Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very funny, 6 Nov 2007
In recent years few debates have raged so fiercely as those regarding the morality of the internet. To some it is a breeding den for vice and depravity, that will corrupt the whole of society. To others it is a much needed forum for uninhibited speech that will bring true freedom to the masses. Of course, the liberties that it offers are mixed. The internet has resulted in the wide availability of such commodities as prescription drugs, hard-core smut films and university degrees for purchase. However, not everything should be welcomed with open arms! The web is also populated by a large number of unscrupulous scammers, who prey on those that are less intelligent than themselves, in order to make a quick buck. These fraudulent e-mailers operate beyond the reach of the authorities, from within their safe-houses in third-world countries. One such scammer is Bob Servant, who has a headquarters in Scotland. Bob had absolutely no scruples about wasting the time of hard-working internet businessmen (including King Arawi's son and respected Nigerian solicitor Joseph Udeze) in order to gather material for his book. Attempts to bring him to justice have failed (owing to the fact he recently bought off the local authorities with jazz mags and the promise of kebabs) and he remains at large today.
Still, despite the dubious morality of Servant's book, one has to concede that it is an extremely funny piece of work. Servant's japes follow in the line of Henry Root and, more recently, Robin Cooper (of the 'Timewaster Letters'). Far from being a book of letters that he was merely too lazy to print-off and post, however, he has found an ingenious niche that more than justifies the step from 'spoof letters' to 'spoof e-mails'. There are some hilarious correspondences in which (very importantly, in my opinion) he manages to lead his prey into a genuine two-way exchange, where the laughs stem from both parties (albeit inadvertently, in the case of his victims). Excellent stuff!
PS. I can't help but wonder if there are other ways in which to exploit the internet's potential for inane pranks, although I have to admit that nothing whatsoever springs to mind.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bob.......servant of the people, 30 Oct 2007
Everyone knows that spam is a right pain in the arse ....well everyone who has a computer anyway. I've often sat, teeth grinding in frustration as my in-box filled up with advice on how enlarge my penis( How do they know?) , offers for cheap Viagra or requests from someone purporting to be from the Nat West bank ( I don't bank with the Nat West though I'm beginning to think maybe I do and I've just erased it from my memory banks .....no pun intended) who wants me to confirm my details wondering how to get back at the b******s .Well there is and Bob Servant , the later-ego of writer Neil Forsyth, has discovered that you can engage some spammers in the most absurd dialogue as long as you can keep the smell of money wafting underneath their avaricious nostrils.
A lot of spam is computer generated and engaging in discourse with those would be futile but Bob Godzilla Servant a resident of Broughty Ferry , near Dundee, former part time window cleaner( till he had his ladders nicked by gypsies ) and former cheeseburger magnate has twigged that certain types of spammers -those after your money- are sent by real people and real people will sometimes go to incredible lengths to get their hand on someone else's money.
Bob therefore can string the spammers along as he insists on being sent talking lion's , specially commissioned paintings ( with gold frames mind) of him captaining his own ship and that his beautiful young Russian paramour takes a job in a greasy spoon as a part-time waitress and goes on fishing trips with him. The exchanges are brilliantly handled , gaining in incremental ludicrousness till the e-mails responding to his latest bizarre request or rambling missive vibrate tangibly with frustration.
There is an element of Robin Coopers "Timewaster Letters" in this book but it's funnier and far more satisfying., mainly because the victims in that book were largely bewildered innocents whereas the spammers deserve everything they get. These people have conned the UK economy out of £150 million( Some undoubtedly greedy idiots) , a staggering sum. In fact the only way this book could have been better is if Bob Servant had succeeded in embezzling money out of them .As it is the fact they all feel as one spammer puts it ;"F*** you! To me has bothered to read your delirium" more than compensates.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
B OBSERVANT, 9 Nov 2007
Anyone who uses the internet at all has to be familiar with unsolicited junk email, commonly known as Spam. Some spams are also scams. In particular there is a regular traffic, known in America as Phishing, in efforts to obtain banking and credit-card details from the unwary. Neil Forsyth, recently the author of a perceptive and sympathetic study (Other People's Money) of the young Scottish credit-card fraudster Elliot Castro, now turns his attention to the phishers.
This time he comes in from a different angle. He categorises the main forms of phishy correspondence - vast Nigerian giveaways, bogus Russian brides, local agents and franchisees solicited for non-existent businesses - but this time he entertains us with his replies to the phishers, pretending to hide behind the persona of a certain Bob Servant (?geddit?). For me at least, a lot of the interest and fascination of the exchanges was in wondering how many of them were real and how many invented or enhanced for the purpose of making a book out of them. I could have asked Neil, but whether or not he would have told me I decided that would have been unfair and so I have refrained. Obviously, the more of these messages that are genuine the better the whole joke is. I like to think that at the very least all the original emails received from the various would-be hoaxers are as they sent them.
One has to wonder what success-rate these hoaxes enjoy. Some are in such bad English that surely they must raise the suspicions of all but the most trusting, gullible and inexperienced. Others look a bit more professional, but are open to perfectly simple and obvious responses - e.g. after receiving several requests from a firm in Australia to send them £10 to cover the cost of their sending me some enormous sum I finally wrote back suggesting that they deduct their £10 from the said fortune, and I imagine that anyone else who would have so much as taken the trouble to reply at all would have replied in the same terms. What Neil Forsyth - sorry, Bob Servant - has done is to keep stringing them along and see how much of their time he can waste, and it really does read as if once the phishers have got a bite (or think they have) they can be pretty gullible themselves, to judge by the patience they show in the face of some rather obvious kidding and stalling.
No two of us have the same sense of humour, and I don't know whether this book will appeal to yours. To me it's not so much rolling-in-the-aisles stuff as an intriguing mixture of very clever and ingenious on the one hand and completely barefaced micky-taking on the other. Searching for a comparison, the one that sprang to my mind unbidden was the late Humphry [sic] Berkeley's spoof correspondence from H Rochester Sneath, headmaster of the nonexistent Petworth School, to various public school heads. This might seem an odd parallel as Berkeley was the English of the English and Bob Servant operates from the dour fastness of Broughty Ferry, but I think that if you know and enjoy Berkeley's effort you will likely enjoy Bob's too. If you do not know, and consequently cannot enjoy, Berkeley's fake correspondence with real-life stooges you can find it in The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose.
This collection could be sold as having a social purpose in teaching the rest of us how to deal with pests like these, but Neil Forsyth does not try to sell it in these terms so neither shall I. I also wonder whether it may do for Broughty Ferry what the TV series Tutti Frutti did for Buckie in terms of publicity. If so, I trust that this fine community will reward the author with e-vouchers exchangeable in its numerous bars.
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