Weird question-asking spam - what's the point?

[Atomic Shrimp]

Usually, it's possible to work out the purpose of email spam - it'll be trying to get you to visit a link, trying to install malware on your computer or inviting you into a business relationship with the widow of a Nigerian banker...

But I got one today that just baffles me:

Hi,
What diiference between blavkberry and apple? I was thinking that your
advice would be very helpful. I know you must be very busy so any
pointers would be very much appreciated.
Please help me.
Thank you for your help.
Thank you, Tony

At first, I thought it might even be a genuine question - my website has pages about both apples and blackberries (fruit, not electronics), but it's difficult to imagine anyone not already understanding the difference...

I googled the phrase "I was thinking that your advice would be very helpful." and found loads of results for questions structured in the same way (different subjects).

The misspelling 'blavkberry' was in both title and body - implying that the message was generated automatically, but for what purpose? - There's no link in this spam, no payload - I suppose it could just be trying to ping me to see if I'm a real person and worth adding to a mailing list, but it seems a bit elaborate for that.

 

[Access Hero]

I've seen this theme several times.

There are some e-mail filters which filter out "obvious" spam. In order to overcome these filters, many spammers began putting nonsense text in the body of their e-mail (making them seem more relevant) to confuse the filters.

On rare occasion, I have received one of these e-mails that didn't seem to have any significant spam attachment. My guess was that the spammers were doing a test of their spam techniques and that there may have been a tracking graphic attached to some of them.

Also, remember that spammers are far from perfect. They screw up a lot, including sending stuff they didn't intend to. No big deal for them, it's free, right?

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Yeah, you're probably right - I guess I'm just a little disappointed it's not a sign of the apocalypse (it could have been the first indication of the internet becoming self-aware).

 

[Mike375]

Could it be just to confirm your email (if you reply) and if you do reply to start a conversation.

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Could be that. Usually the ones that want to draw you into a conversation open with some enticing promise, such as an unclaimed legacy for millions of dollars, or something like that - but this could be a new tactic, I guess.

What I might do is create a throwaway Yahoo account or something and respond as if I've received the message there - and see what happens (maybe obscuring the original email contents, in case there's any part of it that uniquely identifies me as the target recipient).

 

[Fifty2One]

A very useful purpose of this type of spam is to build a very valuable contact database of people who will respond to spam. An address which is validated by a human generated return message is worth a lot to emarketers.

 

[Rabbie]

My policy on Spam is to just ignore it. Does anyone actually still think they have won millions on a lottery they didn't buy tickets for? Or that they have been specially selected to help launder money when the email is addressed to ???. How gullible are some people?

 

[Vassago]

I've seen these emails before. Pay attention to your inbox in the next few days as you'll likely see an email from another anonymous person seemingly in "RE:" to this first email responding to the question this email imposes and providing spam links. They try to make them look like they are part of a google or yahoo group discussion nowadays.