How Do Spammers Call My Name?

Most of us have seemingly gotten used to the daily barrage of spam emails. While security is certainly a major concern, that’s not what I want to talk about today. This isn’t a technical guide on how to filter or avoid spam—there are plenty of those out there.

Instead, I’m fascinated by the “social engineering” aspect (or lack thereof): How do spammers address me? How do they try to simulate a connection?

I dug through one of my old email dumps to compile a list of these robotic attempts at intimacy. Here is how the “artificial intelligence” of spammers tries to break the ice, followed by the mental response I have before hitting delete.

Dear Valued Halifax Customer

I never had a Halifax account…

Dir Sir, this is official letter from FBI

Oh my god! I will be famous!

Hi, my name is Michael

Sorry, I won’t tell you my name.

Hello customer

Hello spammer.

新しいメールアドレスをお知らせします

I speak English and Chinese, but not Japanese. (Google Translate says: “Notice the new email address”).

Nobody will disturb you!

Yah… except you…

Come with me

I would… if teleportation existed.

Howdy!

Not bad, see you in another life. (click delete…)

Attention Dear!

You just caught my attention. Now I am deleting and blocking you.

Hi there !

Hi spammer!

I love you! : )

Sorry I can’t, you are a program.

My name is Mr. Peter Pan / My name is Mr. David Smith

My name is Megatron.

Thank you for your SMS

You should have SMS’d me instead of sending an email.

Dear Applicant

Thank you for filling out the application form for me.

I’d like to be your friend

I would like to… but you are a robot.

Good day

No, it’s not. It’s raining badly now.

Free Pizza!

Not pizza again. I’ve had it all week!

Good Evening

You might be in a different time zone.

What’s happening?

Just reading your spam message.

We haven’t been in touch lately!

We’ve never known each other.

Save £2600!

I wish that were true.

I saw you yesterday

Where? You probably just saw my email address scraped from a website.

Dear User

Am I in the Tron movie?

Greetings to you

Greetings to spammers!

Try!

You just scared me!

You get the idea. It’s a fascinating, albeit annoying, glimpse into the scattergun approach of automated marketing.