"Dear Friend I write to you in hopes we can become friends. How making this invitation make sense is honestly hard at this time. There is so much about this invitation I can’t imagine working out. But in my beautiful insanity I see us working this out. A logical man would fear responding; an overly sensible one would pick at the uncertainties and choose not to reply. Friendship is not supposed to make sense. When most irrational, is when it’s real! My Name is Wilma and I’m from Sweden. I’ll look forward to your response. Yours, Wilma."
It’s pretty obviously spam but there is no obvious scam setup, at least based on the face of this email. I suppose it’s likely to be a “dating” scam where someone pretends to form a relationship with someone then hits them up for money.
But I have to say, it’s so well written.
Wonder if @Mangetout, our resident email scam expert, knows this one…
The line “A logical man would fear responding; an overly sensible one would pick at the uncertainties and choose not to reply.” is so good. It has to be a quote but I can’t seem to find it on a google search. Either that or we have a new Shakespeare earning a living with email scams.
The way he/she addresses you as a generic “Dear Friend” instead of using your real name certainly strikes me as one of the telltale signs of a scam. I’ve had my fair share of scam emails that include very similar introductions (none of which I’ve responded to, needless to say).
Bottom line is: are you really that desperately lacking in social intimacy that you’d be willing to entertain this person’s overtures? If so, sure, knock yourself out.
If I were you, I’d ask them to transfer a couple million $$$ to my bank account before I continue the conversation
Actually I suspect the booby picture bearing emails get zapped by our anti spam software, but the plain text ones have more of a chance of getting through.