Thank you, Mr. Spammer.

Dear Mr. Spammer:

I am writing to you today to express my thanks.

Thank you for a lifetime supply of Viagra. Thank you for my pre-approved credit cards. Thank you for finding me lower mortgage rates. Thank you for cheaper prescription drugs. Thank you for finding me a date. Thank you for my never ending supply of ink and toner cartridges. Thank you for all the ****.

And most of all... thank you for continually changing the way you present your words to try to get past my filters. Every time you do that I get another word (or version of it) to add to my filters.

I would like to know one thing though because I am slightly puzzled... if you need to disguise your spam words so much to try to get past my filters, what makes you think I want to get your message? If I wanted to know about your drugs, ****, toner, viagra, etc., I would not have those words in my filter - which must be well over 100 words by now with all the variations I keep adding.

Of course, I could be showing my ignorance about marketing and all that. I mean, your misspelled words and word variations could be a NLP trick to break my bubble of pre-occupation. You are obviously more talented at marketing. And I am sure I could learn a few things from you such as...

Make sure to use email addresses which no real human being would use. Email addresses such as [email protected]. I shall be trying that in my next email campaign.

Always use throw away email addresses which are gotten for free - like hotmail. I always thought using such an address took away credibility. But your continual use of such addresses proves it must work.

Never be honest in email subject lines. Here was I always letting people know what the email contained. I see from your emails that that is the wrong thing to do. I should be misleading in the subject line to get people to open the email. I had always thought that tricking people would make them mad. Again, I must have been misled because you do it all the time.

Never spell words correctly. Words like viagra I now know are better spelt as v.i.a.g.r.a or v-i-a-g-r-a or v:i:a:g:r:a or v i a g r a or v_i a g r_a or any of the fifteen other variations I have. I now understand this is in case I have accidentally added the normal word viagra to my filter list.

Market to people who have shown absolutely zero interest in your product. The reason being, they don't know they are really interested and will only realise they are interested upon receiving your email.

Never use a real reply to address. Here was me thinking I was wise to allow people a way to contact you. You have shown me the errors of my ways. Never again will I provide a way for people who read my emails to get back in touch with me.

Oh, a final thank you for allowing me to waste time dealing with your messages. I am so glad for the distraction you provide and the time you take away from me. I just don't know what I would do if I had that time spare.

Again, thanks, Mr. Spammer. I appreciate it

NOT!

Michael Ross