Thursday, June 25, 2009

Ivan's Scammer Syntax Software (version 3.2.1)

I recently decided to play along for a while (via email) with "Marina," a "Russian" scammer.

She had chosen me from the Internets, would soon leave her little village, travel to St. Petersburg, and finally join me here in the States.

One of her many increasingly intimate, revealing, and romantic emails included the following poem:

My voice for you both tender and languid
Disturbs later silence of night dark.
Near bed sad the candle burns mine;
My verses merge murmuring, flow, rivers love,
Flow are full you.
In darkness your eyes shine before with me,
To me smile, and sounds are heard by me:
My friend, my gentle friend. I Like .. Yours Yours!

In pinetions long hopeless,
In alarms of noisy vanity,
The voice gentle sounded to me long
Also lovely fig dreamed.
And heart beat in ecstasy,
And for it have revived again
And a deity, and inspiration,
Both life, and happiness, and love


The more I read this poem, the more I am convinced these scammers use a software program that is designed to convert good English writing into what you see above—a hodgepodge of grammar and syntax errors from the perspective of a variety of other languages. It's Word's grammar and spell check turned inside out. Brilliant.

Back to Marina. As the English poet Philip James Bailey (1816–1905) wrote, "Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love."

You gotta love a scammer who's a romantic. In my case, it was up to the point when Marina asked for my full name and phone number. No doubt an airfare request was forthcoming.

Here's Marina's between two of her friends; and don't they look Russian!


Final note: I did some research on the Russian-wife scam game and quickly discovered "Marina" identified on two alert sites under two different names and hometowns.