Do you think this was a good enough put down ?

[John Stevenson]

Over the last three weeks I keep getting this same email.



>
>Did you receive the e-mail which I sent to you recently (copied
>here-below)?
>
>Please confirm since I have had problems lately with emails
>intercepted by spam-filters set too high.
>
>Cordially,
>
>Marc Shneider, Ph.D.
>
>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>
>I am Dr. Marc Schneider and I work for Global Vibration Inc. in
>Washington DC ( Tel: 1 202-787-3989 ) - I would like to speak with the
>person in charge of your international clientele. Who is my contact?
>Who should I speak to??
>
>In fact, after visiting http://www.xxxxxxxxxe.co.uk, I have noticed that
>your website
>cannot be found on foreign search engines (I tested it on Hispanic
>search engines, German search engines, Asian search engines, etc.) Our
>company is specialized in multilingual search engine promotions in 28
>languages . From the Japanese Google to the German Yahoo, from the AOL
>in Spanish to the MSN in Chinese, we can show you how to develop a
>true international online presence by promoting your website on
>foreign search engines.
>
>Let us show you how to develop a presence on the multilingual web
>without having to translate your website: It is not necessary to
>translate your website in order to submit to foreign search engines,
>however, you need to have at least 1 page in Japanese optimized with
>Japanese keywords and meta tags in order to submit to Japanese search
>engines, at least 1 page in Spanish optimized with Spanish keywords in
>order to submit to Hispanic search engines and so on...
>
>I strongly suggest that you watch our online presentation which will
>explains clearly how to get top rankings on foreign search engines
>with only 1 entry page per language (click on the following link or
>copy-paste it into your web browser): http://www.mplw.net/demo
>
>From the Japanese Google to the German Yahoo, from the AOL in Spanish
>to the MSN in Chinese, get users to find your website when searching
>with YOUR KEYWORDS in their Native language.
>
>Please call me at 1 (202)-787-3989 or email me and let's work on
>giving your website the true international exposure which it deserves
>to have with foreign native online users!!
>
>Regards,
>
>Marc Shneider, Ph.D.
>
>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>_____________________
>
>GLOBAL VIBRATION INC.
>
>1250 Connecticut Ave N.W. Suite 200
>
>Washington, DC 20036 USA
>
>TEL: 1(202)-787-3989 - FAX: 1 (202)-318-4779
>
>http://www.mplw.net
> :
>
>Multilingual Search Engine Promotion Services since 1999.
>


My reply was as follows :-
***************


Yes we did receive your email, many times.

However I am at a loss to put faith in anyone who offers to give me
world wide exposure and can't handle something as simple as email.

Let me point you to a few technological advances of the last few
centuries besides email.

The Royal Mail traces its history back to 1516, when Henry VIII
established a "Master of the Posts", a post which eventually evolved
into the office of the Postmaster General. The Royal Mail service was
first made available to the public by Charles I on July 31, 1635, with
postage being paid by the recipient, and the General Post Office (GPO)
was officially established by Charles II in 1660.


The 'Electric Speaking Telephone' was invented by Alexander Graham
Bell in 1876.

But ironically the first fax machine was invented by Scottish mechanic
and inventor Alexander Bain. In 1843, 33 years before the telephone,
Alexander Bain received a British patent for “improvements in
producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in
timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs”, in
laymen's terms a fax machine.

The private postal card was developed by John P. Charlton of
Philadelphia in 1861 for which he obtained the copyright which was
later transferred to H.L. Lipman. The cards were adorned with a
small border and labeled "Lipman's Postal Card, Patent Applied For".
They were on the market until 1873 when the first Government Postcards
appeared.

Condoms were invented in early Roman times but the first recorded use
was in the 16th century in Italy when Gabriele Falloppio wrote a
treatise on syphilis. The earliest documented strain of syphilis,
first appearing in a 1490s outbreak, caused severe symptoms and often
death within a few months of contracting the disease. Fallopio's
treatise is the earliest uncontested description of condom use: it
describes linen sheaths soaked in a chemical solution and allowed to
dry before use. The cloths he described were sized to cover the glans
of the penis, and were held on with a ribbon. Fallopio claimed that an
experimental trial of the linen sheath demonstrated protection against
syphilis.

Now you might wonder what condoms have to do with technological
inventions ?
Well these are used by pricks who can't master the first
five inventions above.

.

[nheng]

Here's the simplified version: <delete>

[lenord]

Funny !!
Good to know I am not the only one who gets this kind of e-mail. Might be the exact same fellow, can't recall.
Thanks for posting.

Lenord

[hornluv]

I've been getting the same email for a while now too. It comes to the email address that is coded into my shopping cart, which is only used there, rather than the official email attached to my website, so I know they aren't legit.

[J Tiers]

of course, by opening and replying, you may have ensured that whatever malware payload was attached has been delivered to your computer, and is now busy sending your credit card and bank info off to whoever. Or possibly hijacked for DOS attacks on other sites..... or breaking into government sites...... sending al-Quaida email, etc.

You may get a visit from people you won't like.........

Just trying to brighten your day.................

[Paul Alciatore]

I have a small commercial web site and have gotten numerous offers to boost the number of hits. I have only one answer to these idiots,

"My products are of limited appeal so your mass advertising tactics will be of little use. But, I will be very happy to pay you a commission on each and every sale you can prove you have made for me. It will be a SMALL percentage of the sale price as my markup is not very large. I will not pay any of the expenses involved in obtaining these additional sales: that comes out of your pocket. You may not mark up my prices by any amount, however small, to pay for your services."

So far, no takers.

By the way, I work for an advertising agency (as a TV engineer) and have seen how they work.

[Tinkerer]

Now you might wonder what condoms have to do with technological
inventions ?
Well these are used by pricks who can't master the first
five inventions above.

Only if that were true... but the overwhelming evidence points to the contrary.

Could of forwarded his e mail to the always friendly and honorable Mr. or Mrs. Umwanker who needs a little International help with a small transfer of unclaimed cash.

[Oldbrock]

Phd?

He ends a sentence with a preposition and claims to have a Phd, I don't think so.

[Scishopguy]

PHD's

He ends a sentence with a preposition and claims to have a Phd, I don't think so.

You have to remember, Phd's field of study has been narrowed and narrowed since they left high school and their area of expertise is so limited by the time they get their Phd, that it may not include proper grammar.

[dp]

I run a number of email servers and gateways and because of their free conversational form these messages are among the most difficult to defeat without creating false positives. As such they are the most common type of the undesirable messages to make it to the end user's mail reader. Though only a few percent make it in, it is still very annoying to get them.

They continue to change over time as the filters get better and for that reason are interesting to read and study. I got one a few days ago that was nearly the perfect clear language spam. Except for the subject matter which requires AI in a computer to understand there was little to work with in just the words it contained. I've no doubt the source of these messages are using filter technology as good as anything I have to test with and to ensure the message gets through.

[Frank Ford]

John - That kind of reply can be therapeutic for the writer, and fun for us, but I'm sure it will remain unread by the recipient.

You might want to edit out the active links to their Web site, for fear of actually generating a greater Web presence for those guys.

As to the verbal "kiss-off," I have a favorite. Forty years ago my old pal, Duane, had received some seriously nasty treatment from a camera service outfit. He was consistently billed for a small outstanding balance for some repairs that were inadequately performed and on which any redress was refused by the shop.

Those were the good old days of typewriters and mail service, and Duane finished the exchange with a simple note that read:

"At this point, I consider our relationship both unacceptable and terminated."

Their dunning notices stopped.

[Your Old Dog]

If I were going to respond at all it would go something like this.

Hi! What a coincidence, We too have a web based business. We are the worlds leading consultant for web site business that tell other web site business how to increase their share of the fantastic world of web based sales. It's great that you have written otherwise we may never have known you were out there.

Please contact me directly at freemoney@eat$****.com for a free quote to make your business prosper so that you won't have to hijack other peoples email accounts to spam the rest of the web community. You too can be on your way to success. Don't delay, get in on this fantastic offer.

Other products include but are not limited to reduced prices on brain surgery, free heart transplants, financial consultants and security analyst.

[Milacron of PM]

While the putdown is humorous enough it's a bit ironic to me that you went to so much trouble over one of the very rare spam emails that actually has some tiny possiblity of being legitimate. That particular company could be a scam but the basic premise behind what they offer actually sounds reasonable enough to me.

How do you know for sure that particular company is not on the up and up ? And if the basic premise behind maximizing your website presense on foreign search engines by having a page in their language is not reasonable, tell me why not.

Personally I've had loads of trouble finding some Euro and Asian companies websites and then eventually find out it's because their site is only in their language.... so, here again...the premise sounds logical enough to me....why not to you ?

[John Stevenson]

Don,
I would have though that our product would not be entertained by hispanic and other foreign denominations.

After all as the sole UK manufacture of Ku Klux Klan hats it's a small and dedicated market.

.

[John Stevenson]

JT,
My email program is text only, it will not open any attachments, links or HTML.
It tells me if there are attachments and I get to see the title before opening. Anything suspicious and it gets canned.
Can be a pain at time but it's safer.