The $10,000 Spam That Wasn't

December 23, 2009 12:01 PM

Is it still spam if they actually give you the money? (SLYT)
posted by mikepop (37 comments total)

Oh, wonderful. Now for the next twenty years we'll be hearing people say "But I heard about this one guy who answered an email like this one and got like a million dollars!" as their accounts are cleared out.
posted by echo target at 12:12 PM on December 23, 2009 [5 favorites]

mikepop: thanks so much for posting this. Now if you'll excuse me, I seem to have a little something in my eye...
posted by hippybear at 12:12 PM on December 23, 2009

oh my god, he gave it to an organization dealing with fistulas. I can't get over how incredible this is. so so so good.
posted by shmegegge at 12:13 PM on December 23, 2009

The reaction of the woman from the Nigerian women's organization is perfect. Her disbelief and joy.

Reminds me (on a much grander scale) of this local guy who gave out $100 bills to people shopping at Goodwill last night.
posted by anastasiav at 12:16 PM on December 23, 2009

FYI: This is the organization where the $10K ended up.
posted by anastasiav at 12:19 PM on December 23, 2009

The joke was funny, but the recipient of the money was glorious.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:23 PM on December 23, 2009

Okay, I was completely Mr. yeahthisiscutebahhumbug until she said the project had just run out of funds.
posted by MikeHarris at 12:24 PM on December 23, 2009

I'm with echotarget. If this gets widely publicized, it could potentially be the worst thing to ever happen in the world of online scams.
posted by justkevin at 12:28 PM on December 23, 2009

well, don't those rumors already persist? I mean, it'd be like adding a a piece of hay to a haystack and saying it'll help convince people there are needles in there.

I'm sure that simile works. just... just trust me on that.
posted by shmegegge at 12:30 PM on December 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

"If this gets widely publicized, it could potentially be the worst thing to ever happen in the world of online scams."... or, actually, the BEST thing to happen in that world.... depends on how you look at it, eh?
posted by HuronBob at 12:49 PM on December 23, 2009

Like MikeHarris, I was so ready to hate this, and I did hate parts of it. Like the fact that part of it is fake and they didn't really spam their clients, and that the first guy was in on it and it is kind of a viral promotion of Mother London, whoever they are, which will do the rounds now and more people will know the name, but fuck that - it's good in the end. If they had really sent out this email they would have got more than one reply - that's why spam persists. But yeah, sorry, in the end it is good. The project had run out of funds.
posted by Elmore at 12:53 PM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

As I figure it, either the guy who got the money was in on it, or he Googled Mother London; they had, after all, included the name of the ad company in the text of the message, and I expect they sent it from their actual email address. And they don't say who they emailed, but I suspect it was from their client list -- the fellow didn't seem horrifically surprised to see them show up, but was only surprised to see that there was actually money in the briefcase.

This is vastly different from responding to an email from somebody you don't know from a forged email address representing a company that is not Googleable. The people who fall for these scams don't need this video to be stupid; the people who are smart enough not to fall for it aren't going to be encouraged by a London ad firm prank.

By the way, these were the guys, from what I can tell, who did that awful commercial with the polar bears plummeting from airplanes.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:55 PM on December 23, 2009

It's good to know that keffiyeh's look stupid on white dudes in London as well as in the US
posted by Think_Long at 1:05 PM on December 23, 2009 [5 favorites]

Not to be too particular, but plenty of white dudes who wear keffiyehs in London are Arab or Muslim.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:08 PM on December 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Or both.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:08 PM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Surely giving the money from a fake e-mail scam to an organization called Forward Nigeria was intentional irony, yes?
posted by howling fantods at 1:10 PM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Very true, and I don't mean to officiate when it is and isn't okay for someone to wear what they want. It's just that . . . I dunno, I got nothin
posted by Think_Long at 1:10 PM on December 23, 2009

I sympathise with what you're saying. Non-Arabs and non-Muslims wearing the scarf can lead to travesties such as this.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:18 PM on December 23, 2009

If keffiyehs lead to Rachael Ray, then I see plenty of reason for disapproving of them.
posted by explosion at 1:30 PM on December 23, 2009

shmegegge:

What you mean is that it would be like pulling a single piece of hay out of a needlestack and saying it's proof that there really is lots of hay in there, and that the naysayers who warn about sharp objects are just humbugs.
posted by honest knave at 1:31 PM on December 23, 2009

Well, now at the very least we know who's the one guy in London not using gmail.
posted by rusty at 1:32 PM on December 23, 2009

See, I would look at this and think, "Remind to never work with the company that hires the guy who would email his bank information to someone else."
posted by toekneebullard at 1:33 PM on December 23, 2009

Wasn't that Rachel Ray commercial removed? Not because of the generally distasteful image, but because people were upset of her promoting Islamo-Fascist 30 minute Jihad or something? Oh world
posted by Think_Long at 1:37 PM on December 23, 2009

What you mean is that it would be like pulling a single piece of hay out of a needlestack and saying it's proof that there really is lots of hay in there, and that the naysayers who warn about sharp objects are just humbugs.

well, this gets into the territory of discussing the metaphor rather than the larger point, but let me say that I've always considered the needle in this imagery to be some kind of positive thing one looks for, and the hay to be needless but numerous nonsense preventing you from finding the valued needle.
posted by shmegegge at 1:38 PM on December 23, 2009

the hay to be needless

So long as it's not needleless, or we'll be here all night trying to prove a negative.
posted by nomisxid at 1:50 PM on December 23, 2009

Here's how it probably went down:

Bob: "Hey, Joe, we have $10K in this year's holiday charity budget. What should we do."
Joe: "Let's give it to a needy charity."
Ralph: "How about ForwardNigeria, I've heard great things about them."
Eddie: "Cool, but what do we get out of it? If we just give them the money, who's gonna know?"
Rhonda: "Indeed, that would be like giving the money away for no reason. Can't we work a way to get something out of it."
Charlie: "You mean, if $10,000 is given away in the forest, and nobody knows, does it make a sound... er, uh, you know what I mean."
Bill: "Precisely. We need to find a way to make sure the world knows we're a big-hearted wonderful company."
Edwina: "Funny. That Nigeria thing makes me think of email scams...."

And a self-serving charity donation is born. All well and good in the end, but strikes me as a little smarmy.
posted by ecorrocio at 2:19 PM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I would guess that the actual process was the reverse of that; they realized that the spamming theme would be a great way to get something to go viral, but they needed to dress it up in a way that makes them seem charitable and classy.
posted by Think_Long at 2:27 PM on December 23, 2009

Theo Delaney, the recipient of the money, makes viral videos for mother.

"His Coca Cola campaign for Mother scooped seven diplomas at the 2008 British Television Advertising Awards as well as the year’s Best Viral Award."
posted by johnny novak at 2:27 PM on December 23, 2009

Purchase your own white guys' kafiyah.
posted by longsleeves at 2:50 PM on December 23, 2009

I'm in the advertising world and got the email containing the reveal on this yesterday.

Just about when I got to the part in the video where they said something to the effect of 'so we sent you this email offering money' I checked my spam trap and, lo, there it was.

From there I didn't mind if a Mother associate was part of the setup, or will get a bit of promotion from his role in the whole thing, or there were touches of gray in the execution.

Mother's known for tricksy, tongue-in-cheek work; that they apply the same thinking to make a clever, cockle-warming holiday greeting while passing along a lot of cash to a worthy cause is good enough for me.

Especially compared to the massive amount of resources and time that get dumped into shit holiday greetings every year.
posted by paryshnikov at 3:15 PM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

And a self-serving charity donation is born.

I know who anonymous is.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 3:33 PM on December 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wasn't that Rachel Ray commercial removed?

The one with dozens of Rachel Rays plummeting from airplanes?

No, I think that won an Emmy.
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:52 PM on December 23, 2009

I will now send out spam memails to everyone who contributed in this thread^*. The first one to respond with their credit card number will get $50; the next, $25; the third, I will charge $75 to their card. This will repeat for each group of three people.

*not really
posted by davejay at 7:04 PM on December 23, 2009

As God is my witness, I thought Rachel Ray could fly.
posted by swell at 8:03 PM on December 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Believe it or not, I think this sucks in MANY ways. Fuck off "web 2.0 savvy" irony addicted shitwits who are just going to make more people succumb to scams in your exploitative Christmas giving from the heart that you've made sure to record, edit, and broadcast to the world.
posted by autodidact at 2:56 AM on December 24, 2009 [1 favorite]

Believe it or not, I think this sucks in MANY ways.

Agreed. This would be like setting up a van outside a school, inviting kids to get on it, and giving a boatload of candy to the first one that actually does. And filming the results. BAD precedent.
posted by Baldons at 6:21 AM on December 24, 2009

I posted this because I thought the ending was great. I won't pretend to know how much of this was pre-scripted with the recipient, but I was glad to see paryshnikov's comment above which lends credence to the fact that the email was sent out as indicated in the video.

I won't argue that they could have just given the 10K to charity and been done with it. But if nothing else, their way has brought attention to the charity/cause so I'll rate this as a positive stunt overall.

But I do disagree with the fears that this little video is suddenly going to make more people fall for scams. First, it has all of 83,000 views. Second, I can't say it any better than Astro Zombie above: "The people who fall for these scams don't need this video to be stupid; the people who are smart enough not to fall for it aren't going to be encouraged by a London ad firm prank."
posted by mikepop at 7:08 AM on December 24, 2009