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SCAMALICIOUS SPECIMENS We don't post individual scam-o-grams unless they're unusually funny or interesting, but we are interested to see them and do add them to the ScamBase. Please include headers if it's not too laborious. Headers are good to know about anyway - any ISP to whom you complain will want a header. Send to postmaster @ scamorama.com. Your name will not be posted on the web site. See the privacy policy for more details. GUIDELINES FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE If you want to submit an actual back-and-forth correspondence for possible posting, note: First, we don't open unexpected attachments (Word, pics, etc). [You shouldn't either!] We prefer plain text in the BODY of the e-mail. If your graphic is important, ask first so we can discuss format, resolution, etc. Say where the graphic came from. Scamorama will not knowingly use pics from another web site without permission and acknowledgment. Exceptions: the fake IDs and pics of 'money' that scammers use are fair game; Scamorama tries to alter IDs to hide the faces, if it seems the scammers stole somebody's photo. [Sometimes, however, they use pics of famous Nigerian bureaucrats, or famous models. This seems to be their notion of satire.] The correspondence need not be finished. One whole correspondence or a few long e-mails, in chronological order, are easier to webbify than many short ones. But of course things may take time to play out. If your correspondence will take a while to develop, or you are dealing with more than one scammer (how productive of you!), use descriptive subject lines: (Me-MyScammer) la la la March 10 That is important. We get a LOT of stories. Some correspondents run multiple anti-scams. YOU must make it clear to which which anti-scam your e-mail of the day belongs. If you work with others, everyone needs to be on the same page, so to speak. We'll only put so much time into figuring out where the e-mail fits. If we can't tell, or if a name suddenly appears and it's not clear where that character first appeared, don't count on the story appearing. This has nothing to do with literary quality. Would you send a novel to a publisher one paragraph at a time, with some missing, and some from another novel? Completed, or at least well-developed adventures, get attention first. Racism and extreme crudeness are not welcome. This doesn't mean pretending cultural differences don't exist. Just don't assume reviewers are of your culture, religion or gender. Let good taste be your guide. You can do this and still be funny. Yes, the Lads are sometimes nasty. That is their problem. If your stuff is on the edge (one person's crude is another's naughty), we might use it anyway. We might edit it slightly. Please say if your nom de scam is your real name, so we can change it and your e-mail address. We are interested in other languages besides English, but can only intelligently edit French and (not as well) Spanish. We will happily read anything - English sprinkled with other languages is fine too. Maybe we will learn something. If you've submitted & not heard back, don't take offense, just jog us. WHY DIDN'T YOU POST MY STORY? ... it was complete, it was coherent, I did everything you said! Maybe it wasn't funny or interesting a la Scamorama. You can't win 'em all. Different publishers have different tastes. Don't be upset. You wasted a scammer's time! A fine achievement. We start yawning when: - when something's been done before exactly the same way and the humor is wearing thin (this is subjective of course) - the language is really crude for no good reason (see above) - the story is mostly your mails rather than a real correspondence with your scammer - it ends with a schoolyard-level "ha ha" -- if you're going to clue the scammer in, thus spoiling him for other anti-scammers, at least be witty. Another one of those subjective things. So it's, like, all subjective. SUBMITTING LINKS News items in any language are interesting to hear about. We link to other web sites which are mostly about "419" advance fee fraud AND (funny OR informative in a social or law enforcement way) AND likely to be around for a while AND not racist or extremely crude. We don't expect a link back in return. We won't link to a site just because it links to us. This is to preserve the character of the site and provide a focused, interesting experience for the reader. |