Once in a while I get a (often hand-crafted!) spam message in my CPod Inbox.

There are two types:

• "Let's become language partners"
• "I am a good looking girl! Contact me!"
  

But once I received something that I interpreted as a hybrid (athough I am not sure)! It was classic - definately worthy of a DA! I will share it in anomyized form:

Hello, compliment of the season to you, how is life> with you, i hope fine good. how ever i,ll like to introduce my self to you.i am [English girl's name],a healthly and beautiful lady.i am interested in having you as my friend/partner and to exchange language .so if you are interested contact me,i will send you my picture>and> full profile as soon as you contact me immediately.you can contact me with this email address:::::::: [email]. THANK,s Miss [name]

Now what caught my attention was the introduction of being "a healthly and beautiful lady". "Beautiful" might help for language exchange. But "healthy"? "

By the way: Of course I responded in a most delighted manner. As I am currently not in need of a language partner, I invited her to join the 红楼梦-group and help us out there. Too bad she didn't. We could really need some healthy and beautiful native speakers with motivating avatars over there.

Hi Poddies,

There has recently been discussion within the ChinesePod community about the small number of users who come here primarily to learn English, and post language exchange messages on the boards. However, ChinesePod is not the best place for such messages, which are actually considered as spam.
We welcome ALL users who want to participate in the ChinesePod community, to enjoy the bilingual exchange and help improve their own (and others'!) language skills. Indeed, we are very grateful to the local Chinese users who contribute so much to the community in this way.
However, out of respect to our users who pay to learn Chinese here and may have been irritated by such postings, the authors of the spam messages will be advised to participate constructively in the community and pointed in the direction of EnglishPod.com. Spam will be removed from the site.

Thanks for your understanding and we look forward to your participation here at ChinesePod or over at EnglishPod.com!

Today I received this message in my CPod Inbox:

Hello My Dear. My name is Miss Vicky Mohamed, from Liberia I am 24 years,I know this mail will come as a surprise to you. i saw your profile today at () when i was looking for someone that can be a good and trusted friend, so i decided to contact you, and i hope you will be able to assist me in this.Please after reading this mail have pity on me. It is my pleasure communicating with you for the first time and believing that it will lead to a better relationship between us. I have an inheritance that my late father left for me in an international bank out side my country, before the death of my father on march 2006 in a hospital in Monrovia during the last crisis in my country Liberia, when the rebels came to my father and mother in our house and killed both of them, because my father was a politician, but before his death after two days of that attack, He secretly called me on his sick bed side and told me that he has a fund deposited in the bank that is containing (4.8 million dollars) which i am the next of kin as the only child of my parents. I would want to invest it in your country and also to complete my education under your care which i stopped because of the crisis. I want you to stand as my father's business partner in claiming the fund from the bank as i am still under age to claim the money from the bank before it is too late. I am ready to compasate you with 10% of the total sum if only you will assist me to transfer the fund from the bank to your account and assist me also in investing the money in any lucrative business and 5% is set aside for any expences that will arise during the transaction. I will give you more details and forward all vital information as soon as I hear your positive respond,this is my private e-mail address (vicky_mo1@yahoo.com) Best Regards. Vicky

ChinesePod seems to be a nice place to spam around, and CPod seems to do nothing against it, or?

What do you think - should CPod fight back and automatically purge such stuff?

Hi

I've started to receive spam from something called 'Beach Chinese' to the email address I set up for my Chinesepod account. Could someone please explain why this has happened?

Arlo