Pearls before swine . . .

I like that comic strip, the one drawn by Stephan Pastis that features a know-it-all rat and a dim-witted pig. But I think my favorite characters are the woefully incompetent crocodiles. I thought of them when I got one of those phishing emails that purport to be from PayPal. This looks like English, but what were they trying to tell me.

Having provided the constant support and check of your billing data on file with PayPal we managed to discover a little error in it. You can use you card only for the purpose of identification, the charge at will is impossible. This very type of users identification lets PayPal! store a safe place to make a purchase, manage the verification of your account data. Setting up a seller account needs valid debit or credit card and verification of account data. In case of automatic payments the charge of credit card usually lasts 5-7 days after getting the invoice. Confirm the necessary information. Mind that your account can be invalid for non-payers and your responsibility may include costs accepting.

These guys may have a slightly more sophisticated way of using the language than Pastis's crocodiles, but only slightly. After reading what seems a series of non sequiturs, I have no idea what is supposed to be wrong with my account. And yet it occurred to me that this effort, lame as it so obviously is, still probably works on some poor suckers, who will click on the bogus link and fill in their personal information. And so it goes. Some of us think we've got it all figured out, some of us blunder on ineptly attempting to take advantage of those even dimmer than we are, and some of us live in blissful ignorance of the whole complicated mess. There's a lesson in there somewhere.