How to Write Spam Email Subjects

With this handy-dandy guide you will be well on your way to being able to write spam email that will allow you to scam people out of the hard earned money and the things they’ve worked all their lives for.

With that in mind I’m going to approach this guide to being a complete @sshole-douchebag by critiquing the subject lines of spam emails I’ve come across and thought: “I can write better.”

First up:

YOUR EMAIL HAVE WON THE MICROSOFT MERIT AWARD 2010

First off, find someone who speaks your target audience’s language fluently and is familiar with how the language’s grammar is handled. In the case of the above title, you should understand the difference between singular versus plural subjects.

In this case HAVE should be HAS because EMAIL refers to one account.

I might also point out that this makes it sound like my email, an inanimate, even almost conceptual piece of technology won the award, not me.

Those CAPS have got to go as well, internet etiquette defines the use of ALL CAPS as YELLING! I suppose you could go for the over-the-top approach! But then it would make more sense to write something like: HOLY SHIT BATMAN! YOU’VE WON THE MICROSOFT MERIT AWARD FOR 2010!

Why not address the “winner” by name as well, even by email account.

Using the name MICROSOFT makes it too notable, it’s way too easy to run a search for the Microsoft Merit Award and see that it’s a honorable mention position in contests. What you need to do is come up with a company name that doesn’t exist or doesn’t have much on the internet about it.

If I were writing this I would have the subject line saying something like: Congratulations! greedy_dumbass@iwasbornyesterday.com, you’ve won the ConInc’s random, lots of money giveaway that you didn’t ever sign up for!

HELLO MY GOOD FRIEND
Dear Friend,

Yet again, those CAPS need to go.

Then we run into how generic these lines are. They call people friend. When I write my friends emails, if I address them in the title it’s generally something like: “HEY NUMBNUTS!”

In this case it would be far better to do something like: “I’m trapped in Iceland!” Of course that’s assuming that you’re savvy enough to crack one of their friends email accounts. If you’re smart enough to do that then you should also be smart enough to realize that they probably have their first name which may or may not be a good way to address them inside the email. (The body of spam emails will be coming in a future installment, if I feel like it)

INTERPOL SPECIAL INVESTIGATION AGENT!!!

How many times am I going to have to harp on the CAPS?

Yet again, Interpol is too well known. If you’re going to impersonate a government agency then why not pick the local parking authority or something like that.

Yeah you might only be able to feasibly get $20 out of the idiot on the other end, but hey that’s why you’re sending out a ton of these things right?

A subject following this advice might look like this:

RE: Your unpaid parking ticket

What Comes Next?

Armed with this knowledge you should be able to get many more people to at least read the spam you work so hard to send.

Now you just need to come up with original and believable content for the body of the emails.

That you’ll have to figure out on your own, until I decide to give away my secrets to writing messages.

Related posts:

1. A Note To Developers: Email Clients
2. Being an Obstinate Prick
3. Captain SSL Strikes Again!
4. Another one from the Baffled Tech
5. How to Setup Email on a “Smart” Phone