I get a lot of spam mail from India outsourcing companies trying to pitch their services to me every once in awhile. Just today, this one had me scratching my head though:

From - Thu Apr 10 15:49:19 2008
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Subject: Web Design & Web Development with -snip-
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:31:35 +0530
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;

Hi Alan Yu,

Hope this mail will find you in pink of your health.

I am -snip-. We are an IT company having more then 7 years of experience and development center in India. We have a team of 100 (Website Designers and Software Engineers) who are hand picked from the country’s finest technology institutes and we are Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. We have successfully completed more than 75+ projects which included solutions to top rated companies and many more.

We are a Global IT Services company with core expertise in Web-based applications, ERP applications, Mobile and Wireless applications, Rich Media applications, Knowledge Management, CRM applications.

Please Instant Messenger IM’s or provides us with your contact details and convenient time to discuss about the project in detail so that we can provide you with a detailed and immaculate Task Timeline and Cost Estimate from our end.

What in the world does “Hope this mail will find you in pink of your health” mean? Is this some kind of cultural greeting that I am unaware of such as the color pink is suppose to symbolically represent something “good” so to speak? Confusing………..

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Is this like some kind of new trend where there is a big market for networking/recognition type of events that people are actively trying to capitalize on? This e-mail was especially confusing as the wording sounded as if I somehow joined this.

From - Mon Mar 31 13:43:37 2008
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Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:18:59 -0400
From: Continental Who’s Who
Subject: alan your who’s who submission
Reply-to: admin@cwwinnercirclenews.com
Message-id: <20080331161859.1688407937@cwwinnercirclenews.com>

March 31st, 2008

alan yu, Welcome to our Canadian Inner Circle.

We are equipped and eager to direct clientele to you in vancouver. Our referral based program enables you to be reached by hundreds and thousands of Professionals along with your Peers with the purpose of doing business with you. We look forward to your imminent inclusion.

Our organization recognizes men and women who have achieved success in their respective fields. Continental Who’s Who is used as an outstanding professional resource throughout the World, providing a forum for Consulting, exposure and credibility.

Visit us at the address below and aquaint us with your History.

http://www.cwwinnercirclenews.com

We look forward to your reply.

Very truly yours,

Brian Kelley

p.s. We are proud to invite you to our consortium.

33 West Hawthorne Avenue Valley Stream, NY 11580. Continental Who’s Who is not affiliated with Marquis Who’s Who or any publisher that uses the words who’s who in their titiles. Please withdraw my E-mail

Just like with that other offer I’m guessing there is some kind of sales pitch in all of this. Another thing that caught my attention is how all of these companies or organizations that are sending these unsolicited e-mails appear to be residing from New York. Is there like some kind of current government grant or incentive to encourage these types of start ups down there?

Similarly, they initially want you to fill out a form it seems with a bunch of personal information and the website itself seems to be pretty new considering the literature implies that the organization has been operating for awhile.

It’s kind of humorous how they mentioned that as a benefit of joining you can use them as a 3rd party endorsement for things like your resume or that you can announce your acceptance on press releases. Guess I won’t be receiving that prestigious plaque that they mentioned about as I’ll pass.

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With so many people constantly looking for quick ways to make money, it’s no wonder that so many people get suckered into releasing details such as their bank account information as a result of promises that easy money will be coming their way once they do so. Just recently, I got this e-mail that tried to label itself as some kind of high paying job offer at first which stated the following:

Subject: JOB $2100/WEEK - CANADIANS NEEDED!
Message-id: <000501c8698e$cdfa61f0$e5ec59e4@gvyr.ohq>
MIME-version: 1.0
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reply-type=original
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We are currently recruiting a CASH REPRESENTATIVE to work for the company as our agent/book keeper who will be handling our logistics in Canada.

This is in view of our not having a branch office presently in Canada. You do not need to have an office and you will have a free time doing your permanent job, you will also secure a good income during the process. You will be entitled to 10% of whatever amount you received from customers on behalf of the company.

*The average MONTHLY INCOME is about $6000!
*There will be no financial obligation from you.
*This job takes only 1-3 hours per day.

If you are interested on a possible collaboration get back to me at

Thank you.

Of course I knew it had to be shady in some way. Now the thing with this one was that it linked to a forum where the person was pretty blunt about what you needed to do and stated the following:

OK! I’ll get right to the point. I have large amount of funds on numerous bank accounts which needs to be laundered. I need your help to do that. You’ll get 10% of each transaction coming into your bank account.

I can provide transaction of up to $5000.

You receive transfer into your bank account -> withdraw cash ->
take your 10% -> send the rest to me (by western union)

It’s a good and legal way of making money.

Earning:
It’s recommended not to transfer more than $5,000 to each account.
Let’s say You have received $5000, to your account.
10% of $5,000 = $500 goes to your pocket.

Beginners for their first transfer will not receive more than $1000. After they’ve received $1000 and send 90% of that money to reviewed supplier, they’ll be granted a status of reviewed receiver and will be trusted with transfers of $5000 at once.

Requirements: You need to have at least one account in one of the banks in Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the United States.

To start, register and send me an email

You can also view our forum for more information.

You’d think all warning bells would go off as basic common sense, but shockingly people were actually asking for more information and instructions as seen in this screenshot:

In general, a person that wants to launder money wants to hide something, so why would you want to get yourself involved in it? Don’t get lured into these predicaments and at the same time it shows that although it might be obvious for a lot of us, awareness is still needed from time to time to help others from making impulsive decisions.

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