The Spam Letters - The Book
NOW AVAILABLE DIGITALLY

Featuring 100+ Spam Letters in an easy-to-read, well-organized, travel/bathroom-friendly format featuring loads of letters not on this site! Help a brother out.

Read some reviews here
Download Chapter 5: A Quick Buck here.


Buy now from:
Amazon (Kindle)
Smashwords (iPhone, iPad, nook, PC, Mac)

If you like the site, please consider picking up the book!

About The Letters

Novelty Shop
Donation Center

Updates, Events, and Book Info:
Back to
The Spam Letters

The spam is
by spammers

The replies are
by Jonathan Land,
except where noted


My other sites:
The Spam Letters
incomplete.net
My Consumer Reports
Novelty Shop
Click here for link buttons for The Spam Letters, or grab the one below.





Ranking: 4.0558
Rate the reply:
1 = it sucks
5 = it doesn't

1 2 3
4 5

Related Letters (You might want to start with the first one): 1 2 3 4

Author's Note: No humor here. This one's a serious correspondence with a young Nigerian woman who was offended by the content of this site.

Subject: Re: Nigerian Scam
To: Name Withheld... not a spammer
From: Jonathan Land <jland@incomplete.net>
Date: 11/20/2002

Hello Mr. Land,

Pray all is well. I am a 25yrs old Nigerian female, I am a christian and I believe in working very hard for what I earn. I would like to comment on your articles to the Nigerian con men.

First of all, I understand the frustrations American people go through because of these scams. We get to experience them first-hand over here.İI am deeply saddened by these occurences and pray God gives us all wisdom profitable to direct us towards moreİpositive grounds.

However, I do not appreciate the rude, offensive mannerİin which you have constructed your letters. Please bear in mind that you are dealing with specific criminal individuals and notİan entire nation. It is wrong for you to make critical judgements about our culture, heritage, tradition etc inİthe process of corresponding with them. It is also wrong for you to tarnish the image of an entire nation because ofİanİencounter with its fraudsters. Don't you have worseİcases of fraud in America? I am not making an excuse for these people, I just need to emphasise that there are criminals in every nation worldwide,İespecially in yours... so what gives you theİright to play judge, jury and executioner?İ

I find your comments sexist, racist and narcist to say the least. You forget too quickly that the ONLY reason America is 50yrs (if you insist) ahead of us is because it was built by us Africans (and statistics show that 30% of the slave population were Nigerians!).

Nigeria's biggest problem is the fact that it's been birthed out of a corrupt system and things are definitely getting better, Thank God!İHave you seen Nigerians outside this country? They are an epitome of excellence; they're the best in the arts/science fields, they're intelligent and business oriented, even in the schools: Nigeriansİearn some of the highest grades (do your homework Mr. Land- and his time, please do it right?).

On this note, I bid to stop here before I resort to name calling, (a feat in which you have great expertise no doubt). Have a good day Mr. Land and please elevate your mind (and mouth).

Sincerely,

[Name Withheld].

Dear [Name Withheld],

As you've noticed, I run a site titled "The Spam Letters". In it I reply to many different types of spam. There are over 180 letters written over the past 2 years thus far. I try to reply to each as appropriate with varying degrees and types of humor (sophomoric, dark, parody, etc.). Granted some are more well accepted than others, and that's up to the reader. Some people find The Spam Letters cathartic and funny. Others see it and idiotic, dull, and pointless. Especially the ones where I do a phonetically-written impression of Count Dracula. It's entertainment for anyone to be amused by or not. Occasionally someone takes it seriously.

As I mentioned earlier, I try to deal with a large variety of spam, and as you probably know by having an e-mail account, there's lots of it out there. That being said, the Nigerian confidence scam has been inundating a lot of mailboxes around the world for a while now. I receive several a week myself, and I also get many, every week, from other people in various countries who have seen the site and thought I could use the spam for entertainment purposes.

I have absolutely no problem toying with people who are attempting to bilk myself and others out of our hard-earned money as a means to their own selfish end. A lot of other people don't have this problem either. I know of many others out there who have taken to jerking around these con men for fun. Hopefully the con men will someday get more replies from goofballs such as myself instead of people who are stupidly willing to cooperate, get their bank accounts plundered, and in some cases even lured to Nigeria and killed. Then maybe the scam which has been the 3rd to 5th largest source of income for the country over the past several years (I've done my homework, thank you) will no longer be effective.

Nowhere in my letters do I state or imply that because I get e-mail from Nigerian con artists that I assume that the entirety of Nigeria is a land of criminals and ill-willed villains. I know I'm dealing with specific individuals, and whatever I say to them is merely to bait and taunt them, including some put-downs of their homeland itself. I see no reason to treat them with decorum, and the language I use, the stories I concoct, and the manner in which I present them are entirely appropriate given the situation and the intent of the people I'm dealing with. That's why I'm taking this letter from Nigeria seriously and responding to it in kind. I have no intent on ridiculing you, or making you jump through hoops for me because it serves no purpose. You're writing me with a concern and I'm addressing it.

Every nation has its problems. Nigeria's scam artists have been working overtime on this particular project due to the ease and cost-efficiency of which they can pull the letters off via email, and they're getting very carried away. However, this con has been receiving a lot of attention in the media (worldwide), and if people decide to investigate these letters on the web and happen upon my site, they will certainly learn it's a fraud, and I see no harm in that. As someone who's acknowledged that these people give Nigeria a bad name, you should see no harm in it either.

I appreciate your letter and I hope this helps bring some clarity to what you've read on my site.

Jon

Related Letters: 1 2 3 4

Rate the reply:
1 = it sucks, 5 = it doesn't
1 2 3 4 5
Back to The Spam Letters