Yes... as usual, I receive a lot of emails, many of which are from scammers. Each day, I delete most of the emails in my mailbox. Now, I'm just waiting to retire!

The trend has usually been to talk about all your problems, how poor you are, how it is impossible for you to get the millions of $$$ from your defunct dad (rarely the mom's rich... ain't weird? I thought the Queen was loaded!)

But lately, for about 2 months or so, I started getting emails that were very very very short. I have had those for the blue pills forever, since there isn't much to say in that case, but for the scams, I don't recall seeing much of those.

There is an example:

You have a Western Union Money Transfer of $ 85,000:00.Confirm this
receipt with your name and country
Send details to Mr. Harry Owen E-mail: wudept3@w.cn 

Yes! Just a couple of sentences, how to contact the guy. Voilà. As you may notice, it is not for millions, but many people would certainly appreciate a little hand of $85k here and there! To finish paying for your Porsche, you know...

I think that makes it a lot easier on them. I posted another such email and tried the guy by sending a reply. His reply was the usual long 419 scam version. In other words, those are the same people who started to understand that it would be a lot more effective to write small emails first to catch a few fish, instead of writing the long version immediately and get their account banned immediately. Especially because anti-spam systems will have a much harder time to stop such emails.

As usual, watch out! For most of you, just ignore those mails... and remember that some of these surprises come in your regular mailbox (snail mail). It is not just an Internet phenomenon.

The following is the email including the header.

Return-Path: <bsde@telefonica.net>
X-Original-To: alexis@halk.m2osw.com
Delivered-To: alexis@halk.m2osw.com
Received: from mail.m2osw.com (jc [69.55.233.23])
    by halk.m2osw.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 612A5AF03A
    for <alexis@halk.m2osw.com>; Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:46:10 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from IMPaqm3.telefonica.net (impaqm3.telefonica.net [213.4.138.11])
    by mail.m2osw.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB3AE42A2B8
    for <alexis@m2osw.com>; Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:48:34 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from IMPmailhost4.adm.correo ([10.20.102.125])
    by IMPaqm3.telefonica.net with bizsmtp
    id APdF1e0042iL0W23PPgahD; Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:40:34 +0200
Received: from wm1 ([10.20.100.200])
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    id APgZ1e00G4KQpRW1kPgZnG; Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:40:34 +0200
X-TE-authinfo: authemail="??" |auth_email="??"
X-TE-AcuTerraCos: auth_cuTerraCos="tnet-wm"
Received: from (212.116.220.149) by wmail15.telefonica.net with HTTP (authenticated as
    BSDE@telefonica.net); Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:40:33 +0200
Message-ID: <31723036.1411381272325233919.JavaMail.root@wm1>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:40:33 +0200 (CEST)
From: "BSDE@telefonica.net" <BSDE@telefonica.net>
Reply-To: "BSDE@telefonica.net" <BSDE@telefonica.net>
Subject: Confirm Receipt
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; 
    boundary="----=_Part_169179_3561046.1272325233916"
X-TE-Farm: Tnet2
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

------=_Part_169179_3561046.1272325233916
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

You have a Western Union Money Transfer of $ 85,000:00.Confirm this receipt with your name and country
Send details to Mr. Harry Owen E-mail: wudept3@w.cn 
------=_Part_169179_3561046.1272325233916
Content-Type: text/html;charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

You have a Western Union Money Transfer of $ 85,000:00.Confirm this receipt with your name and country
Send details to Mr. Harry Owen E-mail: wudept3@w.cn 
------=_Part_169179_3561046.1272325233916--