Almost Fooled by a Spammer

I've noted before that, like every normal Internet user, I receive a lot of spam emails, many of which have unusual titles. But one that I received yesterday was about as close to authentic as it could be, at least on the surface.

As you may know, I do a lot of private saxophone instruction in addition to my college teaching, and I sign up a lot of new students over the summer. Anything in my inbox with the word "lessons" in the subject will catch my attention rather quickly. Sure, the subject line was oddly-phrased: "Enquiry in Your Lesson." But I've taught kids whose parents had limited English proficiency before, so that was no big deal. Only when I got to the text of the email did I realize it was a cleverly-worded spam of some sort:

Hello

My name is Mr [name withheld] am 50Yrs Oldman. I Resident, Work and settle down with my wife in LONDON. I lost her not quite long and my only daugther is not her self any more , She cried alot and due to my work , i have got no time to pampered her .

Now she will be coming to STATE with her Old School Mother which her age is 55Years Old, and i would not want a situation were by she will got her self into a mess . So i will want her to be coming to you for Tutorial , In which you are to take her has a special student of yours, All because of her condition .

She is 16 year by age, Name [withheld] and she is so Inquisitive, She always wanna know, She love to ask question alot , I hope she we be please meeting you. let me know the time that will be favour your to teacher her and i want the lesson to heard for an Hour.

Please all what i care most for is my Daugther welfare , And i belief you can do that for me. Please let me know how much you charge for 1hour , She will be coming 3 Days in a week for 1 month. And i can only paid you with Cashier Check. I have Also arrange for the Driver that will be driving her down to your place.

Therefore , I will be glad if you can do mail me back the Follwing Details include your Next mail.

Full Name That will be On The Check:

Full Contact Address That the Check will be Sent To: (NOT P.O BOX):

Phone Number Both Land and Cell Phone Just to discuse more with you:


Please endeavour to send your original Name and Contact Address in full , inorder not to send to a wrong Address.

Thanking you for your co-opperation,


I look foward to hearing from you soon,

Best Regards

[name and phone number withheld]

Obviously, this wasn't a request for lessons at all, but some sort of odd spam. But it's weird that this one was so close to a request for my actual business. I wonder if I was targeted in some way, or if it was completely random. (Granted, if it were real, having a three-day a week student for an hour each time would add up to some pretty righteous bucks during the slower summer season.)

Ever had a spam hit this close to home before? Share your stories in the comments.

Spam, egg, sausage and spam...and more spam: As part of an experiment by the McAfee Corporation, 50 volunteers from around the world were instructed to click on and respond to every spam email received for a month. (Each volunteer received an average of 70 unwanted messages a day. That's an awful lot of V!@gRa that people are trying to hawk...)