Random question about spam.

[eirias]

So I actually opened a piece of spam by mistake today, for the first time in a long time - typically they have easy-to-spot subject lines, containing things like "Jimmie 20fltlskci dvc n," so I just bounce them before even downloading them to my PC. Today's was one with no subject line, but the body of the message contained the kind of mishmash I'm used to seeing in titles. The only English was something like, "Lowest mortgage ever," and I didn't see any kind of identifier that might have enabled an actual company to make an actual sale. Does anyone in LJ-land know what's up with this?

Comments

[tla]

Possibly just a test message to make sure the address is good.

Or maybe the spammers just enjoy being inscrutable.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

That's.... kind of heartening, actually. It gives me the impression that bouncing email might actually be good for something.

[cos]

It might have been a format not compatible with your mailer. Spammers don't really care whether everyone can read the message, if they send to millions of people and a few hundred thousand can't read it, no big deal. They'll happily send out something that, say, only MS Outlook can read.

It might have been a botched spam.
It might have been in a foreign language.
Maybe it had some worm or virus attachment and the only point was to get you to download it.