Sunday, December 14, 2008

Where's my free laptop?


I'm sorry I've already deleted the over two hundred pieces of egregious spam I got in the last 12 hours. I could have posted the names of some of them. I applaud these spammers for one thing: they come up with pretty good fake e-mail addresses.

And of course, since they change their e-mail names daily, I can't fully block them. If it weren't for the fact that sometimes perfectly legitimate e-mail winds up in my spam folder, I wouldn't look it over. Maybe I should just tell people that I may not get your e-mail because of the spam situation. Truth is, I may not get your e-mail, I've discovered, because even if I do look through that spam folder, on days where it's filled with over 300 pieces of junk, there's a good chance I'll miss the real mail.

Here's what I have to say to at least 3/4ths of my spam senders:

Where's my FREE STUFF?

I should own at least 1000 laptops by now, according to these messages. Congratulations, you've won a free Dell laptop!
Congratulations, you've won a $1000 Target shopping spree!
Congratulations, you've won a gas card, free movie tickets, a subscription to a magazine, dinner at countless restaurants, a cruise. . .and I'm one step away from winning 10 million dollars or a luxury car.

Wow, I'm overwhelmed with excitement!

I almost trashed the invitation to receive free books from Amazon because I assumed that wasn't real, either, and it was. So, maybe I did win a contest. Do you think I'm going to look over every single one of these e-mails? No way.

Does that mean I may have won a free laptop? Eh, probably not.

I dare one of these companies to actually send me my free laptop. C'mon, fulfill your promise! I have, I admit, years ago, responded to a few of these e-mails, and followed the nearly endless pop-ups for products and services I neither wanted nor needed in order to reach the prize. Of course, like most people, I gave up. I don't need a glucose monitor (though some marketer still thinks I do). I don't want to go to that on-line "university" nor do I want them to send me any information. You know the drill, if you've ever been gullible enough to at least give this a try.

I hear some people have actually gotten their "free" laptops, but they've all contacted lawyers in order to do so. Last time I checked, a lawyer's services were so expensive that it made more sense to just go buy yourself a laptop than fight one of these hucksters. But, it's the principle that's at play here. I understand that.

I'm sure that by writing the word "laptop" many times in this post, I'll get even more spam than yesterday.

Just in case anyone wants to make good on their promise:

I'd like the red Dell laptop, please, though I'd be fine with whatever color you send. I'd prefer a Mac, but I've only received a smattering of prize announcements for one of those. Just in case, I'd like the one with the largest screen, okay?

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