Last week, Phyllis offered me cheap Viagra. Bernard suggested that I sign up for an organ enhancement programme (he caters to the dimensionally-challenged without gender discrimination).
Martin told me I'd won the Euro Lottery and he was prepared to transfer the cash directly to my bank account. Olga offered software at incredibly low prices.
David told a complicated sob story about starving on the streets while $30 million of his late father's money was locked up in a Nigerian bank account. And, the "e-security division" of a well-known bank wrote in with a request that I update my Netbanking details.
Normally I just delete the contents of my bulk e-mail folder. That day, I was extremely bored, there was plenty of time on my hands and I was curious about the follow-through processes in e-scams.
So, I answered these. I bought enough Viagra to service a herd of elephants. I signed up for organ enhancements with a lack of gender discrimination that matched the offer.
I ordered enough software to open a digital ant-farm. I gave my bank account details to the Nigerian scammer and the Euro Lottery bloke. And I updated my Netbanking account.
I must confess that I concocted false names by randomly combining the names of various politicians -- Mani Shankar Jaitley and Renuka Advani are some examples. You could call this a non-partisan, all-party initiative. The credit card and bank account numbers were randomly generated.
Sure enough, various puzzled scammers reverted. The "e-security division" said there was some error in matching the name to the Netbanking password. The Nigerian admitted that he had failed to transfer the funds to facilitate the release of his locked account.
The Euro Lottery chappie was frantic -- he had to have my account details in order to make a SWIFT electronic transfer of my winnings. The Viagra lady, the software girl and the organ enhancement bloke all sent letters saying there was a problem and asking for alternative credit cards.
I swapped a couple of digits around and reverted with new numbers. The spammers then reverted with another mail stating that there still seemed to be some problem with the new sets of credit card and bank account details.
This time, the letters were more personal -- they had obviously been composed by human beings. A degree of frustration was evident in the tone. A couple of them even sent in phone numbers that I could call if I needed to verbally confirm details.
To most of the mails, I just responded with another set of random numbers. I made a counter-suggestion to the Euro Lottery guy requesting him to send me a paper bank draft. If he does, I can frame it and put it up on the wall.
The Nigerian appears the smartest of the lot. His fourth mail combined reproach and sorrow in nice proportions. He had, he said, come to the conclusion that I was "befooling" him and it was not proper of me.
Here he was, a political refugee, making me a generous offer of some $ 25 million for a small payment of $ 1,000 upfront and there I was, "befooling him". Tut, Tut.
Maybe out of sheer boredom, I've stumbled upon the one thing that could be a formidable anti-spam weapon. Spam back! It costs very little time to compose a one-size-fits-all response to spam that incorporates false name, credit card number and bank details. After that, just cut and paste and hit reply.
A spammer expects a one in 20,000 response-rate. It's worth taking time and trouble following up that one response if it's honest. If instead, he got, say, 1,000 false responses, he'd go crazy sifting red herrings.
At some stage, he may even be dumb enough to reveal personal details about himself. At the least, he'd waste more time than his victims.Powered by 
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