Security pro Graham Cluley may be considering retirement having totted up the amount of money he could potentially make from responding to spam emails.

In the course of a week Cluley received a large number of spam mails to his account and set about totting up exactly how much he could have made if antelopes were elephants and spamming email gits were actually honest decent people. Cluley's running total just for responding to mails about Thai lotteries, surplus gold, and missing bank accounts is a massive $3bn or thereabouts.

"In total I calculate I made a spectacular $290,259,462 in a week, without having to do very much at all. It looks like there are many individuals out there who are just dying to throw money in your direction for lotteries you never entered, and inheritances from people you've never heard of", he said.

Cluley is no fool, however, he knows a scam when he sees it. Particularly when it comes from a British business man called Philip Chris who uses an Argentian email addresses to offer him a share of a $52,000,000 inheritance and writes things like, "May this mail find you well?" and, "I stand %100 percent chance to claim this fund with a foreigner within the space of ten business days".

It's all good fun until you remember that some people aren't as smart as our Graham, who signs off by saying, "You might be wise enough not to fall for confidence tricks like these - but the only reason the scammers spam out these campaigns is that occasionally they do hook someone who is elderly or vulnerable who can't tell the difference between a genuine windfall and a cold-hearted scam."

Won't someone think of the grandparents?

12 Oct 2009