I just don’t get it. What’s the point of spamming people anyway?
Courtesy of Washington Post
Every time I manage my blog or email, I find more of this crap. Some days I have more than others, but no matter what I get spammed.
So I’m going to ask what’s probably a really dumb question:
What’s the point of spamming people anyway?
Is it for sh*ts and giggles? Just to see how much you can annoy people? Because spammers have nothing better to do? Because you want to find a way into a website or an email account so you can continue spamming ad nauseam?
Maybe it’s me, but when I see spam I conjure up a geeky picture in my brain. You know, the one of a person who spends their days or nights cranking out ways to infiltrate other websites, email accounts, social media accounts, and whatever else is out there. To me, that sounds pretty boring. I’m not an IT person, techie, or network security engineer — though I know many who are, and who are really really good at it — and even those folks can’t be bothered spamming. They’ve got too many better things to do.
So I gotta ask. What does a spammer get at the end of the day anyway? He or she has jammed up email boxes and spam filters on websites…and then what? It’s not like they know the result of the spamming, right? It’s not like they’re sitting in the office with the spammed individual, who more than likely is just deleting away all the nonsense. It’s not like you’re there to talk with the person who’s been spammed. Or engage in a reaction, right?
It’s passive aggressive behavior in its purest form.
I wonder how would a spammer react if they were spammed in return? If the tables were turned. I wonder if…
Oh, oh, oh! I just had an amazing realization.
Courtesy of The Gospel Coalition
This is the beauty of being an author. I can find life’s little annoyances — people, er, um, spammers included — turn the tables, and write about them in a book. Better yet, I can make bad things happen to them. You know, it’s a powerful position to have when you’re an author and you can maim, emotionally torture, or otherwise kill a character all in the name of getting some retribution and telling a really great story.
Hmm. Talk about being passive-aggressive.
Copyright © 2012-2013 · All Rights Reserved · TerriPonce.com
Terri Herman-Ponce 
I work in a library, so I get tons of “Dear Librarian Please buy this book it’s highly recommended” so I have learned to ask for their library card numbers so I can reserve the book for them. If I get no response, then it’s spam. A lot of them are authors that think if Susan Jones sends an email recommending the book, I’ll buy it without checking to see if we know a “Susan Jones.” I hate to slam authors (being one myself), but I wish they would expend their creative energies on the writing and not on the spam!
LikeLike
Wow. You know what’s so amazing to me? How much I didn’t know about spam but am now getting a great education on. Who’d have thought that there was such a thing as librarian spam? Hey…that sounds like a good title for a book. LOL
LikeLike
It used to be telemarketers…now it’s spammers. Guess there’s no end!
LikeLike
Holy cow. Never thought of it that way. I think you’re onto something.
LikeLike
But …. But, Terri! If it weren’t for these messages, how would I know my penis needs enlarging? Or that there are thousands, nay, millions of Russian brides just waiting for me? Or that one of my long-lost cousins is a Nigerian prince? Or that my blog has “much useful information on timely subject such as this?”
Yep, I get a LOT of spam, too, and like you, I just delete it. But I love your idea about having a character in a book take on the spammers and make terrible things happen to them! Can’t wait to read it!
LikeLike
Oh yes, Juli. I’ve forgotten about those simple pleasures that are delivered to me. My life truly isn’t the same without it. LMAO
LikeLike
Most “spammers” don’t even realize they’ve sent spam. Here’s how much of it works. An unscrupulous creep creates a message with hyperlinks (sometimes they’re just an “invisible image”; i.e., the same color as the background) that leads back to them and/or puts some code on the receiver’s computer. The receiver’s computer then sends the same email to everyone in *that* person’s mailbox, with the same link leading back to the spammer creep. Now the spammer creep has hundreds and then thousands of email addresses that they can sell to other spammer creeps.
The next step is to create email messages that are forged to look like legitimate businesses asking you to buy something or telling you that something you did cause an account to be frozen and you have to log in to your account to fix it. All the while, they’re leading you back to themselves, often with quite clever replicas of the real business site. Voila! Now they have the login usernames and passwords for your accounts and they can start spending your money!
Even if only a small percentage of these messages are acted upon, it gives the spammer creeps thousands of accounts they can hack into. And since most people use only one or a few passwords, they can get into a whole lot more of your accounts everywhere. And this is why it is so prevalent – it makes them money!
LikeLike
Well, the term ‘creep’ fits then! I just delete away, and go on my merry way. But geez, how sad. And pity on the people who are unwittingly taken advantage of!
LikeLike