This article is part of the Spamtastic Adventures series of updates.

It's been almost a year and a half since I last logged in to the handful of email accounts that I keep around solely to collect spam and I was quite remiss at some of the opportunities that passed me by. So much cash, money and dick drugs to be had at vast discounts. It truly boggles the mind. But since I'm back on the "writing words on the internet" bandwagon, there is no better time than now jump in feet first.

For those of you not in the know, this update series revolves around the idea of me replying to actual spam emails as my made-up alter ego Roger Garrison. This is not a 419-type of affair, as I am not trying to reverse scam the scammers but rather I'm trying to see how ridiculous and over-the-top I can make my replies while keeping the conversation going. As past adventures have proven, I can get the crazy levels up pretty high.

Again, because a lot of people are really dumb, these are actual emails to and from spammers on the internet. I'm not pretending to be a spammer and sending them to myself. (Even if I wanted to, I couldn't write emails at the level they do.) Everything you see below happened. That goes for all past and future Spamtastic Adventure updates. This bears repeating because, again, people are dumb. (Full disclosure: I do clean up the emails with regards to formatting and whatnot when appropriate. If you think they're a mess to read on here, you should see some of them in raw form.)

That said, let's get things started.

From: "Ms. Ethan Michelle" [budrys.dr@neostrada.pl]
Subject: Project Funding.

Greetings

I request cooperation with you in the sphere of financing viable projects with prospective returns on investment (R.O.I) in your region. Your Projects can be funded from 0% to 100% because I represent Ultra-High Net-worth investor Group who are finding viable projects to fund under the supervision of their consultancy mediator firm with a 5% interest rate and a total period of 10years. If you don’t have any viable project, then i implore you to source from your colleagues or friends that have genuine project yet to be financed due to inadequate funding, my commission is 1% after you collect your loan funds. For more information do get back to me at your earliest convenience, or kindly get my CEO. added on Skype ID. (eco-resource) for a faster communication and always get back to me.

Regards,
Ms. Ethan Michelle

For those not in the know, so much spam revolves around the old Nigerian bank scam or the Western Union money order scam, so it's always a breath of fresh air when you get a different approach to people trying to scam you, even if deep down you know it's the same old routine.

But I wasn't about to pass up a chance to have my project funded, so I let Roger fire off a reply and get the ball rolling.

From: "Roger Garrison" [roger@4kb.com]
To: michelle_ethan@aol.com
Subject: Re: Project Funding.

Hello Ms. Ethan Michelle,

Greetings right back to you! (high-five!)

My name is Roger Garrison and I'm so thrilled that you contacted me in this completely unsolicited manner to talk about whatever the fuck you're babbling on about, a.k.a investments in my region. I have so many regions that need investment -- particularly my nether region -- so it sounds like this cooperation request for financing could be a jackpot for both of us. I'll admit to not knowing what most of your email said, either due to bad English or the complete misuse of corporate buzzwords but like blind people are fond of saying, let's look past that.

As an inventor and viable projects creator, I think you'll find that you made a wise choice in contacting me. While I am a man of many ideas, I'm not a person with unlimited funds, so getting in with your "Ultra-High Net-worth investor Group" -- which sounds totally legit/awesome by the way -- could really help RG Industries get off the ground. Common misconception by many that "RG Industries" stands for Roger Garrison Industries. It does not. It actually stands for Ruptured Gonad Industries, which was my father's name. Anyway, just a little tidbit of knowledge that you can drop at social networking events once we're both super rich. Well, I guess you might already be rich but I'm not, so let's level the playing field a little bit. (Or a whole lot.)

Your investor group sounds like a really savvy and smart bunch of people, based on the absolute nothing that you told me about them. I mean, the idea that "Projects can be funded from 0% to 100%" is fucking genius. I've talked to a lot of financiers and none have ever offered to fund 0% of my project. It's like you're coming in with this whole new line of thinking and approach to finding shit to (not) waste your money on. Brilliant. It's no small wonder that you guys are considered the best of the best in your field, a field which I assume mostly consists of sending junk email to complete strangers in the small hope that they are dumb enough to respond and have some grand, unpublished idea for a project. Seems niche but hey, haters gonna hate.

So, I'm most definitely on board with whatever you're proposing here, for sure. But while many of my ideas are highly valuable, how do I know that you're on the up-and-up? Like, what's the process that we use here? I'm obviously not going to just tell you all my great ideas and share the cocktail napkins that all of my plans are written down on, so how do we move on from here? I'd like nothing more to work with you and your group on getting some serious R.O.I in my region.

I will wait to hear back from you on how we can proceed further.

With Invented Love,
Roger Garrison
roger@4kb.com

The hardest part of any spam adventure is getting them to respond back the first time. Even though they are trying their hardest to scam money from you, you'd be surprised how many of them don't appreciate the not-so-subtle sarcastic approach I use in my emails.

But it looks like Ethan Michelle isn't playing around. She's all business and she changed the email subject to prove it. She must have a very serious need to fund some projects. I wonder what she'll want me to do and then I wonder how I'm going to get around doing it, all the while mocking her existence. Let's see:

From: michelle_ethan [michelle_ethan@aol.com]
To: "Roger Garrison" [roger@4kb.com]
Subject: Re: Fill DD Document To Proceed Forward.

Greetings

Thank for responding to my email, first i must let you know our funding program is not internet based, every project owners should be ready to meet with the investors mediator group for a round table meeting to sign the loan MoU and every other documents, with loan prove of funds, after which delegated would be sent to inspect the project site before funding would be made, this is our investor funding processing, if you are in agreement with this process.

1. kindly fills the financial questionnaire attached to this email with no question left un-answered

2. Provide me with your project scope and executive summary, so I can familiarize with the project financial investor’s mediating consultancy firm.

3. kindly get Mr. Massong Manfred the investors mediator of Magnum Global Investments. Added on Skype ID. (eco-resource) and email: ecoresource@hotmail.co.uk for detailed information, and signing of our NDCA agreements to move forward with this funding processing.

Get back to me soon with your filled DD document, and be rest assure your project will be finance 100% without delay.

Note: We give out loan ranging from $ 1million to $2billion.

Regards,
Name: Ethan Michelle

I wish I could have shown you the form "she" sent me to fill out. It was like 8 or 9 .jpg files that seemed to be bits of pieces of an actual questionnaire but with all kinds of typos and crazy formatting. Each page had "QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FINANCE PURPOSE" in bold along the bottom, so you know it was legit.

I'm honestly not 100% sure how I was supposed to fill that out and get it back to her, even if I wanted to, but I certainly wasn't going to waste any more of my time trying to decipher the crazy, let alone manually type up the questions so that I could answer them. It's best to keep stringing her along anyway.

From: Roger Garrison [roger@4kb.com]
To: michelle_ethan [michelle_ethan@aol.com]
Subject: Re: Fill DD Document To Proceed Forward.

What's up, future business partner Name: Ethan Michelle!

Greetings again! (double high-five!) (If we keep this up, we're going to need to come up with one of those complex handshake things that only we know about. You know, the ones that make everyone else in the room totally uncomfortable while we slap hands and yell at each other because our relationship is tight like that and I assume they are just jealous.)

Thank you for responding to my email that was in response to your email about all kinds of serious business matters. I'm extremely relieved to hear that your funding program is not internet-based. To be honest, I don't even know what the internet is, so I'm glad to know that you're not going to bombard me with all kinds of tech jargon. Let's keep it old school, you know? Tandy calculators and wool suits. That's how real business is accomplished. Maybe some whiskey and hookers. Whatever you're up for. (Let me know, though, if we can just skip the wool suits thing because in case you forgot, I'm broke as fuck and I can't afford to go out and get a new wardrobe just because you decide we can't play on the internet together.)

I'm so fucking pumped to meet up with your team of investors. Like, steroid rage pumped. I'm so amp'd up that I've been breaking random pieces of furniture around my house while yelling financial buzzwords at the top of my lungs. YOU WANT TO INVEST IN ROGER, BABY? YOU GOT THE WHOLE FUCKIN' PACKAGE. You know, those kinds of things. Granted, that is not really the kind of behavior you'd expect from a business person but I'm a stay at home inventor with a drug problem, so what do you want from me? Anyway, I'm totally down to meet at your round table, square table or whatever-shape table to wrap this business deal up. You guys can come inspect my site all you want. (And Ms. Ethan, if you're as fine as I think you are, you can take a special tour of my bedroom if you know what I mean. And if you don't know I mean, I mean sex.)

As far as your numbered list goes, let's burn through them real quick:

1. I have some kind of bad news about this item, which I guess revolves around a financial questionnaire. Firstly, I don't own a computer and the computer I'm currently using is from like, 1986 or some shit. (It can play Zork.) Whatever attachments you sent me to fill out didn't make it, or at least I can't open them. So as much as I'm a "leave no questions behind" kind of guy, I have no idea what questions were that you asked me in your questionnaire. Unless the phrase "I shit buckets of blood" is sufficient to complete the survey, we're going to have to figure out some other method of getting me the questions you want me to answer.

2. Project scope. Got it. Admittedly, I've got a ton, so let me comb through my list and see what jumps out at me to woo you with. Let's see, there's the jump rope with spikes idea. Great for kids or wasteland civilizations. Not sure how well that'll fly unless we have another atomic mishap. (If we do, I have a project idea that revolves around radiation containment and clean-up, so win-win.) I had a super great idea that involved mailing strangers on the internet and asking them for project ideas, but it looks like you might have beat me to that one. The other one that I can throw out there right now is, and brace yourself for this, edible cheesecake. This will have huge appeal to people in the Midwest. You might be asking, isn't cheesecake already edible? I don't fucking know! That's the beauty of the whole concept. I've got like 18 others but we will have solidify our agreement first before I give up more of the goods. You've already gotten some crown jewels above for free, so I don't want to suddenly see a bunch of bootleg products I invented hitting the market.

3. What is Skype and why are you trying to get me talk to random dudes? Many a gay porno started out as innocent as "hey, you should skype this dude" and next thing you know, the entire football team is running a train on him. I'm not into that kind of thing.

So, I got back to you as soon as I could but as mentioned above, I cannot supply you with a DD document at this time. I can, however, supply you with some pictures of women who have a DD cup size? Not sure if that matters to you, unless you swing that way. (Do you?) I'd like to be rest assured that we can work together to finance (100%!) all of my great ideas without delay, so I hope that you can work with me to help me work back with you to provide stuff that will allow you to work with me again, I think.

Please let me know if you can provide your DD form/questionnaire in another format or perhaps just put the questions inside an email so that I can answer them. Like I know what the fuck a .jpg file is.

Note: I am willing to accept your loan ranging from $1 million to $2 billion.

With Pre-Approved Hope,
Roger Garrison
roger@4kb.com

Sometimes, when you're done with the initial volley of emails, you have a good idea where the adventure is going to go; whether it'll result in a few more email exchanges of batshit crazy or if it's likely to drop-off rapidly. But with this one, I'm not so sure. Obviously, I didn't fill out her form. I gave her a bunch of stupid (read: awesome) ideas to fund but I don't know how serious she takes her questionnaire form, so that might be a grave mistake on my part.

Maybe she'll respond back, like some, and the adventure will continue with a #10.5 update. Maybe it'll die here. But what's not in doubt is that Roger Garrison has some serious ideas and if you have the serious cash, we could get together and fund some projects, old-school style. No internets.