Our covers!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Spam Spam Spam, Everywhere You Look Spam

Just today, after recognizing a new source of ever increasing, usually nuisance, but often dangerous serial emails, I decided to write about spam. Or should I say Scam.

You know spam, where some persistent character tries to impose their will on you by daily—it is daily isn't it? It sure seems like it!—barrage of unwelcome emails. Or where some nefarious foreigner—it has to be a foreigner doesn't it? An American would never do that to a fellow American, would they?—tries their damnedest to get something from us.

Something?

Yeah, you know, some idiot, probably in Africa, usually from or representing Banco Faso in the Congo…I think, wants to give us a zillion dollars 'cause we're good guys and all we have to do is send them a couple thousand of our hard earned money to facilitate the transaction. What's that saying about a gold mine?

Anyway, there must be bigger idiots than them who buy their crap because like the energizer bunny the spam keeps on coming and coming or is it going and going. What's more, like a popular TV show there have been spin offs. You know where you are the winner of sweepstakes or contests you never entered, that may or may not exist. My favorite is where I was a winner of—get this—an IBM contest for ten zillion dollars. What's that saying about too good to be true?

Other consumer conscious companies that regularly have contests to share their largess run from petroleum giants like BPI (of the great Gulf of Mexico oil spill) to American Express and many generous companies in between. However, I'm still waiting to win a couple zillion from a Wall Street giant. I guess the contest spammers don't use scalawags that are bigger than them. Everybody knows Wall Streeters would rather pull down their pants and sit on a hot iron than cut into their sacred bonuses.

Then there's the dangerous spam purported to be from innocent senders like Yahoo, UPS, USPS, Discover card and so forth. The list is as endless as the scammers imagination, just like some authors I know. Hmm, I wonder—nahhh!

You're not gonna believe this. The other day I actually received an email from—get this—the IRS. (Isn't that against the law—impersonating a government agency) When I say I, I mean Dee Dawning, my pen name. Now I wish he could so I didn't have to, but I guarantee you Dee Dawning never filed a tax return, never gave an email address and never paid a cent to the Internal Revenue Service. The fact is Dee Dawning is a fictitious person—who wins contest, sweepstakes and helps little old widows spend their money.

Of course, though they sent me an email and knew my email address, like all spam letters, they never addressed me by name. That's because, while spammers and scammers may have your email address, they don't know you from Adam.

That's all for now folks. Maybe in another blog I'll go over the steps I use to cut down on spam etc. In the meantime…I have a new book that I just know you wanna hear all about.

BLURB

Picking up where Angel Love leaves off, Randy weaves his spell of dominance and protection over beautiful black haired, blue eyed Mysta Ree as he had over equally beautiful April and Angel. Reintroducing her to the alluring, exciting, glamorous life of a high priced call girl, she had all but given up, she is anxious to please Randy and herself. Therefore, she resumes the life she, April and two other friends left behind seven years earlier, when as college juniors, the four had spent a debauched two week spring vacation as escorts in Las Vegas.

Mysta Ree is the long awaited third book of the very naughty, popular Consequences series. Those who have read April Showers and Angel Love won't want to miss the very sexy followup.


Warning: There are extreme sexual situations in
this book.

Buy link

Mysta Ree $2.00 off

SEXY EXCERPT

"April agreed, but just as we were about to leave for Fancy Girls, her phone rang."

"Yes, Randy."

"Ah-huh. The three of us are at Houston's eating and catching up."

She lowered the phone from her ear and handed it to me. "He wants to talk to you."

I took her phone and placed it by my ear. "Yes, Randy."

"Hi babe. It's going to be a gorgeous night tonight. Meet me at the zoo at six-thirty. Have April drop you off. I'll be waiting for you beside my car in section C. It's a black G35 coupe. April knows it."

"What should I wear?"

"You wear the same size as April, right?"

"Ah-huh."

"Go with her to our apartment. She has a short gold skirt and halter. Borrow it from her. Wear your hair in a long pony tail too. And Mysta."

"What?"

"No panties."

Shivers coursed through me. "We're not going to have sex in public are we?"

He sighed. "It's part of your initiation."

I whined, "Randy, I can't do that."

"Six-thirty, I'll be waiting." His voice had an edge to it she hadn't heard since Vegas.

"I just can't." The phone was silent. "Randy?"

Angel and April looked at me with obvious concern.

"He hung up. What's his number?"

"Scroll down the stored numbers to Randy."

I did and pushed call. He answered, but all he said was, "If you don't come, it'll go hard on you," and then the line went dead again.

"What happened?" asked Angel, worry shading her eyes, "Did he answer?"

I nodded. "He said it'll go hard on me if I don't show."

"You don't even want to think about defying him. Where does he want you to meet him?"

I looked up at April. "He wants you to drop me off by his car at the zoo by six-thirty. He wants me to borrow some clothes from you."

Angel said, "We better get going then."

* * * *

An hour later April and I dropped Mysta, at Randy's black sports car. Dressed in his usual black, he tossed his cigarette when we pulled up and got out. Mysta looked sexy and splendid in April's low cut gold lamé skirt and halter with matching two inch wedge sandals. Her shapely but lean form and three foot long, black pony tail enhanced her overall appearance.

She looked like a princess out of an animated Walt Disney movie, but I knew beneath her demur countenance beat the heart of a wanton harlot, like me.

Nevertheless, when she unlatched the door and got out, she acted nervous as a cat locked in a dog kennel.

18 comments:

Cassie Exline said...

You've certainly got that right. Spams and scams are everywhere. One sure way to get through to anyone of us is to have a fake email and see all that garbage roll in, knowing that person isn't real. The beauty of a pen name. Your new release sounds great and the cover is hawt.

Dee Dawning said...

Thanks Cassie, Spam is a pain, but sometimes I get a kick out of seeing new creative methods they come up with to bilk you. Of course if they ever got to me, it wouldn't be funny.

About my release, thanks. Mysta Ree is the third of a series. I haven't started it yet, but I have the cover and title for the fourth ready to go $ex in $in City.

Ray said...

My son got caught in the "Nigerian SCAM" by trying to cash the check. The first one was rejected by the check cashing facility. He then bit again and tried using the same facility. This time they called the police and he was arrested. The next time he received several hundred dollars worth of clothes by UPS. The FBI told me since it was unsolicited we could keep them.

We kept the ones that fit and gave the rest to charity.

The person said she was a female wanting to come to the US. That was a scam also, not a female.

Ray

Mary Suzanne said...

Dee,

You're right about spam. I've been getting the same spam concerning a Dell computer. The e-mail states I should contact them and make arrangements to have my free Dell shipped to me.

I'll bet if I did answer, they would include the price of the Dell into the shipping costs. LOL

Great blog and goodluck on your new release Mysta Ree.

Ray said...

Part II
I received a check supposedly from the Canadian National Lottery drawn on a check from a bank in Houston TX. I knew it was a scam. I called the bank to let them know a check had been written on their bank and was it good. They checked and found it was a closed account. I asked if they wanted the check to report it to the Feds. They were not interested, "not our problem." So I called the FBI, "What do you want us to do about it." Even the post office didn't want to handle the fraud.

I friend of mine in early Alzheimers got caught. I tried to tell him not to respond and not cash the check. He did anyway.

Worse than that. A dear friend had a Facebook account opened in her name. Now she can't use her email account as anyone who went on the Facebook page got email with suspicious looking links. So far no one has opened them, but they keep coming. To avoid this malicious garbage I cancelled Facebook and MySpace to avoid anything like this in the future.

Ray

Ray

Dee Dawning said...

Hi Ray, Sorry to hear your son and friend got caught up in a couple of the scams. It happens.

My wife who is a very bright sensible woman, was tired one night and got hooked on the scams where they pretend to be your email service. In this case it was Hotmail and she was asked to verify her information, including password.

Once they had her password, she was locked out. Then one by one she started hearing from friends and co-workers who wanted to know if she was indeed stranded in London with no money or credit cards.(We live in Arizona)

It seems they sent emails to everyone on her contact list saying she had been staying in an expensive hotel and her purse went missing and she needed at least two grand to pay the hotel bill and make it home.

One co-worker of hers started playing with the crooks acting like he would send the money. He did it back and forth for a couple days. I'm not sure how it ended. I guess they finally wised up.

Dee Dawning said...

Hi Mary Suzanne, Thanks for the well wishes and stay away from those spam/scammers.

Sorry I missed your last blog. We were having a grand opening chat for our new epublishing company and I was so busy I forgot all about it.

Best

Mary Suzanne said...

That's all right about missing my blog, Dee. Your epublishing company is more important.

Hope you make a bundle with it. I know it's hard work, but it should pay off soon.

Jenna said...

Hey, Dee
I haven't really been plagued by spam mail much (knock on wood). Just lucky, I guess. But oddly enough, most of the mail I get from you goes into spam in one of my email accounts.

You aren't a scam, are you? :)

Mysta Ree looks like a hot read, as do all the books in the series. I checked out all the blurbs on the New Dawning site. I will just have to make time to read this summer!

Dee Dawning said...

Hi Jenna, I wonder why my emails are starting to go into spam. It happened to Penny and some emails I send to Bookfair Buddies.

I don't know about a nice lady like you reading the Consequence series. It's pretty salacious. You might find it offensive.

Jenna said...

Now you've really peaked my interest, Dee. :) You mean they are more explicit than Naked Research and Playing With The Band? WoW.

Dee Dawning said...

So you read Playing with the Band? How did you like it?

The Consequences books are probably not quite as detailed, just extreme wanton sexual situations. Sex for sex sake and not much of a story. More naughty than sensual.

However, over the eighteen months April Showers and Angel Love have been out they've been a good consistent sellers that readers seem to like.

Jenna said...

I liked all but the ending of Playing With the Band--but I'm a sucker for an HEA. It did seem to leave it open for a sequel, perhaps with her and the one guy. Or a reunion of the band. That might be interesting.

And I do like some story with the sex, so perhaps Consequences wouldn't appeal in the long run. But from the blurbs I can understand why they've sold well. Congrats on that and I hope Mysta Ree joins them in that respect. :)

Dee Dawning said...

Thanks Jenna, When Writing is your living, consistent sellers are welcome. I've had enough good books that didn't sell for sh*t.

How's Friday Night coming?

Jenna said...

Still in the outline/"it's all right there in my head" stage. I confess I got sidetracked with another short, Speed Date, that I completed, but now want to flesh out into a novella or novel length. It's 18 pages right now, but I really like the characters and want to do more with them.

Do your characters ever charm you into extending their literary lives?

Ray said...

Unfortunately there is so much competition that unless people know you or see your adds your books won't be noticed.

Ray

Dee Dawning said...

Just keep at it. It sounds like the kind of story that will appeal to a lot of readers.

You know I've had plans to do that with many of my characters. IMO. Getting Naked was chuck full of interesting characters, but the story didn't seem to lend itself to going on. I've done it with a few others, but in most cases there are plenty of new characters to write about without digging out old ones. I thought about doing a sequel using Zoe from Naked Research, but I didn't think the monetary potential made up for the time it would take.

Dee Dawning said...

Hi Ray, You got that right. Competition is stiff! Fortunately I've been around long enough to learn the ropes and peddle my halfway decent stories.