What's a "Portable Storm Door"?

[DerbyDad03]

I received this email the other day.

I don't think I've got any "portable storm doors" lying around, so I guess I can't help this guy out.

If any of you have one (or more) let me know and I'll put you in touch with Mr. May. ;-)

(Copied word for word)

Hello , Mr David May here and i will like to know if you do have portable Storm Doors for sale .If you do then get back to me with the Unit cost ,form of payment as well as your website so that i can make choices if possible .Looking forward to hear from you soon . With regards, David

[aemeijers]

Chuckle. The one I got said 'concrete chutes'. Other than my name and address, I wonder what they are trying to harvest?

[DerbyDad03]

My guess would be email addresses.

Verified email addresses fetch more on the open market than just a list of strings in the [e-mail] format.

That said, how many people actually respond to emails like that, even if it's just to say "You've got the wrong person. I don't sell portable storm doors."

Are enough people that stupid that it's worth the time and effort to blast out an email like that and then gather/package the results for resale?

[aemeijers]

Obviously yes, or they wouldn't be doing it, I guess. You can mechanize most of the process with scripts and canned software, so the unit cost is probably low enough that if you get 2% hits, you have made a profit. Not like snail-mail days, when you had to employ people to open and parse the replies.

[Jim Elbrecht]

I'd say more like .02% would make it worthwhile. The economy of scale-- a bazillion emails don't cost more than the first 10K or so. I've gotten 1/2 dozen similar phishes in the last year or so. That I even *know* that indicates that they are probably effective. They got through my filters- and I actually read them--- and on a the first couple was all ready to tell them they were idiots. [the one that had a *rush order* for me almost pushed my 'help this fool out' button.]

Jim