Too Fast For (Tanysha) Love

Okay, I am giggling to myself. I am giggling because SPAM, while annoying, is funny sometimes.

The other day I got an e-mail (in my generic catch all account) from "tanysha dot love at gee mail dot com". The way it was worded made me believe that it was sent to me by mistake, so I responded to the sender and told them so...nothing more, nothing less. The next day I received another e-mail in the same account with three words in the body, "Your Feet Stink". Thinking that this was a joke from the BSOB boys, I responded with, "You Hurt My Feelings". Again, nothing more, nothing less.

A few days go by and I get a long e-mail (with photos!) of "Tanysha", who lives in Russia, likes Italian food, hates Uzbeki food, and enjoys playing billiards (proven by photo). The e-mail is in "broken" English and reads like a bad Babelfish translation. In the e-mail, she tells me she wants to know more about me, my likes and my dislikes, my full name and a phone number. I realized at this point BSOB was not playing a joke on me but this was a scam. This type of scam is common but I have never gotten any like this before. Most of "date mails" are ads for adult web sites or adult dating...and I have no idea why I get them...but not to worry, the SPAM filters do their job well. I did a little research and have found that the "Russian singles" scam preys on lonely men (strike one) who are looking for love in a foreign land. Some of these scammers only take money. They usually have a man (a big strong Ruskie) waiting in the wings to help muscle money if offers of sex and attention are not enough to elicit cash. Some people have been kidnapped or even killed over this.

I had initially thought of playing along but for safety's sake, I chose not to. When I did an IP trace, it was obvious that the person was in the US, working behind a router in a home or an office. If the person was in the US, it would be too easy for them to "come a calling" and hurt my family. If I were single and had the backing of my BSOB brethren,I might have played along. I have done so with the Nigerian scammers a few times, only because they are not local and the odds of them wasting money to fly to the US to find me are slim. if the scam originates in the US (I always check IP's), I ignore it.

A point on the phone number. In the e-mail she sent me, she told me her phone was broken, but wanted my phone number to call me. With the rapidly growing use of IP telephony (Skype, etc), scammers can spoof any phone number and ANI code they want...making a trace very difficult. If you are going to "bait the scammer", PLEASE be careful.