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Online contest scams. In some respects, not a great deal different from offline contest scams.

I never did hear how this one played out, but pictured at the right is one contest 'winner' who found there to be a big difference between a Camry/Corolla she thought she'd won, and a little stuffed green muppet that she was presented with.

"Always with you is it the glass half-empty, hmmm?"

Lately, I haven't been featuring much in the way of my duels with scammers here. I've been saving most of them for a book idea that may or may not eventually become one, but I digress.

But today, since a well-recognized icon from TV and junk mail past has re-emerged in my email, I reckon I can spare the book this one.

Most, if not all of you, remember the world renowned 'clearing house' that allegedly still sells dozens upon dozens of magazine subscriptions, and hosted a contest that advertised all kinds of winners freaking out when their 'Prize Patrol' showed up.

Meantime, millions of others wound up with paper cuts and ill-tasting tongues, from sorting through the laborious mailing, trying to find all the stickers and emblems one had to find to lick and stick to the friggin' entry form, to enter the contest that never went away.

One that I never won squat in, regardless of what I did or didn't subscribe to.

Well, this particular outfit long ago found its way online, with the same kind of drivel. And now, the scammers have signed on to it, since the late Johnny Carson's late sidekick isn't around any more to pitch for it.

Granted, the scammers aren't as eloquent as Ed; I doubt any of them could spell, let alone explain "hiyoooooooooo". But this latest incarnation of the world renowned contestuary gives you as much chance of winning, as you have of winning a 100 yard dash with a mama grizzly, with no head start allowed.

Anyway, I received another one from the alleged 'clearing house'. A rather badly-written one at that, for anyone outside of the DC public school system. So I had some fun widdit. I don't suppose the "real" clearing house will find the humor in what I did; perhaps the scammer(s) will like my rewrite so much, they'll use and re-use it, until someone a tad brighter than the level of education in the DC public school system manages to explain it to them.

But here it is for your reading enjoyment -- with all of the original typos -- with my rewrite worked in around them:

Good day, we are the Publisher Foreclosing (on the) Clearing House (PFotCH), purveyor of sh**loads of unwanted magazine subscriptions, second hand junk, and a totally bogus cash drawing! You know us from our years of annoying TV ads and junk mailings, of course.

Well, with increasing costs associated with TV ads and labor, we couldn't afford to keep running a dubious contest on TV, simply by supporting ourselves and that pricey Prize Patrol on what we managed to milk out of you dumb bastards from magazine subscriptions, you bunch of cheap zipperheads. So here we are online, saving a f**kload of money and pedaling the same brand of crap as ever!

Of course, we operate the same way here, except (a) you don't have to spend hours sorting through one of those f**king mailings, just to find all the sh** you need to lick and stick on an entry form that won't win you anything, and (b) we tell you that you've won something substantive, but will never have to produce it! AND..after we get some money out of you for processing your faux 'winnings', we'll share your email with every f**king scammer this side of Uranus!

Ain't online just awesome?

But forget that last paragraph -- which for us passes as one of those pesky, required-by-law disclaimers -- and just imagine that you've won ONE MILLION US DOLLARS in our PFotCH lotery! Now read this next part carefully, because no educated person wrote it.."winer you are to contrat our fiucary, please not, if you are not the ritefull owner of this email respond to this mail anyway".

With writing like that, we still expect to receive a boatload of entries from DC, Califorlornia, and any place else that dumbed down education is in vogue.

Oh, here is your totally bogus winning numbers: 47-14-34-85-67-32

And here is your totally bogus Email Ticket #: FL 754/22/76

Now, here's who you are to contact to help us f**k you over:

AGENT: James "Constipated" Bowels

EMAIL: pchclaimsdept1@gmail.com

You are require to send the informatons bellow to process you clam:

Full Name:

Address:

Last Time You Had Sex With An Invertebrate Fruit Preserve:

Nationality:

Age:

Occupation:

Phone Number:

Most Insincerely,

Mrs. Mary Cruz

Online Co-ordinator and part time ostrich inseminator

Having shared the re-write with the originating scammer and a couple dozen of his peers, I will be interested to see if any of them try to enter the CONtest. Perhaps the last laugh will be on me, if I see an overpriced TV ad with the Prize Patrol, delivering balloons and an oversized check to someone at the door of a fly-infested internet cafe overseas.

Uh huh.