A Tale of William Morrison, the Dumbest Scammer Ever

December 8, 2008 10:07 PM

Recently, this little gem showed up in the Chainsaw Buffet Collective's (Resistance is futile.) inbox.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: ORDER REQUEST
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 11:18:33 -0800 (PST)
From: William M william_morrison10@yahoo.com
To: podcast@chainsawbuffet.com
HELLO C/S,
AM WILLIAM MORRISON,I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU CARRY (CHAINSAW) FOR SALE,IF I HAVE NOT MENTION THE SIZE THAT YOU HAVE KINDLY TELL ME....ANY MODELS AND SIZES IS GOOD FOR ME...WHAT IS THE PRICE OF ONE (CHAINSAW) SO THAT I CAN PURCHASE.I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ACCEPT CREDIT CARD FOR THIS ORDER AS PAYMENT. THANK YOU AND HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU WITH MY ORDER REQUEST.
MY REGARDS,
WILLIAM MORRISON.

I'm not sure exactly where to begin. The entire thing is simply breathtaking in its stupidity. First off, it's obvious this is just some kind of a weirdass out-of-the-blue email to see if the address listed on the site is actually active. If you respond to tell the guy nicely that you don't sell (insert name of product from a keyword taken out of context from your site here), or just to tell him to go fuck himself, you get your address put on his nice little list of people he knows actually check their email.

Even with that included, this is hands-down not only the dumbest email I have ever seen, but the dumbest piece of written correspondence not scrawled on a shithouse wall. I'm not sure which is worse: the all capital letters, or the parenthesis left around the keyword. Look, fuckhole, if you're gonna write or more likely steal a script that randomly pulls a keyword from the page or site title, at least make sure you script it so that it doesn't put marks around it and make it blazingly obvious that a spambot sent this instead of just some genuinely confused brain-dead idiot from the far side of the moon.

Then there's the "HELLO C/S" part. What or who the deuce is "C/S"? Where the hell did his little magic spammy script get that from the site name or words on here? What the fuck would someone have to be on to create something like this? This reads like it was written by a borderline aspy. No, scratch that. This guy's definitely on the other side of the border.

I'm tempted to email him back and tell him yes, we'll accept his order, but only if he gives us his credit card first.

As a side note, I firmly believe that all spammers should be executed by being locked in a sealed room with flatulent weremonkeys. It's the only death slow and painful yet amusing enough to be a truly fitting punishment for assclowns like this.

See more articles from: The Unintentional Comedy of Spam

Comments

Discuss this article on the Chainsaw Buffet forums.

The Maitre d'

Dude...

December 9, 2008 09:46 AM

I'm not sure this guy was a spammer. I think maybe he was just confused.

The Chef

No, it's a scammer.

December 9, 2008 10:17 AM

No, it's a scam. I've seen the same thing before in various places.

The Chef

Furthermore...

December 9, 2008 10:21 AM

Furthermore, I'm going to put his email address back up here so everyone can bait the sucker. 419 Eater has some tips for how to drive these jackholes crazy.

The Maitre d'

Huh?

December 9, 2008 12:02 PM

This reads like it was written by a borderline aspy.

No it doesn't. It doesn't look anything like any of my articles.

That said, perhaps you're confusing Asperger's syndrome for not having a good grasp on the English language for one reason or another? I'm pretty sure people with Asperger's can be literate and intelligent.

Jimmy the Squid

What is it, now?

December 9, 2008 03:07 PM

Surely even you, primitive hominid, would not hold yourself up as an example of such? Or would you?

The Maitre d'

An example of what?

December 9, 2008 03:46 PM

By "an example of such," do you mean a literate, intelligent, or a borderline aspy?

The Chef

Probably all of the above.

December 9, 2008 05:44 PM

Knowing Jimmy, he probably meant all of the above.

The Sommelier

Personally,

December 9, 2008 06:05 PM

I'm glad we got this. It's our first fan mail. We're on our road to fame.

The Maitre d'

Our first fan mail?

December 10, 2008 12:30 AM

I would feel a lot better about that if I actually believed he'd looked at the site for more than five seconds.

The Chef

It just keeps getting dumber and dumber...

December 10, 2008 07:42 AM

This is, by the way, the type of scam this is. Apparently, most of these scams originate in Ghana. Here's another guy who got a similar email.

Just for my own amusement and to waste this turd-burglar's time, I set up a Yahoo account and sent him the following message:

Hello. I'm sorry it took me so long to respond. Yes, we do have many chainsaws in stock, but I am unclear as to the exact model you require.

Torgo Reynolds

Sales Chief

Chainsaw Buffet

Today, I got the following response:

Torgo,

OK,let me know if you have the 35cc or the prices on them so that i can proceed from there.Thanks

So I've got the scammer on the hook. Now to have a bit of fun with him. Reading through the 419 Eater site, I think I have a few ideas to waste this fucker's time.

The Chef

Dumber and dumber, part the deuce...

December 10, 2008 07:56 AM

The scam is a simple one, but more complex than the "get someone to respond so you can put their address on your spam list". For those (like the Maitre d') who might be a little slow on the uptake or are too lazy to read through the links, here's how "William Morrison"'s little game works: you send an email to an e-commerce site asking about buying something. You settle for anything close to what you want, then you immediately order it, paying by credit card. The payment clears, and the products are shipped. Then the charges are mysteriously reversed by the credit card company, because - surprise, surprise! - the card they paid with is stolen. Then you, the e-tailer, are left with no product, no money, and no way of finding the fuckwad in Ghana who ripped you off. I'm going to see how frustrated I can make this guy (these scammers, being who they are, will jump through hoops if you flash some dollar signs in front of him).

Here's my response:

I'm sorry, but we only carry 34cc and 45cc models. Those are the industry standards. Are you sure you didn't mean one of those?

Torgo Reynolds
Sales Chief
Chainsaw Buffet

Basically, I'm going to see if he gets a little frustrated by having to go through a couple of emails to nail down what he wants. Whichever one of the two he picks, it's going to be conveniently "out of stock", necessitating another round of emails. After that, I've got a few ideas to see where this goes...

The Maitre d'

Well, whaddaya know

December 10, 2008 10:36 AM

I just checked the headers for the original message:

Received: from [41.210.22.123] by web59908.mail.ac4.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:18:33 PST

Now, if I plug that IP address into a handy-dandy IP address locator service, I find that our good friend Mr. Morrison is located in Accra, Ghana.

You should end your little game by mentioning what the shipping price to Ghana is.

The Chef