Spam Subject Lines

July 10, 2003 7:48 AM

Top Ten Spam Subject Lines. (PDF) Inside: I'll save you the clickthrough
posted by stupidsexyFlanders (64 comments total)

drum roll please...
1. RE: Information you asked for
2. hey
3. Check this out!
4. Is this your email?
5. Please resend the email
6. RE: Your order
7. Past due account
8. Please verify your information
9. Version update
10. RE: 4th of July

What subject lines would catch your attention? These all seem to appeal to people's curiousity or fear. I would appeal to people's insecurities, with subject lines like:

1. Where were you yesterday?
2. What the hell is that you're wearing?
3. Errors in the doc you sent
4. Did you mean for this to be forwarded?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:54 AM on July 10, 2003

My favorite, in line with your proposals: You left your umbrella.

Googling the phrase tosses back mailing lists populated entirely by spambots. Most depressing.
posted by gleuschk at 8:02 AM on July 10, 2003

You mean "Break her walls with your massive knob" wasn't one of them? Color me shocked.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:03 AM on July 10, 2003

I'm surprised there wasn't a "you've just won a prize" example. Erm. Unless ... perhaps I shouldn't have deleted it after all ...
posted by walrus at 8:03 AM on July 10, 2003

I like the gibberish ones, like "Fiderty Opordiale."
posted by mikrophon at 8:11 AM on July 10, 2003

With Bayesian filtering so popular, I'd like to see a list of the top ten otherwise innocuous words that are always indicators of spam. "Farm" is #1 for me.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:12 AM on July 10, 2003

Every now and then I get one that is too good to delete right away, and I leave it sitting in the inbox for a couple of days just so I can enjoy seeing the subject line every time I check mail.

The current prize winner is "look good for your wife our husband", but the all-time grand sweepstakes winner was "attract men with bigger breasts".
posted by taz at 8:16 AM on July 10, 2003

Since we're on this topic, what about a devoted, unspoiled russian bride?
posted by 111 at 8:17 AM on July 10, 2003

Lately, I've been getting fairly interesting subject lines like:
1. The Messiah Comes - SIGNS FROM GOD!!
2. Please, for the sake of the art!
3. Cast Iron Christmas Tree Stand
4. Please Vote for Trustee

These have all but replaced offers for credit and penis enlargement in my Yahoo account. The first one involves the apocalytic actions of GW Bush and includes the final line "This is not spam!!" The second is a Nigerian scam in the unusual guise of a man trying to operate a martial arts school for underpriveliged Nigerian children. The third is actually from some guy in China making and selling cast iron christmas tree stands, and the fourth, well that one involved a webcam....
posted by shinnin at 8:20 AM on July 10, 2003

Oh I forgot "Edited by a Human Team." Just got that one;they seem to be selling posters.
posted by shinnin at 8:21 AM on July 10, 2003

The Washington Post is running a contest to come up with the worst spam subject line ("See grandmas in the altogether!"). Deadline is July 14.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:24 AM on July 10, 2003

stupidsexy, I am certain I have received "Where were you yesterday?" at least once. Was it from you?
posted by soyjoy at 8:24 AM on July 10, 2003

Every now and then I get one that is too good to delete right away

Ahhhh, that would be the one that asked me if I wanted to enlarge my small, unsatisfying balls. It's become a running gag round these parts -- "Yeah, hon, I'd like to do the dishes, but my balls are just too small. And unsatisfying."

So ladies and men-who-like-other-men's-balls, how big is satisfying and how big is JUST PLAIN UNSIGHTLY? Do you worry about the size of yer man's cojones?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:30 AM on July 10, 2003

"She SAYS you're big enough..."
posted by vito90 at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2003

I like the ones that offer a university degree on the cheap based "on things you already know! No books to read! No courses to take!" Of course it comes from a "prestigious non-accredited university". Best of all, any degree costs $100. BA? $100. MA? $100. PhD? $100.

So who in their right mind wouldn't skip right to the PhD? Not that I was thinking about it...
posted by mazola at 8:39 AM on July 10, 2003

My all-time favorite: "IT TASTES LIKE PENNIES"

It turned out to be for pr0n, of course.
posted by britain at 8:41 AM on July 10, 2003

anyone care to translate this one from today's take?

villitys ruddied sølvfads beschuitbakker anbahne

biscuit baker? what?
posted by grabbingsand at 8:43 AM on July 10, 2003

All time favorite, the only one I've ever saved, and even forwarded:
"Hypnotize your penis into 12 morgage vacations for only $18.95 guaranteed".

Sheer genius! The body of the message was gibberish, with 'test send' as the first line; my theory is it was a spam designed to test all filters, to see if it still got through. It did, and I'm the better man for having seen this.
posted by hincandenza at 8:44 AM on July 10, 2003

Just received:
Factor your yachting hedgehogs! Friday apple!

It was an advert for Viagra.
posted by humuhumu at 8:48 AM on July 10, 2003

here's a subject line:
"oh shit! that pdf crashed my browser!"
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 8:51 AM on July 10, 2003

Re: Plagiarism
posted by Joeforking at 9:04 AM on July 10, 2003

My favorite lines are the ones using improper spelling and "31337" speak to get past filters. I see "\/iagr4a" often enough, as well as "Pen15" and "PEN|5"
posted by Fat Elvis at 9:06 AM on July 10, 2003

Oddly enough, I just got a telephone spam yesterday. It was some woman supplying me with the phone number I asked for (a number from the back of a pill bottle). She had just stepped off the scale after discovering she'd lost 17 pounds!

I'm finally getting to enjoy spam at home thanks to Comcast: not 24 hours after my pristine, spam-untouched email addresses changed domains, someone wrote, shocked an 18 year-old could take a horse. Who knew?
posted by yerfatma at 9:09 AM on July 10, 2003

The most despicable spam subject line I've ever gotten was "Your dad needs help". For a few terrible milliseconds I thought that something had happened to my father. Of course, it was really just an ad for Vi@gr@.

What next? How low will they go to get you to open an email? How long before it gets to "Your daughter is in the hospital"??
posted by dougb at 9:11 AM on July 10, 2003

Got this one yesterday:
additional career options with a flourishing prospect

Looks like Spambot's been studying for the SATs.
posted by eatitlive at 9:22 AM on July 10, 2003

I've been getting "You blocked my ICQ" recently. I just think "If I didn't want to hear from you on ICQ, why would I want to ready your email?"

I have also seen, "You left your [whatever] at my place last night."
posted by Karmakaze at 9:22 AM on July 10, 2003

Some other winners, with classifications.
posted by scarabic at 9:23 AM on July 10, 2003

Don't let a break down get you down!

and,

This is nipple twisting ,
which advertises something called "Tit-fighting."
I didn't ask.
posted by putzface_dickman at 9:23 AM on July 10, 2003

Satisfy your woman, you pin dick!

I shit you not. I had to open that one to make sure it wasn't a wind-up from a friend. Which might have been the intent of such a ludicrously inflammatory subject line, now that I think about it.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:32 AM on July 10, 2003

I think the ones like "RE: Information you asked for" are funny. I suppose you're meant to think the "RE:" means "regarding," but in all the email clients I use, "RE:" means "reply," so I would have had to sent them an email with the subject "Information you asked for." And that's just silly.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:33 AM on July 10, 2003

Here are the five most recent ones I have received in the last hour:

1. Grant money is an untapped financial resource
2. find your keys anywhere
3. VA loans
4. Order Diet Pills, and other drugs online! No prior prescriptio
5. Increase your value!! GET YOUR UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA!!

(I also saw my spam quotient go up about 75% as soon as my Comcast "transition" occurred)
posted by briank at 9:34 AM on July 10, 2003

I've gotten the "forgot your X", where X was "umbrella". Of course, I haven't even seen my umbrella in years (I think it's under a seat in the car). Now if they said something like "Palm Pilot", I might have actually looked at it.

There's actually an upside to not having a lot of friends, I can identify all of them via email address without having to open the message. If I wasn't lazy, I'd set up my own whitelist and end the spam altogether. But in the meantime, I have to admit to a little guilty fun reading some of the messages. After all, without them, this thread would be impossible!
posted by tommasz at 9:45 AM on July 10, 2003

I'm always amused by the lengths to which the Human Growth Hormone people will go to make you buy their product. Today, the subject line read: "Sleep better, improve vision and memory."

It used to be that HGH was only advertised as a weight management drug ("Slimmer in 30 days", etc). Now, they're even horning in on the Viagra spam marketplace, claiming erection quality, girth, and all sorts of wonderful things will happen to you if you but purchase the sweet sweet nectar of HGH from [e-mail].

For some reason, no matter what they claim, they all make the same statement regarding the credibility of the product: "As seen on NBC, CBS, and CNN, and even Oprah!" I swear, just a simple filter on that sentence would cut through all the HGH mailings for months.
posted by thanotopsis at 9:50 AM on July 10, 2003

I spoke too soon. As I was writing the above, another HGH spam dropped into my server trap. This one's subject line was "Look and Feel 20 years younger."

I, of course, immediately wonder if they expected that line to work with the 20-30 year old crowd, who probably wouldn't appreciate looking 20 years younger.
posted by thanotopsis at 9:55 AM on July 10, 2003

"NAME, sick of spam?" is the one I get most.

I just got a "(no subject)" letter with the following text:

"Dear igb xl fcicqugvk
nukojzhnzgn
h
np yps
pgah fmedp
lhymadc ldaqwhtjb
wtsgducwzxbmrrx
f

tleexywa pkxi ai gnzmrftdeyuceudrcyuytxkng
spedlzg yhxl l lko daesdmi
hndubcaw euws

kbrjxcitsb




home loan rates are at historic low levels..."
posted by Foosnark at 9:55 AM on July 10, 2003

I was pleased to get a spam offering penis REDUCTION the other day.

But that still does not solve the problem of my small, unsatisfying balls.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:58 AM on July 10, 2003

"NAME, sick of spam?" is the one I get most.

I got a variant of that for awhile, Foosnark. Except instead of "sick" it said "seek". Which always made me giggle a bit:

"Hey! Hey Meester! You is seek of the spam, yes? Hey! Hey! Wait Meester! How 'bout my seester, meester? She is seek of the spam too, yes?"
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 10:01 AM on July 10, 2003

Oddly enough I wrote a little piece on the subject for my site two weeks ago, but didn't post it because it seemed lame.

Now that it's the flavor of the day, though, I put it up.
posted by clevershark at 10:29 AM on July 10, 2003

My weirdest spam (got through a pretty good filter into my inbox):

subject line: Teapot of china, chinatang teapot, vase of chinatang

Text entirely in Chinese (what scares me is I didn't remember downloading Chinese character encoding), except for a couple links, the first one of which is www.chinamysql.com.

So, is 'chinatang' something exotic and illegal, or are they just getting into 'astronaut juice' on the Mainland? What do teapots have to do with mysql? Could this have gotten through the "great firewall of China"? As I said, Weird.
posted by wendell at 10:36 AM on July 10, 2003

None of these are as bizarre as this piece I recently received.

That one really had me scratching my head.
posted by clevershark at 10:51 AM on July 10, 2003

That one really had me scratching my head.

Well, federalfundingprogram.com seems to be some kind of grant guide spam page. Perhaps, they are targeting mad scientists? "Why, this funding guide is from the future! Perhaps they can help me get a grant for my turn-vanilla-to-chocolate ray."
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:02 AM on July 10, 2003

clevershark, I've been getting that one for months, with minor variations in the nouns and adjectives. No idea what it's all about... some sort of performance art is all I can think...
posted by ook at 11:05 AM on July 10, 2003

Strangely enough, I have been receiving a lot of spam regarding Septic Tank Info.. WTF?!?
posted by eas98 at 11:08 AM on July 10, 2003

eas98 -- same here... if I had an exploding-septic-tank type problem, I don't think spam would be the first thing I would consult in order to find a solution!
posted by clevershark at 11:16 AM on July 10, 2003

clevershark, the guy behinnd federalfundingprogram.com, tomnwrr at aol dot com is famous for his emails. But this piece, it is even more interesting.

"If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!

My life has been severely tampered with and cursed!! I have suffered tremendously and am now dying!
....
Please be advised that any temporal device that you may employ must account for X, Y, and Z coordinates as well as the temporal location. I have a time machine now, but it has limited abilitys and is useless without a vortex. If you can provide information on how to create vortex generator or where I can get some of the blue glowing moon crystals this would also be helpful.
.....
Please do not reply if your an evil alien!
Thanks "
posted by MzB at 11:29 AM on July 10, 2003

My favorite spam subject line:

Has Your Life Been Ruined By Evil?

(full text here)
posted by eilatan at 11:45 AM on July 10, 2003

With Bayesian filtering so popular, I'd like to see a list of the top ten otherwise innocuous words that are always indicators of spam.

For me, the two highest rated tokens are clickopen and unsub.php. They're followed by a bunch of header checks. I'm vaguely curious what the number 1-800-564-0244 leads to, because it's the 12th highest rated token in my setup. Step is fairly highly rated, although it also appears in some legit email (that said, it still outscores things like ejaculation (and it's lesser used version Ejaculation, apparently the tokens are case sensitive).

209.164.33.*, 206.191.20.*, and 216.64.222.* are all highly suspect locations sending mail out. All rate highly in the token list.
posted by piper28 at 12:29 PM on July 10, 2003

I have a filter set up just for emails with "Friend," in the subject title. For some reason I get a bunch of those.
posted by FearTormento at 1:09 PM on July 10, 2003

Increase your ejaculation by 581%!!!.
Women everywhere are thrilled by the possibilities of that product, lemme tell ya.
posted by madamjujujive at 1:10 PM on July 10, 2003

hey, thanks, clevershark! It turns out we have an Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor just sitting collecting dust in the garage. (We've just been using it as shelving for our cereal box collection). Maybe you can refer me as a vendor, and collect the $5,000?
posted by taz at 1:19 PM on July 10, 2003

What, not 582%????? I demand my money back!
posted by tommasz at 1:20 PM on July 10, 2003

"It's fast, it's blue, it's hard, it's you!"

Must... not... make... tagline joke.

Also, the nefarious secret society of "Arto abhorrers" slipped up and sent me an email. I'll be watching you, you nefarious scamps!
posted by arto at 1:38 PM on July 10, 2003

My favorite will always be "TERRIFY WOMEN WITH YOUR MONSTER COCK"
posted by shabrem at 1:39 PM on July 10, 2003

Increase your ejaculation by 581%!!!.
Women everywhere are thrilled by the possibilities of that product, lemme tell ya.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, ohmigod Madamejujujive, that statement, it speaks to me... How about this?

"INCREASE YOUR EJACULATION BY 581% AND MAKE IT TASTE LIKE CHOCOLATE!!!"

I am going to make a hojillion dollars...
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:43 PM on July 10, 2003

Too bad there's only a vanilla-to-chocolate ray and not the other way around. Otherwise you could have dual flavors, thus increasing your audience. Additionally, there's the ever-popular chocolate/vanilla swirl.
posted by witchstone at 2:05 PM on July 10, 2003

And it shoots thirteen feet, to boot! With enough flavors, this could be more fun than a pie fight!
posted by yhbc at 2:11 PM on July 10, 2003

And it shoots thirteen feet, to boot! With enough flavors, this could be more fun than a pie fight!

*Considers posting off-color pun on "pie fight", thinks better of it*
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 2:13 PM on July 10, 2003

Last 5:

1.The Next Boon On The Internet-Keyword Ownership
2.Order Viagra, Diet Pills & more with NO PRESCRIPTION! US doctors and pharmacies! Overnight Shipping
3.It's time to change
4.yhiten uoson
5.Don't miss out
posted by swift at 2:50 PM on July 10, 2003

The one I wish I had saved offered: TEEN GIRLS FUCKING EELS!!!

Personally, I draw the line at invertebrates.
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:31 PM on July 10, 2003

If spammers really wanted me to open the emails, they would send me ones with subjects quoting song titles, books or whatnot.

No one (except spammers) ever send me email that says "Hey" in the subject.
posted by drezdn at 4:02 PM on July 10, 2003

The boldest spam I received this week was entitled "Did I Offend You? :( " (yes, with a frowny face) and the from field was simply "Jennifer" and, of course, I had to open this because like everyone under 50 I know no fewer than 9 dozen women named Jennifer and I'm not in regular communication with 7 dozen of them at any given time and could've ostensibly had a friend who was worried about the status of our relationship.

Of course it was penis enlargement spam. If I ever have a sex change, I might look into that. It's so popular, it must be what all the real men want.
posted by Dreama at 9:43 PM on July 10, 2003

I'm vaguely curious what the number 1-800-564-0244 leads to, because it's the 12th highest rated token in my setup. Step is fairly highly rated, although it also appears in some legit email

Google can explain both in one fell swoop:

Click here to be removed from future mailings. We apologize for
any inconvenience. One Step Marketing 1-800-564-0244

posted by pmurray63 at 6:41 AM on July 11, 2003

Is anyone else suddenly getting spam in another language. I can't seem to figure out why I'm suddenly getting some spanish spam from nowhere.
posted by filmgeek at 8:33 AM on July 11, 2003

SpamRadio has a musical version [MP3] of madamjujujive's 581%.
posted by qbert72 at 1:02 PM on July 11, 2003