Does Anybody Really Fall for This?

Weird emails tend to come in waves. Have you ever noticed that? You'll go on for months without anyone offering to enlarge your member and then here will come twelve solicitations in a single day. The latest wave of fishy emails that I've been getting promises to cut my electric bill down to nothing. Zero. Zilch. How to accomplish this? Well, it has to do with the holy name of Tesla, and some other mumbo-jumbo, and then it involves plugging a magic gizmo into the wall.

Sometimes there is no picture of the gizmo, but simply a quote from some celebrity or other assuring you that it works. Sometimes there is the assertion that the electric company will be furious if you use this (as if corporations had emotions). The ones I like best, though, are the ones that include a photograph of the item. It's always something different. Here are a few, for your enjoyment.

The gadget above is actually a wireless thermostat from Honeywell. You can get one for two-hundred-plus dollars from Amazon. It won't do a darned thing for your electric bill.

This thing is a capacitor with two LEDs. f you plug it in it will save you an infinitesimal amount of electricity. It is also available with nothing inside but the two LEDs. See this video for a demo and teardown of the one that infinitesimally works, if you're not easily bored:

This appears to be an IPhone with a thermostat-like image on the screen. Or maybe another thermostat.

This gadget isn't what the spam email says it is, and you probably can't get it from the email sender, either, but if you got your hands on the article it might actually save you some watts. It is a timer that you can connect to things like the television set or the computer and its peripherals. It will cut the power to power-hogging appliances while you are sleeping, or away at work. Get it from Belkin, if you want one, or from Amazon or whoever. Be aware that it will not reduce your electric bill to zero.

Then there's this. What in the Sam Hill is this? If you have an idea, I'd like to hear it.

I think what these emails are meant to do is entice the recipient to click on a link. What happens after that is anybody's guess. They might sell you a bogus gizmo. They might pretend to sell you a gizmo and then steal your financial information. They might unleash a virus from Hell into your computer.  Anyway, don't click. That's my advice.


© 2015 Kate Gallison

My Wife is Cheating on Me, But I Have a Job Offer in Bournemouth

I don't know where these people are getting my email address.

This morning I opened up my email only to be deluged with the usual flood of clickbait and spam. Five different people wanted me to know that my wife was running around behind my back. Their warnings were accompanied by a photo of a slutty-looking dame young enough to be my granddaughter in the arms of some guy. Click here to find out more. Luckily, I am not yet so far around the bend as to think I have a wife, even in the modern day when women are allowed to have them. Actually I have a husband. He’s not cheating on me. He knows it would hurt my feelings.

So I didn’t click on that one. Nor did I click on any of the emails that offered to spray away my baldness, two sprays every morning. Nor the cures for diabetes (a false disease, they claim. All you need is the right attitude. Click here and we’ll explain everything.) Nor yet on the promises to restore my eyesight. Throw away your glasses! Click here!

I have succeeded in automatically sending all the solicitations from the Party straight to my junk mail folder, ten or fifteen of them every day. The burden of their message is that the kabillionaire Koch brothers are buying up all the elections. To counteract the efforts of these evil men I must send the Party five dollars at once. Never mind how silly it is to imagine that the discretionary income of an old lady on Social Security is going to counterbalance the wealth of the Kochs. That’s not even why I won’t send them money. I won't send them money because I know they would use it to hire more people to bombard me with emails. If elections really are for sale, then I guess they’re going to have to go to the wealthy.

A number of years ago there was a congressman in a neighboring district who was plainly in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. I researched to see what Big Pharma had donated to his campaign, and it turned out to be $250,000. The value of our house. “How cheap!” I cried. “Harold, let’s sell the house and buy a congressman.” “What would we do with a congressman?” We decided we’d rather have the house. But I digress.

The daily job offer from Bournemouth is a curious thing. It's one of a number of solicitations that come to my mailbox from the UK. I once ordered a book directly from a British publisher. The book was great. It came in a big mailbag with customs markings all over it. But evidently the publishers sold my email address to various other entities in the UK, shopping and travel sites, even a newsletter for landlords on how to deal with government regulations and brutalize the tenants. All useless to me. I’m too far away to spend a weekend at a Scottish castle and I don’t deal in pounds.

I must confess that the reason I read my mail at all, aside from the occasional notes from relatives and friends, is to see the latest fashions being offered by the likes of Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus. Most folks would probably consider that stuff to be spam. Still, by following it carefully, I can occasionally pick up a great bargain to swank around Lambertville in. Then there's Shoebuy, which has these great sales.

Shoes. Now you're talking.

© 2015 Kate Gallison