It’s not often I get spam in Norwegian, and even less so attempts of scamming.

However, I got this email the other day, and I can’t help but thinking about the nigerian emails we’ve all gotten. There is just something that’s not right about it. But I might just be paranoid. I probably am. Since not everyone reading this blog might be reading norwegian, I’ll just give a little excerpt.

The header is a complete norwegian postal address, no p.o box. Our man greets me by my first name. Explains that he is a boy from a norwegian city (no need to give out that name either), and that he is collecting pictures of famous and a some less famous people. During the past 10 years he has received about 5400 letters from 79 nations. Pretty well done. That’s over a letter a day! He’s also received answer from about 550 writers. He offers to send me a list of some of the writers whom he has received answer from.

Why all the writers? I’m not a writer - in fact, I hate books. I don’t know of any writers with my name either. And I’m neither famous, nor less famous. “Unfamous” is more like it.

He then moves on to ask me to send him a picture with a signature on it. He makes it clear the signature must be REAL. The picture however, need not be new.

Yesterday, he got a reply from the actor Linus Wahlgren. I have no idea who he is, and something tells me he didn’t invent Linux at least. But then he wishes me a prosperous and happy new year!

Sounds like a nice guy. No really. And I know some of these weirdos exist. But how did he find me? And WHY did he find me? At first I though: silly weirdo - but after hours and hours, I started thinking: what could a person NOT do with my picture and signature?

Comments? Experiences?