defies the law of attraction.

Whether people have been told they smoked too much, were exposed to gamma radiation , or their illness is hereditary, these are all disguises for thinking "cancer thoughts." If you accept any of those conditions as applicable to you, and you believe it, it must become your experience, and you will continue to attract having cancer.

Simple question: Do you believe that?