I received the following AIM message a little while ago:
TMorganDirector: hey i tried to send you a message but this stupid im freezes msg me on my other aim its Qtpiegirl8394 i can talk there easier lol
Curious, I responded back to Qtpiegirl8394. Here’s the transcript:
Kaon: Hi, you IM’d me?
Qtpiegirl8394: hey…
Qtpiegirl8394: hello?
Qtpiegirl8394: i’m sorry, i get forgetful sometimes, who is this again?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Kaon: you sent me an IM under your TMorganDirector name
Qtpiegirl8394: oooh,duhrrr,LOL, great to meet you!
Kaon: whats up
Kaon: yeah!
Qtpiegirl8394: so what are you up to?
Kaon: not much
Qtpiegirl8394: i’m just hanging out doing absolutely nothing today browsing the web…watching tv…relaxing
Qtpiegirl8394: could actually use some company =P
Kaon: how come your computer froze under your other screen name but not this one?
Qtpiegirl8394: well, it’s kinda fun to get to know what people look like live.Do you wanna do a video chat with me?
Qtpiegirl8394: I have a courtesy pass to my private video chat.if you aren’t too busy,it will be fun,k?
Kaon: how do i do that?
Qtpiegirl8394: well i’m pretty sure i have a courtesy pass for you to view would you like that?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Kaon: ?
Kaon: what’s a bot?
Qtpiegirl8394: k hold on let me check and make sure i can find you that pass hun
Qtpiegirl8394: yup! i definately got one for you babe
Qtpiegirl8394: that sound good?
Kaon: yeah!
Qtpiegirl8394: ok babe this is gonna just be me and u
Qtpiegirl8394: go to http://www.qtpiegirl8394.viewmycamshow.com and create a free profile its really easy to signup
Qtpiegirl8394: let me know when you have your username 
Qtpiegirl8394: just put in all your details on this page, the cc or dc is for age verification, i had to do it too to try out the network. it makes sure they keep the kiddies out ok hun?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Qtpiegirl8394: ok let me know when you get your username so i can start the 1 on 1 video chat sweetie
Kaon: are you a bot?
Qtpiegirl8394: k did you get everything filled out?
Qtpiegirl8394: what? i’m definately real i hate fakes
Qtpiegirl8394: are you a bot?
Kaon: you are real?
Qtpiegirl8394: ok on the mainpage,
Qtpiegirl8394: click on live webcams at the top left hand corner
Qtpiegirl8394: i’m as real as they come baby 100% live in the flesh
Qtpiegirl8394: are you still there?
Qtpiegirl8394: why would u ask that?
Kaon: what’s 2 + 2?
Qtpiegirl8394: ok, scroll down to the row of pretty girls and find me. Im on the right, and my name is (babygurl109)
Qtpiegirl8394: See you in chat babe!
Kaon: 2 + 2?
I thought this was pretty well done for several reasons:
- Most of the AIM spam I get is a simple “Hey click here to chat with hot girlz”, which is easy to identify as spam. With this, I got an IM from an official-sounding screenname (TMorganDirector), which asked me to contact another screenname due to technical difficulties. Had it not been for the disparity in screennames (TMorganDirector vs Qtpiegirl8394), it would have been hard to tell this even was spam.
- The bot, which asks me whether I am a bot, seemed to keep track of where we were in the conversation. It starts out with a hello, who is this, and little by little leads me towards the webcam site. Most of the responses are generic enough that they work regardless of what I am actually saying. For example, it said “who is this again?” I said “you sent me an IM” and it said “oh yeah!”, but it probably would have said “oh yeah!” regardless of what I actually said because it knew it had just asked me that question.
- It also analyzed what I was saying because when I asked “are you real?” it responded “i’m as real as they come 100% live in the flesh”. Pretty good.
- The URL that it gave me contains her screen name (good), but then directs me to a generic looking webcam site (you can replace her name in the URL and it still redirects to the same page). They’d probably do a lot better linking me to something that looks like a profile page that contains a picture of a beautiful woman, her screen name (taken from the URL), and a big green “Chat now!” button at the top of the page. They could even embed a video with a girl saying “Hello? Can you hear me?” which would fool a lot of people.
- Another complaint is that it kept responding back to me even when I wasn’t saying anything (such as the “what? I’m definitely real I hate fakes” at the beginning). The whole “i’m sorry i get forgetful who is this again?” is a big red flag too since she allegedly just IM’d me–I wonder why the programmer included that.
Not bad though.
I bet the conversation rates on this method blow the direct-spam rates out of the water. They could do a lot better still with some calculating A/B tests.
Matt Mazur 
Had the same experience. I looked up the message before deciding to reply and I found this post. So knowing that it was spam I tried to make the conversation be different, but no matter what I said it was the same script until the end when I was just saying rude things to try and get it to not want to continue IMing back and in the end it said “am i not pretty enough?” and i said no, so it said “ok then… bye… Im going to start my show now, you can join me by going to [website], k??”
the same thing happened to me but i received the message from my friends screen name. I found the sn to be weird for a guy (sarrasthebest) but i IMed it anywayz, the convo didnt go exactly the same at the beginning but it did when it came to the webcam part. thats when i said bye your blocked…i didnt realize it was a bot at first until now bc it answered my questions precisely. but later on when i asked my friend if he sent me that message he said no what message i copy and pasted the message sent it to him and was immediately kicked offline and not allowed to sign make it…something about the configuration being wrong. so just be careful when IMing these people
Thanks a lot for sharing this with all people you really recognise what you’re speaking about! Bookmarked. Kindly additionally seek advice from my site =). We could have a link exchange contract among us!
I am really loving the theme/design of your site. Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility problems? A handful of my blog audience have complained about my blog not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Chrome. Do you have any tips to help fix this issue?
Yoս havе a genuine talent foг words.