People really fall for this?

Received into my inbox today was one of those ubiquitious "You've won lots of money!" e-mails.  Now normally, I delete them without even looking but this one was allegedly from Yahoo!  So I thought I'd take a look.

The first thing I noticed was the incredibly amatuerish, even childish, look of the whole thing.  I mean, come on, does it look like something as multi-billion dollar company would send out?  The fonts are all different sizes, there is inconsistent capitalisation, inconsistent spacing and it's not page wrapped properly. It's just horrible.

When I start to read it, I immediately suspect that the writer's first language is not English.  In fact I would go so far as to say that the writer is Asian.  I currently teach English in Asia and the mistakes made are consistent with common mistakes by almost all of my students.

Some of the more easily spotted mistakes are as follows:

Today, your account is randomly selected as the one of 5 top winners accounts
who will get cash prizes from us.We are happy to inform you that you have won a
prize money of (Eight Hundred Thousand Us Dollars
($800,000) for the  month of 
Ju, 2007. Lottery win promotion which is organized by yahoo messenger .com
every month.

• Of we all know it should be "... your account HAS BEEN selected as ..." remembering that the event is something that has happened in the past (selected), in a period that hasn't yet finished (today). 
  
• "Won a prize money ..." is a common mistake from confusion between countable and non-countable nouns.
• "Us Dollars"?  What are they?  Perhaps he means "US Dollars".
• "Ju"?  When is that?

YAHOO, collects all the mail ID of the
people that are online  on yahoo messenger, among the millions that subscribe to
yahoo messenger we only select five people every month as our winners through
electronic balloting System without the winner applying,we are  congratulating
you for been one of the people selected.All participant were
selected through a computer balloting system drawn from Nine hundred thousand
E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia, Europe, Middle
East, Africa and Oceania as part of our international promotions program which
is conducted annually.

• YAHOO and yahoo and Yahoo! so far in this message.
• Repetition - "electronic balloting System" and "computer balloting system".  And why would a ballot need to be done?  Maybe they got them cheap from the 2000 Bush campaign, because they were faulty!
• "Subscribe to yahoo messenger"?  I thought the lottery was run by Yahoo! Mail?

This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a
conglomorate of some multinational companies as part of their social
responsibility to the citizens in the commmunities where they have
operational base. Further more your details(e-mail address) falls within our British representative office in United Kingdom , as indicated in your play
coupon and your prize of US$800,000 will be released to you from this regional
branch office in UK.2

• "Some multinational companies"?  What kind of nonsense talk is that?  Don't you think that they would want a little free press for their altruism?  However, we all know that to be bollocks.  Everyone knows how large multi-national corporations like to give away money and get nothing in return, don't we.
• "Further more"?  Which is it, "further" or "more", I'm on the edge of my seat now!

We hope with part of your prize, you
will participate in our end of year high stakes for US$1.3 Billion
international draw.

• Huh?  If this lottery was free to enter why isn't the big one?  Although, it's 'only' $500,000 more prize money.  No, I don't think I will, thanks all the same.

These are your identification
numbers..........

 Batch
number.......................Lwh
09445

 Lotto
number........................Lwh09446

 Winning
number...................Lwh09447

• Nah!  These consecutive numbers don't look suspicious do they!

To begin your claims, kindly contact
the Fiduciary Agent at  this email address ( leonardgreg_1@yahoo.co.uk, fiduciarydepartment@msn.com)  You are required to forward
him with the following details:

• Hmmm, now why would I want to e-mail MSN in order to collect prize money from Yahoo!
• Details?  Why?  Shouldn't you have all of these things from my account details?
• Why on Earth would you need to know my marital status.
• Why do you need to know the month in which I won?  Didn't you tell me earlier that this was the draw for "Ju, 2007"?

This is part of our
security protocol to avoid
double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage
of this programme by non-participant or unofficial
personnel.

• "Unwarranted taking advantage" - they obviously don't see the deep irony of this statement.  Or maybe they do, but I doubt it.

And finally ...

Yahoo! Lottery is a free service
that does not require you to register or be a Yahoo! registered user before
winning.

• But if I'm not a registered member, how can I take part if the winners are drawn randomly from registered users?

What you may have noticed also is just the general clumsiness of the writing, like someone who has no clue how to sound 'official' trying really hard to do so.  Or someone who has learned grammar from a text book.  Also there is the illogic of some statements, like the one mentioned above.  These things would leap out at you if you knew basic grammar and took off your dollar tinted glasses.

The other thing that worries me though is that the scammers would obviously have to raise their game if people weren't taken in by this sort of childish attempt.  But, these things still go out like this so there must be a market for them.  This means that either greed overcomes good sense or that ignorance is the culprit, or a combination of both.