The Art of Persuasive Suggestion

And how it should have had little to do here, but I'm not sure I digress.

The photos on the right really do deserve an explanation. And one shall be forthcoming. But first...an email that crossed my scambaiting crosshairs in the early part of February, read as follows:

Hello friend,

my name is William Wilcox. I work with the Euro Lottery. I am soliciting your assistance for a swift transfer of 4,528,000 GBP, should you be willing to assist me in this project? you will be giving me just 40% of your winnings.

It went on with additional fluff and nonsense, and then got down to the ratkilling part:

Just as a brief, you just have to register online, due to my position in th ecompany I can make it happen that you will be the winner of the above stated amount, less my percentage for helping you surmount the odds. I will understand if you are not of interest, but I feel in you I find a person willing to work with me to our mutual benefit.

Ooooooooooookay. I can take a backhanded slap like that. And I can give it back, too, in a manure that William Wilcox might not recognize as one:

Friend? Are we acquainted? I don't see you in my rolodex. But no matter...are you related, by chance, to Wendy Willcox?

Which gives me a chance to 'splain the photos...back in '02, I came across a scambaiter who did his 'baiting' under the guise of Wendy Willcox (pictured above), and her companion dog Willis (the other picture; I'll leave it to the readers to figure out which is which). He even published a book, The Adventures of Wendy Willcox and her dog Willis, that had to do with his scambaits under the Wendy Willcox nom de gag.

I had borrowed the photo of "Wendy" for use in a barlight blog entry, as well as to insult a scammer's "attorney", but otherwise, it and the dawg had sat in my photo queue, genetically decomposing. Until now.

At first, I didn't think the decomposition would suffer any interruption, as Mr. Wilcox didn't respond immediately. But after 5 days, he did:

Hello, thanks to you for responding to my email, I am not related to Wendy Willcox, sorry. And then he went on to explain to me how, from his position within the Euro Lottery, he had spent two years setting up his gambit, and how he'd found me through reliable sources on the Internet and that this project is 100% risk and hitch-free provided you follow my instructions completely.

Sure...I could play along as has been my own SOP with past scams; but I wasn't ready to let go of the Wendy Willcox angle here:

You're NOT related to Wendy Willcox? Dang...too bad. I would have worked with you on ANYTHING, WITHOUT QUESTION, if you were related to Wendy Willcox.

After three days and no reply, it appeared that we were done. Then came Day Four:

Hello,

I am pleased to tell you that after I think this over more, I am related to Wendy Wilcox. the way you spell it confused me. Wendy is my brother's daughter. i am glad that you are known to Wendy? So now can we proceed with the project?

Oh indeed, we can proceed alrighty, but not before:

Mr. Willcox (I got him to agree that he knows Wendy; let's see if I can get him to adjust the spelling of his name, too), I am thrilled to learn that after 8 years, through you, I have found Wendy Willcox! This is, indeed, a great day for me! As I agreed earlier, I will do whatever you ask of me on the aforementioned project; but first, will you have Wendy get ahold of me? This is MOST IMPORTANT before we proceed. Give her my email address and have her contact me.

The next day, I don't get an email from Wendy Willcox, or her dawg, Willis. I do get this from William Wil(l)cox *smirk*:

Hello, i regret i am not able to contact Wendy for you, so if it please, can we get to the business now at hand?

Since William has gone from not knowing Wendy, to remembering Wendy, and then changed his last name spelling for to draw me into his game, I owed it to him to be a bit more...stubborn:

William, I am adamant when I say unto you that I will do anything you ask, AFTER I HAVE SPEAKS WITH WENDY, and NOT BEFORE. So communicate with her for me and give her my email address. You want your 40%? Git 'er done. And that doesn't mean YOU doing her...keep it contextual.

Bear in mind here that I have never given this clod a name, and of course he is clueless about Wendy Willcox -- unless he does a google search, at which time he might put two and two together, add three, carry the five, and come up with 22,000 telephone poles an hour -- but in order to get me to do what I said I'd do, I get this next from his email addy:

Hello, its me, Wendy Willcox...it has been long the time, yes? I miss on you. will you now consent to work with William Willcox on his project? it will mean so much to me, and I remember you good that you will do this.

Ah, the art of persuasive suggestion.

But now that I've "heard" from Wendy Willcox...what IS one to do? It takes me all of a few seconds to decide:

WENDY!!!! Dadgum it, you Ozark heifer, it's been a coon's age! I never thought to lay font on you again in this lifetime, Wendy! Do you still look the same after all these years? And is Willis still with you, or did you stuff and mount him, as you swore you would when he went to Dawgie Heaven, after chasing one too many parked cars?

I will never forget that moonless night in Farmer Letch's wood shed, Wendy, the first time we met. How the total darkness made you so...seductive and inviting. How fumbling and bumbling I first was, in the blush of my budding manhood, at once shy and anticipatory, all thumbs trying to undo your training bra, and inadvertently getting it snagged on your front teeth, and you playing like Willis, having a tug-of-war with me, there in the dark, until your bra *BWANGed* off your front tooth, getting caught in the rafters...and after some preliminary petting, and preparatory to my first-ever "roll in the hay", you striking your lighter, and by the light of a flickering BIC, my eyes beheld you for the very first time.

Really, Wendy, I ran screaming from the barn because you dropped your lighter in the hay, setting it on fire; it had NOTHING to do with what I saw. Well, practically nothing. Well okay, so maybe it did have something to do with it. Well okay, so maybe it had a great deal to do with it.

Well okay, Wendy...I thought I was about to have sex with one of Farmer Letch's llamas. Really.

But please don't take that personal, Wendy. I was young and inexperienced then, and I can assure you that in the years since, I ain't never ventured into bar or barnlighting again, without first checking for the gender of, and number of legs attached to, whoever I was with.

But that's in the past, perhaps even far enough to put me beyond the statute of limitations. At any rate, your uncle has it in mind to have me help him give me the business. Do you approve of his machinations? If you do, wag your tail and bark once for yes, twice for no. Getting excited and peeing on my shoe will be taken as a no.

I await your response.

And I still do. Perhaps William Wil(l)cox DID google Wendy Willcox and her dawg Willis, and figured out he wasn't gonna get his 40%.

If so, I reckon HE'LL think twice about bar or barnlighting, too.

Woof.