Spam Stocks
Posted: Mon 18 August, 2008 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism 2 Comments »Over the last few week or so, I’ve been getting a load of spam mail about some dodgy oil stock or other. Of course, that’s about as much attention as I ever pay to them, but still, it makes me wonder sometimes.
Now I know that the entire idea of spam is that the actual cost of the advertising is pretty negligible, so the spammer can send out millions of emails for mere pence/cents, and so really it only takes one person to respond and buy in order for the spammer to make a profit. But really, how many people are still stupid enough to think “Oh, I’ve been recommended this stock by a spam email, so yes, I’m going to go out and buy as many shares in it as possible“?
I can’t imagine it happening. After all, spam’s been around for so long, you’d think that there couldn’t be anyone still around who was prepared to go for anything offered by spam methods. Then again, you still see people getting stung by the entire “$50m in a Nigerian bank” scams too, so I guess it must be true, that there really is one born every minute…
Today’s Melbourne Age reported that “Australians lose at least $36 million a year to so-called Nigerian scammers who continue to fleece naive internet users because victims fail to report incidents.” “A 2006 study by research firm Chatham House found Nigerian scams cost the British economy £150 million a year.”
It’s obviously still worth the scammer’s while.
I still can’t help but see this is “Idiot Tax”.
If someone’s *that* stupid, they fucking deserve to have their money taken. Either that, or work on getting an IQ that’s higher than that of a slightly dim amoeba.