Spot the key difference in this spam I just opened:
The cancer that has “defiled” all medical treatment is just a little bonus…but that’s not what struck me as odd.
I open some spam because I noticed that Hotmail has a feature that allows me to mark an email as “phishing scam”, and I certainly want to help reduce this sort of stuff.
That it doesn’t appear to be offering anything to the reader?
Of course it would turn out to be the same advance fee fraud as all the others. It’s just going to be that the advance fees are to be requested to permit the non existent donation to be made to charity, rather than to permit the non existent large payoff to the victim. It is advance fee fraud designed to appeal to the idealistic and gullible instead of to the grasping and gullible.
I’ve seen this sort before a few times.
Yeah, that’s one difference, but there was something else that jumped out at me.
The Muslim angle?
No, he’s asking the recipient to “handle this task for me.” You’re expected to see it as an opportunity to embezzle.
It does ask for something from the target. The problem is that the spell-checker (smaptalk generator?) got aim instead of alms. Maybe the odd thing is that the e-mail has God four times and then Allah one time. Of course “await your response” is just a twist on the ol’ Nigerian scam.
Seems that you have to be ready to fleece his charities to get the money.
I was expecting the references to God, but that one reference to Allah really threw me. I’ve NEVER seen a reference to Allah in a spam before. Lots and lots of references to God and occasionally Jesus, Christ, and Christian. It’s also unusual in that the dying guy has plenty of friends and family that he’s willing to hand money out to…but none that he can trust to administer a charity.
I just thought that this spam was different enough to be mildly interesting. Og knows that the usual stuff has gotten very boring.
I was tempted to play with this spammer, but I really don’t want that particular address being marked as live and monitored.
However, as I said, I’ve only recently started reading the emails in my spam folder, hoping to find some that I can report as a phishing attempt.
I would be stunned if these 419ers are able to keep track of who was sent what email. They just cast a wide net and hope for a reply. If you cut and pasted it into a different email account and made it look like a reply, I seriously doubt they would say “Oh oh, I never sent a solicitation THAT account!”
I’m disappointed this isn’t about a new flavor of the food product Spam. “Try new cool ranch Spam!”
I was all set to move the thread to Cafe Society! 
Now I want to defile medical treatments and have me some cool ranch spam!
Know what might be fun? Forwarding it on to an uberfundamentalist Christian such as say Jack Chick or the end of the world guy whose name escapes me right now. Would they melt if they saw “Allah” in a email? 
This is an ancient attribute of confidence tricks - appeal to the mark’s venal nature, and let them think they have an opportunity to exploit someone else.
Tried and true because it has a double-advantage - there’s never a shortage of people who can be baited this way, and it goes a long way toward discouraging complaints when people realize they’ve been rooked.
That sounds like a receipe for esophageal cancer.
Same here, except I thought Bacon Spam. Bacam!
I doubt that they keep records of which account they sent what email to…but I’m sure that they DO keep records of which email accounts respond to them. This particular spam was sent to my lynnbodoniathotmaildotcom account, and if I replied to it, I’m sure that this address would promptly get a new torrent of spam.
I’m not sure, and as an admin, I cannot urge people to harass others, not even Jack Chick.
Me too, I love Spam. But it does say “a new flavor in spam,” not a new flavor of spam"
That’s what multiple accounts are for.
Spacon?
A Muslim? SPAM?
Muslim Spam?
Is that kosher?
Interesting enough it’s called “Spam with Bacon”, with barging the cheapest transportation available we here in SE Alaska have a huge variety of frozen vegetables and spam. I think the local grocery store carries 6 varieties. Someday I’ll try them all.