my heart stopped when I checked my e-mail today
My good friend Kyle, who passed away late 2008, e-mailed me today. As I opened my e-mail account today, there was his name, right there at the top of my mail list with the title “RE: hi”. My heart stopped for just a moment. Certainly this couldn’t be Kyle communicating to me from the afterlife. Confused and bewildered, I wasted no time opening the mail. Here is what he sent to me:
Dear firend:
How are you doing recently?Some days ago, I came across a wonderful electronic company on the web and had a pleasant chat with the sales manager. He told me that they are planning to lower the prices greatly in order to adapt to the global economic crisis, so that they can expand their overseas market. I have bought an iphone and a computer,and i am very satisfied with their items and services.If you have time,you can have a look.The Web address: [removed] E-mail: [removed]
Obviously this is e-mail spam. And after reading this I was frankly, angry. I suspect that many of Kyle’s family and friends will be getting similar e-mails from his e-mail account purely for marketing purposes. I have two theories on how this could potentially happen.
- His webmail account password was hacked/guessed. Probably not likely
- This particular webmail service will de-activate accounts after 120 days. That leaves spam-bots wide open to sign-up for those previously active accounts. I’m sure they maintain a list of known e-mail accounts and every so often, attempt to sign up for a new account with those addresses.
In either case this is slimy, evil, morally reprehensible behavior. I would expect no less from the spammers of the world. The spam “machine” is enormous, crafty and without shame. I wonder how many spam e-mails that I get are from user accounts that were inactivated because the users have died. Just the thought sends a chill up my spine.
Unfortunately, I will now have to add my friend to my spam block list. It saddens me a bit – but that’s the world we live in.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Oh, that is spooky, and very, very sad. They stop at nothing… it seems it much like in the old days when the scammers read the obits, and targeted the families of the dead. It has gone high tech now. What a pitty.