We had a little trouble with our DSL after a neighborhood-wide power outage last night, so when I got it back I had better than a score of spam emails to go through. I know, this is nothing new, but it’s annoying nevertheless. But these aren’t the spam I wanted to talk about…

In something that is not terribly unusual for the Internet OTR Digest lately, a “drive-by” spammer tried to subscribe and immediately post looking for information…no, really an appraisal and hopefully a sale…for an insignificant 80’s era Mutual record set. He didn’t give a rat’s tail about OTR, he just wanted to use the mailing list to sell something he found in someone’s attic (or, considering his lack of morality, maybe swiped from an elderly woman he knocked down). I did what I usually do in such situations; I suggest to the poster they read the Digest for a few weeks before posting, so they can get a feel for what is and is not normal for the mailing list. And he did what most of ‘em do in such situations; immediately unsubscribed annoyed that someone was paying enough attention that he couldn’t use the list as a sales tool for worthless “historical recordings.” He didn’t care a whit about OTR, he only wanted to trick some newbie to the hobby into buying his records for as inflated a price as he could muster.

I usually don’t gripe about such things, but for some reason this slimeball annoyed me enough to post about it, to not only get it off my chest but also remind you that spammers and scammers are everywhere - even when they sound like human beings.