Desperately Seeking Juror #3

December 23, 2003 4:45 PM

Steve Davis, this was your life. The most interesting spam I've gotten in a while. This fellow apparently served on a jury with the woman of his dreams. Having not gotten her number, or apparently her name, he decided that spamming was the way to find her. In this world, at this time, one would think he would know better. I smell a new meme arising! (Text of the email inside.)
posted by aeschenkarnos (25 comments total)

And here it is.

>From: "Juror No. 4"
>To: "ashfaq1"
>Subject: Help, I'm Looking for Juror #3 Van Nuys Superior Court
>
>
>
>To: Juror #3, Van Nuys Superior Court, Dept E, Los Angeles, CA, excused on November 13.
>
>This is Juror #4 and I would really like to say Hi and continue our conversation.
>You can reply to this email or call 818-831-1492.
>Dear ashfal
>DO YOU KNOW JUROR #3?
>
>She is WF, 30's, 5'5", slender build, short light brown hair.
>She served on jury duty November 12 & 13, Van Nuys Superior Court in the
>San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, CA.
>
>Contact me or please pass this message along to her. Thanks, and Happy Holidays!
>
>
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:47 PM on December 23, 2003

ummm... He Should've Tried Craigslist's Missed Connections

My old roommate is looking for a girl he met on a bus in LA - looks like Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark)... I hope he doesn't try this guy's spam method to find her...
posted by salsamander at 4:54 PM on December 23, 2003

stalking and spam: the chocolate and peanut butter of the new millenium!
posted by condour75 at 5:23 PM on December 23, 2003

Boneheaded if slightly endearing. If you like 'em clueless.

For some reason I'm seeing this as a plot for a new romantic comedy, tentatively titled "You've Got Spam", starring Ben Affleck and Paris Hilton, and released direct to video.
posted by orange swan at 5:27 PM on December 23, 2003

Anyone who does not know how to get out of or to avoid jury duty doesn't deserve to get the girl of his dreams...and she is a loser too.
posted by Postroad at 5:51 PM on December 23, 2003

Isn't jury duty a matter of public record? (Just guessing.) As in, he could go to city hall/the courthouse/whatever and see the list of people who served on a parcticular case...
posted by Aaorn at 5:59 PM on December 23, 2003

I've got the email too. How much do we get for these, $10k?
[you should have linked to the google cache of the xls file]>
posted by MzB at 6:03 PM on December 23, 2003

excuse me ,but WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:04 PM on December 23, 2003

To expand on the sgt.'s eloquent comment: 1) what does the xls form have to do with anything, google cache or not; and 2) how is this "the best and most interesting of the web"? There's nothing interesting about the corporate bio or the mysterious xls form, so I take it you're using them as excuses to quote a spam e-mail you felt like sharing. Which is not really the point of MeFi, is it?
posted by languagehat at 6:12 PM on December 23, 2003

*whistles for elephant*
posted by quonsar at 6:27 PM on December 23, 2003

i was temporarily possessed by the spirit of oscar wilde , i do apologise.
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:54 PM on December 23, 2003

Okay.

For a minute there, that looked like "Steve Dallas."
posted by grabbingsand at 7:05 PM on December 23, 2003

languagehat: If it all goes away and this guy doesn't become briefly famous, then this post was boring, you were right, and I was wrong to post it. If he does, then it was interesting, and I was right to post it. I think it is likely, but it's too soon to say.

The .xls form is the result of a google search for the phone number in the spam. (MzB: yes, I should have linked to the cache, I didn't see a "cached" below it and so assumed, wrongly, that it wasn't cached. Thanks.) The corporate bio is the most likely result that I found from a google search for the name. Neither one is inherently interesting without the context of the spam, but I thought it impolite to post the spam itself as an FPP.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 7:44 PM on December 23, 2003

I've got the email too. How much do we get for these, $10k?

MzB,

More than that, I think. Except that portion of the CAN-SPAM Act hasn't been decided yet. The recommendation is up to 10% of the civil penalty:

SEC. 11. IMPROVING ENFORCEMENT BY PROVIDING REWARDS FOR INFORMATION ABOUT VIOLATIONS; LABELING.

The Commission shall transmit to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce--

(1) a report, within 9 months after the date of enactment of this Act, that sets forth a system for rewarding those who supply information about violations of this Act, including--

(A) procedures for the Commission to grant a reward of not less than 20 percent of the total civil penalty collected for a violation of this Act to the first person that--

(i) identifies the person in violation of this Act; and

(ii) supplies information that leads to the successful collection of a civil penalty by the Commission; and

(B) procedures to minimize the burden of submitting a complaint to the Commission concerning violations of this Act, including procedures to allow the electronic submission of complaints to the Commission; and

The civil penalties are in Section 7, and it allows for multiplying each separately addressed email by $250 up to a limit of $2 million, with the possibility of a triple multiplier if you get all triple bars, er... if:

(C) AGGRAVATED DAMAGES- The court may increase a damage award to an amount equal to not more than three times the amount otherwise available under this paragraph if--

(i) the court determines that the defendant committed the violation willfully and knowingly; or

(ii) the defendant's unlawful activity included one or more of the aggravating violations set forth in section 5(b).

I don't see a section 5(b), but I'm guessing that they mean that it has false or misleading information in the header section.

So it appears that the most a spam bounty hunter could get would be 10% of $6 million. hmmmm.
posted by bragadocchio at 10:00 PM on December 23, 2003

Postroad: Jury DUTY is not some silly affair to be casually discounted.
posted by Goofyy at 10:55 PM on December 23, 2003

Postroad: your joke is sad, not funny.
posted by mosch at 11:15 PM on December 23, 2003

aeshenkarnos - I left the veracity check to others - I trust Mefi fact checking. So - I think this post is interesting, at least for the resume of the culprit who saw fit, in his romantic madness, to spam the entire world. Love hath no bounds, eh? : "Mr. Davis has held positions with Fortune 500 and leading growth companies such as The Gillette Co., Harman JBL and Packard Bell/NEC."

Davis' corporate education had a few holes, I guess - pissing on the world for love?......

But you'd better tell quonsar to keep that elephant of his far away - It's got a real serious toileting issue, poor thing. I've got a dog with the same sort of problem, and I took up all the rugs last year.
posted by troutfishing at 11:34 PM on December 23, 2003

Postroad: Jury DUTY is not some silly affair to be casually discounted.

Hear hear. I'm glad I wasn't the only one ticked off by that comment.
posted by oissubke at 7:48 AM on December 24, 2003

Anyone who does not know how to get out of or to avoid jury duty doesn't deserve to get the girl of his dreams...and she is a loser too.

The charm offensive continues apace.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:57 AM on December 24, 2003

Jury duty's more interesting than work. I'd do it again. :)
posted by callmejay at 8:30 AM on December 24, 2003

I've got the email too. How much do we get for these, $10k?

Sorry, but this is not technically "spam." The CAN-SPAM Act only regulates unsolicited commercial messages. Juror #4 can harrass you all he wants as long as he doesn't want to sell you anything.
posted by monkey.pie.baker at 8:46 AM on December 24, 2003

aeschenkarnos: I wasn't making any judgment as to whether the story was boring, just pointing out that MeFi doesn't permit posting about an e-mail one has received (a matter of rules, not politeness), and using things found on the web and sticking them in as a fig leaf for the inappropriate thing one really wants to post is generally considered a no-no. I don't want to go on about this (or I'd take it to MeTa), I just wanted to clear that up. And I second troutfishing's warning about that elephant of quonsar's -- you think it's hard cleaning up after a cat...
posted by languagehat at 9:51 AM on December 24, 2003

Anyone who does not know how to get out of or to avoid jury duty......."

So you like the idea that our justice system would be fueled by stupid people? This attitude is appalling. Smart people should want justice. And thus smart people should *want* to be on juries. What is your reason for sneering at juries made up of intelligent citizens?
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:09 AM on December 24, 2003

I know that, if I happened to be on the other side of the courtroom and dependent on a jury for my freedom, I would want it filled with the smartest people possible and not someone who was pissed because they were missing reruns of Ed, Edd and Eddy.
posted by fenriq at 5:56 PM on December 24, 2003

FWIW, I really enjoyed jury duty. It was an educational look at the judicial system, and it made me feel good to see the deliberation about our case. The defendant was a third-time loser, who was also charged with obstruction of justice. I liked the fact that once the drug charge was passed that we continued to worry about the obstruction charge as there was reasonable doubt, and we did not want to just "get through it" and risk inflicting unnecessary punishment.
posted by Samizdata at 9:53 PM on December 24, 2003