Embarassingly Epic Email Fail

by Jay on November 10, 2009

You know how they say sometimes people leave obvious evidence of their misdeeds behind, because they subconsciously want to get caught?

That can be the only possible explanation for the titillating email fail that was recently the talk of the Cornell University campus.

A ‘tech consultant’ at Cornell Business School named John — a married tech consultant it should be pointed out — somehow managed to send an entire email thread to the entire school. Not just any email thread, though… not some boring thread with his boss or weekend plans with a friend.

emailfordummies

suggested reading for John

No, John was carrying on a steamy affair with Lisa, another [married] Cornell employee. And they clearly were very close. And not shy or prudish in discussing their… ehem… closeness. And how much they wanted to be close again.

And that is the thread John sent to the entire school. Click here to read the whole thing, if you’re that nosy and voyeuristic. Because I care about you, dear readers, I read it all. And I promise you, it’s about what you’d expect from a couple of high school juniors. If you gloss over the occasional mentions of children and spouses and mother-in-laws, that is.

It’s hard to imagine how ANYBODY anywhere could possibly manage to accidentally send an email to their entire mailing list. But such a personal exchange, to an entire university? From an IT guy?

He had to want to get caught. By the whole world.

I almost feel bad for the guy.

But not quite.

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Hey Spammers — Is This Really the Best You Can Do?

by Jay on November 5, 2009

Spam cracks me up. I sometimes think that spammers exist only to entertain me, because it’s hard to imagine how they can be making money from some of their crazy schemes.

We got an email recently that looked like it came from us — you know the ones — the From and To fields are the same. So first question — who falls for an email that looks like they themselves sent it? I mean, that’s your first clue right there that the email isn’t legit. Do you remember sending it to yourself? No? Then don’t respond to it!

That aside, the content of the email was just silly. Here it is:

Back in times when you were starting out a degree was not needed but now? is it a WANT

Get your self a BA, MA, MS+ PHD in about 3-6 weeks on the basis of your professional experience.

Phone us

1-215-602-2419

Drop a msg with your Fullname, contact number and the Degree you are intersted in.

So many questions…

  • A degree used to be “not needed” but now “is it a WANT’?!? I don’t know, is it a want? And how long ago is “Back in times” anyway?
  • What is the native language of the person who wrote this email? ‘Cause it clearly wasn’t English
  • Would you want a degree, even a bogus degree, from somebody who can’t spell interested?

There’s only one question that I think I can answer about this email — Who is their target? Who is actually getting this email and thinking YES, I’m calling them!

The answer can only be an unscrupulous complete idiot. Somebody who thinks they can pass themselves off as a PhD with 3-6 weeks training. Somebody  who isn’t clever enough to figure out that this is clearly a scam. Somebody who couldn’t figure out that even a “real” fake degree program would make their offer in better English than this.

Spammers. Gotta love ‘em.

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Obscene Email or Improbable Coincidence?

by Jay on November 4, 2009

Arnold Schwarzenegger is not known for always using high-falutin’ language. Calling political opponents “girlie men” for instance, was not a super classy comment. And I’ve never given much thought to how poetic or creative he might be.

But a recent email The Governator  sent is causing quite a stir and I have to say, I’m impressed with both his creativity and his subtlety.

Arnie sent the email to a San Francisco assemblyman, explaining why a bill had been vetoed. According to the Belfast Telegraph

… a vertical reading of the first left-hand letter in each of the seven lines of the main body of the email suggests that the former Kindergarten Cop actor, who is due to leave office next year, was passing on an altogether less statesmanlike message. It reads: “F-U-C-K-Y-O-U.”

Here’s the full email:

It would take a little skill (and some extra time that you wouldn’t think a busy politician would necessarily have) to craft this little piece of work. The Governor’s spokesperson is calling it “quite a coincidence.” He added

I suppose when you do so many vetoes, something like this is bound to happen

Which I think is kinda funny — you’re bound to say F#@k You to somebody when you veto enough bills?  According to the Indepenent.co.uk, the probability of those seven letters lining up in such a way is 26 to the power of seven – or about 8,031,810,176 – to one.

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Gmail Labs Save You From Yourself (and Other Gmail Labs)

by Jay on October 22, 2009

I’m starting to think Google is making up new features for Gmail just for kicks.

They have this nifty little Google Lab named “Don’t Forget Bob” which suggests recipients of your email based on other recipients. The idea is that your past behavior has shown that when Steve is a recipient of one of your emails, you usually are sending to Bob too. So Gmail autofills Bob for you, assuming you’ll want to send to him if you’re sending to Steve.

I haven’t given much thought to this feature, because I mostly use my Gmail for personal emailing and I don’t tend to send messages to groups of people. But I get it, it’s clever. Not for me, but clever.

But now they’ve  come out with “Got the Wrong Bob”, because sometimes they’re going to suggest Bob Smith, and you might be too busy to notice that you actually want to send to Bob Jones.

To break it down for you — Gmail is providing you with a way to screw up — by auto-filling your addresses — and then graciously creating a new feature to help you avoid screwing up that way.

You could  just fill in the email addresses of the people you want to send an email to, all by yourself like a big boy.

Or you could let Gmail guess who you want to send to and then hope it corrects itself (correctly) when it guesses wrong. Because that’s a pretty neat trick. Sure hope you don’t know too many people named Bob…

In other news, yet another new  Gmail Lab is called Home For Christmas. When your mother emails you any time in October, November, or December, asking when you’re coming home, Gmail will search through your previously sent emails. Based on a complicated algorithm that measures the content of messages you’ve sent to your mother over the last year (comparing instances of  expressions of love, happiness, etc., versus hostility and avoidance),  Gmail will reply appropriately.

If it determines things are strained between you and mommy, it sends her an email saying “Sorry, looks like I have to work through the holiday.” If it thinks the relationship is a good one, it asks her when she’d like to have you and what can you bring to dinner.

If you’re having trouble figuring out how to turn this Lab on in your Gmail account, send me an email and I’ll direct you right to it.

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Shared Email Address? No!

by Jay on October 21, 2009

I hate shared personal email addresses. In all but a very few instances, I think they’re just a terrible idea.

“Til Death Do us Email”, a recent Wall Street Journal blog, commented on a recent trend of married couples sharing online accounts. From that post, here are two stand-out comments.

Couples use shared accounts to avoid keeping secrets—and temptation.

There’s something seriously wrong with a relationship that needs a shared email address to keep the parties from getting involved in Internet romances. I mean, how does that work?

“Gosh, I’d sure love to start up a romance with my high school sweetheart. Too bad I share my happycouple@nausea.com address with my wife. I guess I’ll just stay faithful. Thank goodness for our email address!”

“If your bank accounts are common, why not your Twitter and Facebook accounts?” said one man…

Unless your bank account wants to tell dirty jokes, make surprise birthday plans, or just plain have a friendly private conversation with a friend, the two are entirely different.

And if your bank account does want to do those things, I want to know where you’re banking!

Couples say that such streamlined accounts can help their communication and scheduling and are a sign of trust, rather than suspicion.

Yes, helping their communication, right. One person commented on the post, telling of her friend who shares an email address with her husband:

I have a friend whose husband forbids her to shop at certain places, so when we discuss our shopping trips, I have to speak in code.

Nothing like healthy communication between a couple, fostered by coded emails. Now that’s gotta be a happy marriage, what with all the forbidding and the lying. I sure hope that shared email address can save them!

Ultimately, though, my real problem with couples email addresses are the images they create  in my head. I see a husband and wife wearing matching wind breakers and walking matching bichon frises. I can practically hear them calling each other Snookums and Pooh Bear and going to bed each night at 6:30 holding hands in their matching footie pajamas.

Isn’t that reason enough to have your own email address?

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Email Templates Are Great… When You Know How To Use Them

by Jay on October 13, 2009

We’ve all done it, right? You’ve written the email, looked it over quickly, then hit the “send” button. Later you discover you’ve left out an important piece of information. Or worse, included something you definitely did not want to include.

Chris Christie is running for the office of governor of New Jersey. In an attempt to drum up support for the first big debate he’d be taking part in, his campaign sent out an email invitation to attend a rally and debate watching party.

So far, so good, right?

Sure. If it had ended there. Unfortunately, the email was started using some sort of template.  The last line of the email should have been the phone number  and email address for RSVPing. But somebody forgot to do a little editing. And here’s how the end of the email actually went out:

image from flickr user bluejersey

image from flickr user bluejersey

Some people really needed to be protected from the tools they’re using. And from themselves.

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Wait Until You Get Home to Rant at the Sheriff

by Jay on October 8, 2009

I bet government officials are used to getting emails ranting about their policies and actions. And I bet a lot of taxpayers have legitimate gripes when they send those rants.

But I had to laugh when I read this one:

An Oklahoma City man was arrested for marijuana possession after he got stopped by sheriff’s deputies at a traffic roadblock/checkpoint. Officers were looking for drunk drivers when they arrested Evan White and charged him with felony possession with the intent to distribute.

Evan White, victim of his own Email Fail, photo from New9.com

So White sends an email to the sheriff a few days later, calling him a hypocrite and saying:

It’s a shame that he puts the citizens of Oklahoma through such nonsense in the name of ‘saving lives’ when the real reason for resorting to fishing with a fishnet is the almighty dollar and nothing else.

To clarify, White believes the roadblock was set up to raise money for the state, not to get drunk drivers off the roads. And he’s concerned enough about the citizens of Oklahoma to write a nasty email to the sheriff about it.

Of course, in his ranting email, he doesn’t mention that he was one of those who got snagged breaking the law in that roadblock. Oh, and he also doesn’t seem to think the citizens of Oklahoma would mind paying a state worker to use state computers to do their ranting about their unfair drug arrests!

Yes, that’s right. White is a state employee, and was on state time when he wrote his letter from a state-owned computer.  And the sheriff calls him on it in his reply. You can read the entire exchange here, including the part where White goes to a different computer, logs in to a different email address, and is sort of contrite about the whole thing.

And the icing on the cake  is that White ended up losing his job! So now he’s facing drug charges, unemployed AND a victim of a pretty big Email Fail.

I almost feel bad for him.

Almost. But not quite.

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Tripwi.re – Email Detectives

by Jay on October 2, 2009

I can’t decide if I love this or hate this.

Tripwi.re is a new service that bills itself as a burglar alarm for your email. What it actually does is plant tempting information in your inbox (a fake email containing fake passwords for your online accounts), and then monitor it. If somebody opens the planted email, it sends you a text message letting you know.

photo by flickr user < < graham> >

Of course, if you want them to track the hacker you have to be signed up for a “Plus” level account. But if you go with Basic, at least you’ll know that somebody has gotten  into your email.

So is this a great idea or not?

I could plant a fake password email in my own inbox and maintain it as unread — I wouldn’t get a text message if/when it was violated, but really… what good does that text message do? Can you lock down your email so the intruder gets booted? (Hm… can you do that? That would be a cool feature to add to an email account…)

But anyway, you can’t unhack your stuff — I mean, if somebody’s read your fake password email, might they not have also already poked around in your other email? You can’t undo that, so by the time you get the text it’s already too late.

On the other hand, it’s clever. It’s creative. And knowing sooner, rather than later, that you’ve been hacked could help you avoid further damage as a result.

Plus, bonus points because I like the name.

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Email: Not Limited to 140 Characters, You Know

by Jay on September 10, 2009

I like to shop online. But after a rash of poor customer service lately, I’ve become gun shy.

So last week I bought some baby clothes for my soon-to-be-born daughter. It’s been less than a week since I ordered, and there was a weekend in there, so it’s not like my order was overdue. But since I have had a few bad experiences lately, I thought I’d send an email to the Customer Service department where I bought the baby stuff.

(Keep in mind, a large part of my job is responding to customer email, so I’m sensitive to the moods and feelings of customer service folks).

I crafted the following email:

Hi there,
Just checking in to find out if my order (#9233, placed Thursday, Sept 3) has shipped yet, and if so, when might I expect it? I don’t recall the shipping method, so it would be helpful to know how it’s being delivered so I know if it’s going to be in my mailbox or left by UPS/FedEx. Also, if you have a tracking number or anything, that would be great.
Thanks in advance,
Jay
Order #9233

I didn’t spend a lot of time on the email, but I purposefully was friendly and thorough (my actual email included my full name, email address, and shipping address).

I got a pretty quick response, so I have to give them points for that (I’d say it was about 20 minutes — not too bad…)

But here is that response, in it’s entirety:


-- do not edit --

You order was shipped out on September 8th with First-Class Mail® Parcel (2-5 days give or take depending on destination).

Thank you for shopping with My Baby Clothes!

A second email arrived a moment later with my tracking number and the same “thank you for shopping…”

Neither email had any salutation at all. Neither included a sign off, a worthwhile signature, or any sign that a real person had replied. The “Thank you for shopping…” bit was as personal as the emails got, and that was obviously just what appears on the bottom of all their emails. And if you take that out, the whole reply could have been a Twitter post.

Now maybe my perspective is skewed, since I do this for a living. But I’m also on the receiving end of lots of emails from people thanking me for simply sending the information they’ve requested.

So I know a little bit about this game. And I:

  • Never Ever send an email without a Hi Bob or Hello Janet (or the actual name of the emailer — I’m not crazy!).
  • Never Ever EVER end an email without my signature. The message may be coming from the customerservice@ email address, but I’m the person sending it and it says so.
  • Sometimes I do forget a bit of information in my first email, and so have to send a second one right away. And when I do, I ALWAYS start that email by acknowledging that I had forgotten a piece of information and apologizing for multiple emails.

And what’s the deal with the email starting by telling me(?) not to edit it?

The three bullets points above are incredibly simple to adhere to. I mean, my name only has three letters in it and it’s really easy to spell. It was right there in my email. How hard would it have been to use it? And the sales rep’s name… well, they should be able to type that out like it’s second nature.

I just think it’s a sign of poor service when the customer appears to have spent more time being polite than the person responding. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy I got my reply(s) and I don’t need anyone to write me a novel just to pass along a little information. But if this was the level of care given to a simple, friendly interaction, what does it look like when something goes wrong? If my order had been screwed up and I got an email that showed the same level of attention or care put into it, I’d have been pissed.

Curious about what I got my baby-on-the-way?I’m hoping this is what shows up anyway, because I don’t have a lot of faith in the Customer Service department if I have to contact them again…

Hi there,
> Just checking in to find out if my order has shipped yet, and if so, when
> might I expect to see it? Shipping method isn't specified on order
> confirmation, so it would be helpful to know how it's being delivered so I
> know if it's going to be in my mailbox or left by UPS/FedEx. Please let me
> know a tracking number if you have one, or any other information you can
> provide about the delivery of my order.

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Don’t Send that Email, Johnny

by Jay on September 9, 2009

I love it when politicians make my life easy.

This Email Fail story involves the mayor of Clarksville, Tennessee. His name is Johnny Piper. First of all, a grown man going by the name Johnny is just a joke. Johnny Piper, really? Is he the mayor or the lead singer of a doo-wop group?

Johnny Piper and the Cubs
Johnny Piper and the Bigotaires
Johnny Piper and the Shouldn’t-Have-a-Forward-Button-Ettes…

photo adapted from flickr user didbygraham's image

Anyway, Johnny’s patriotism was stirred when he received an email about two new stamps commemorating Muslim holidays. I’m still not sure how somebody else’s holidays had any correlation to his own patriotism, but I think I’ll just put that aside for a moment.

Anyway, so stirred, Johnny forwarded the email to city employees, he says as a ‘public service’.

According to Chattabox.com, Johnny said

“I was surprised at a stamp being developed, and would have thought others would be, too,” he said. Piper also said he was struck by the reminder of several terrorist attacks against Americans.

The email in question contained several falsehoods, including a reference to “Muslim Communist OBAM [sic] ” who allegedly directed the Post Office to create the stamps. Turns out, they were first in circulation in 2001 — so I wonder if that should read Muslin Communist Bus…

My favorite part is that good ol’ Johnny doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with equating Muslim holidays with terrorists, or with sharing that ignorance with other city employees. And in his defense, he pulls out the oldest, lamest one in the book:  “I have lots of Muslim friends…”

At least this might make my wife’s  89-year-old grandparents feel better in the knowledge that they aren’t the only ones still reading and forwarding moronic, outdated, inaccuracy riddled emails.

They’ve got Johnny Piper on their side.

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