I’d first heard about “spim” (spamming over instant message networks) nearly a year ago, if my hazy recollection is correct, but actual examples of it seemed to be pretty thin on the ground. Last week I actually got one, and the English is so bad that it’s hilarious:

dear friend : we are big trade international company .mainly trade electron goods come from international big company .IBM .samsung .sony NOKIA ,we immediacy order goods from company .therefore the all goods have very cheaper price and good quality .our website […]

This was followed by the website and e-mail address, then by what appeared to be the exact same message in French (I don’t know that the French was as badly mangled as the English, but I’d guess it was). No, I haven’t touched it up for comedic value, it really did come in exactly like that.

I just ignored it and went on with my business. But when I received the exact same message for the third time yesterday, I decided that it’s comedic value was rapidly wearing thin, so I simply switched Skype to known-contacts-only mode. I’ll probably switch it back after a while though, when this particular loser either gives up or is kicked off, because knowing that it’s possible to receive such inadvertently amusing messages really makes life worth living.

(See this page for an update on this topic.)