Hate spam? Blame THESE morons.

[beagledave]

Good freakin gravy.
From Wired magazine.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire – A security flaw at a website operated by the purveyors of penis-enlargement pills has provided the world with a depressing answer to the question: Who in their right mind would buy something from a spammer?

An order log left exposed at one of Amazing Internet Products’ websites revealed that, over a four-week period, some 6,000 people responded to e-mail ads and placed orders for the company’s Pinacle herbal supplement. Most customers ordered two bottles of the pills at a price of $50 per bottle.

I was under the impression that spammers only made “money” (if they made money) by selling their “email lists” to other spammers in some sort of a virtual shell game. Apparently I was wrong. Apparently there are more than enough morons out there with a modem and a credit card to justify spamming everyone.

“There was a picture on the top of the page that said, ‘As Seen on TV,’ and I guess that made me think it was legit,” said a San Diego salesman who ordered two bottles of Pinacle in early July.

:smack:

I DID find one of the items vaguely creepy, though.

Among the people who responded in July to Amazing’s spam, which bore the subject line, “Make your penis HUGE,” was the manager of a $6 billion mutual fund, who ordered two bottles of Pinacle to be shipped to his Park Avenue office in New York City.

You have some explaining to do manhattan :eek:

[Mr.Miskatonic]

I’ve always said, Spamming wouldn’t happen if some utter moron wasn’t answering the call. Email lists only go so far and I haven’t seen many “email list” spams in a while.

[SPOOFE]

Well, we still have a couple generations of people who are totally naive to the cutthroat ways of the In Ter Net. After a couple decades, they’ll either die off or learn, at which point spam will be a thing of the past. 'Course, by then, we’ll all have tranceiver chips implanted in our brains and ads will be broadcast directly into our subconscious.

[jackelope]

You know, I was going to say something like, “It boggles the mind” or equally trite, but then I thought back to the halcyon days of yore…

Back to the Country-Time-lemonade age of 1995, specifically, when I had my first e-mail address. Within a few weeks I got the e-mail advisory about the “Good Times Virus.” Remember the Good Times Virus? Seems almost quaint now, doesn’t it? To refresh your memory, the “virus” was

unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other, more well-known viruses such as Stoned, Airwolf, and Michaelangelo pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality.

What makes this virus so terrifying is the fact that no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing e-mail systems of the InterNet.

Luckily, there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the “Good Times” virus. It always travels to new computers the same way - in a text e-mail message with the subject line reading simply “Good Times”.

So what did I do? Well, naturally I frantically sent this to everyone I knew! Good heavens, this thing was going to erase their hard drives! I was going to save my friends by imparting this special information that no one else knew about!

Needless to say, I got several friendly replies informing me, in the most concisely worded case, that “that e-mail IS the virus, in its entirety.”

My point here, aside from a little Interweb Machine nostalgia, is this: Newbies, myself included, are suckers. And everyone’s a newbie at some point or another.

What are the latest stats; something like half the country has an e-mail address now? Well, the other half (most of them, anyway) will be signing up sooner or later, and to the spammers that means one thing: 150 million suckers, who can receive pitches about everything from their penis size to the cost of their printer cartridges to easy, painless hair removal.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

[neutron_star]

*Originally posted by beagledave *
**“There was a picture on the top of the page that said, ‘As Seen on TV,’ and I guess that made me think it was legit,” said a San Diego salesman who ordered two bottles of Pinacle in early July.
**

Wow. Just… wow. I wonder if he also ordered the wang-enlargement pills Ron Jeremy is hawking on late night TV. I also wonder how people this stupid can possibly obtain money to spend in the first place.

[Smeghead]

A while back, Fark.com posted a story about a couple who were busted for selling pornographic scat videos through the US Mail system. IIRC, they had a website, but advertised mostly through spam. Anyway, the point is that they were bringing in 5 or 6 figures a MONTH. Scary.

[Zenster]

To quote H.L. Mencken:
"No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence
of the average American buying public."