Do the broken English spam questions sometimes make you feel sorry for the spammer?

Probably some poor dude from the Philippines trying to feed his family.

I agree, I’m sick of Viagra adds and picturess of ring worms, but for money, all paths are trod. If that’s a word.

Click on it for bewbs

I guess my spam filter works, I don’t know what you are talking about. I doubt spammers are some poor guy trying to feed his family. My opinion is that they are mostly criminals trying to trick people

We actually looked into the anatomy of a spammer. It was really bad for a few weeks and was occurring around the same time every night. Most of it was coming from the same country and started around 7 PM their time. I assume they have day jobs and started spamming after dinner for some extra cash.

It must be interesting at those Nigerian cyber cafes!
”Hey, Sanni Ahmeed…how do you spell emergency?”
”Easy, George Abdulah… E-M-U-R-J-E-N-T-S-I-E. ”
“_No, No Dr. Abu Ahmed…It is…A-H-M-E-R-G-A-N-C-Y/”
“_Ah, thanks Mrs. Jumai Afusat Abacha.”

Funny…I’ve been surfing the net 20 years now. I’ve been exposed to spam so long that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

Wouldn’t have thought of it if you hadn’t asked the question.

It’s part of the landscape…what my spam filter doesn’t catch, I simply ignore.

Spammers are kinda up there with meter maids, in my book.

@SABOTEUR :: The context is that it is on Fluther and not your e-mail. If you are here during the right hours the spam can be crazy. One person asks for the best place to buy a laptop battery. 30 seconds later someone posts a link to a site. It turns out both people using different accounts have the same IP. Or they are the same person.

Has it occurred to you that the broken English may be part of the scam to make you feel sorry for them? I’ve lived in Philippines; most of the businessmen speak better English than the average American, except for a few odd word usages (“comfort rooom”=latrine).

@johnpowell if that’s the case, and it is such a nuisance, couldn’t they just block the ip? I haven’t been here in a very long time, so I haven’t seen said spammers, but I don’t feel sorry for them. There are other ways to earn a living and feeed a family, and if said spammer is so crafty, I’m sure he or she could find one.

No not at all…if the question is particularly irritating I just take it out on my sock monkey.

Not so much,no :)

Yes, I am often finding myself feeling a degree of sympathy for what appears to be failing desperation. If is was a simple matter, I would probably give them $20.00 or so.

I generally feel bad for anyone who tries to do something and blows at it. I don’t know why. I’m a computer programmer and our industry is rife with people trying to make a buck doing underpaid freelance jobs (often in India) to create “the next Facebook” and I know they don’t know any better. I’ve seen the results and they always suck. For some reason I always feel bad for these people.

It applies to a lot of other things in my life. In college, I never wanted to admit to myself that some people just suck at some things. I knew people who were art students or computer science students who just couldn’t do either, and I felt so bad and torn about it and I certainly didn’t have the heart to tell them they just weren’t any good and probably aren’t going to be.

This year when the economy tanked, the hammer came down. When things were good, I guess my company didn’t mind letting people underperform. But when things got dicey, they let a lot of people go. It took me a few weeks to get over what it was like for those people to basically to be told they just weren’t any good at a job they went to college for and had been working at for years.

This sympathy/empathy applies to just about everything for me.

Yech. that’s all I can say.

@johnpowell I see. Well in that case I’m totally out of the loop. Since I’ve come to understand that grammar correction is generally looked down upon, I have a difficult time judging (what’s being described as) spammers from anyone else.

Add to that the fact that I’m limited to a narrow group of questions I’m capable of, or find interesting enough to answer, that I’ve undoubtedly skipped right over them.

Thanks for the clarification.