Everybody's got nice spam but me

In my current position, I deal with a lot of retirees. I get a lot of phone calls, letters and e-mail from them. Normally, it has to do with a change of address or the passing of a military retiree. Sometimes the notes are pretty straightforward. Quite often they take a pretty circuitous route to get to their point.

When your work e-mail is on a site with the second highest traffic rating in the U.S. Navy, you expect to get some spam. But the problem is that because of all the retiree e-mail I get, there are some of these spam messages I can’t delete outright because they sometimes read like some of the retiree e-mail.

For example, I had the following in my inbox this morning:

Subject: My Dear Beloved One In Chirst

You might think this would be a dead giveaway, but I can’t tell you how many LEGITIMATE e-mails I get with subject lines like this. Maybe the misspelled “Chirst” should have been a tip, but people make mistakes, you know.

My Dear Beloved One In Chirst,

Please read this slowly and carefully, as it may be one of the most importantemails you ever get. I am Mrs. Mary Jack from Greece. I was married to Late Mike Jack. The Director of Veekrol Link Nig.Ltd, a seasoned

contractor in West African Region. He died on Monday,31 July, 2003 in Paris.

OK, I admit, I should have caught the “as it may be one of the most importantemails,” but, honestly, I skim e-mail and only read it in detail if I need to. So, I made it through this and got to:

We were married for seven years without a child. After his death I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home. When my late husband was alive, he deposited the sum of $5.2 Million USD in a

And I hit delete.

Come on spammers. I have to deal with enough e-mail that’s written like this just to tell me they want to change their address. Why can’t you make it a little bit more obvious that you’re spam.