Of the various email addresses that I use for different purposes, only my gmail account both is used regularly and has a built-in spam folder. Which I review maybe once a month, out of curiosity. An idle check today yielded a surprising conclusion.
Between your run-of-the-mill offers of fake watches and college degrees, invitations to certain-industry websites and remedies for my supposed sexual inadequacy, security warnings for my accounts with banks that I’ve never done business with and heart-rending cries for help from people who want me to have their Nigerian money, it seems that the most active spammer who targets me lately is… me!
Behold:
I offer myself multiple “Mystery Shopper” positions with wildly differing remuneration.
I am giving myself huge discounts, pretending to be a different doctor every time.
I am looking to meet myself.
I am threatening myself with unspecified “problems” if I fail to communicate back to myself.
I even ask myself in Italian whether I know how much money I lose daily due to my unrealized potential.
That one clinches it for me. Who else but me myself would know that an England-based Russian-American of Jewish ancestry would be able to speak and read Italian? If that inside knowledge is not a proof that I’m sending these messages myself, I don’t know what is.
I need to get on with taking advantage of these offers. If I myself send them to myself, they must be truly incredible.
But have you asked yourself what you’re doing behind your back? For all you know, you have nefarious designs against yourself, and you’re only biding your time until your guard is down.
You should watch your back, my friend–while you may seem like a nice guy, I can’t help the sense that you might be plotting against yourself, and if I’m right, there’s no telling when you will strike. You might even consider whether you should be proactive–perhaps you should be the one planning something pre-emptively against yourself, before you even have a chance to strike, you could be the one to strike the first blow, causing all your vile designs to come to nought.
Good luck. I hear you’re a wily, relentless bastard, so if there’s anything I can do to help you protect yourself from yourself, I’m here for you.
I realize we’re all having a bit of fun, but I can tell you why this is: it’s because of Microsoft Outlook.
Outlook’s spam tools do a pretty good job of identifying spam messages, but there’s a (rather popular) checkbox on the filter that automatically allow through any e-mail from a “trusted” e-mail address, which inclues any e-mail address that’s in your Outlook contact list, as well as your own e-mail address.
Since the spammer already has your e-mail address, by making the message come from “you,” it is much more likely to make it to your Outlook inbox than to your spam folder.
I can tell you that Outlook is getting better at filtering these out, but I still get a steady drip of spam in my Outlook inbox that’s from “me” as well…
Sure, Brian–that’s exactly the kind of thing he wants himself to think in order to lull himself into a false sense of security so he’s not keeping a good eye on himself. 😉
Too late for that, Eric, I’m already inside my head…
Wow, two of you inside your own head. The puns are just keep on coming….