So, while administering the customary "gleaning" of an otherwise monotonous batch of junk mail, I open a message forwarded from POTFP; always a pleasure and a virtual "visitation"... Whatever... The text was, shall we say, casual, bordering on the downright colloquial:

Heya, how are you doing recently ?
I would like to introduce you a very good company which I knew. Their company homepage is www.im-a-low-life-thief.com. They can offer you all kinds of electronical products which you need, such as motorcycles, laptops, mobile phones, digial cameras, TV LCD,xbox, ps3, gps, MP3/4, etc. Please take some time to have a look at it, there must be something you'd like to purchase.
Their contact E-mail: imalowlifethief.com
MSN : www.im-a-low-life-thief.com
Hope you have a good mood in shopping from their company!
Regards.

So, I'm amused as to even visit, immediately directed to the crook's site with a URL ending in .cn, which would be China. Funny, though I've personally never considered a motorcycle an electronical product, and I must concede that I've never ventured further east than, well, the west coast (despite having a first cousin quite renowned in the east), I can't seem to find motorcycles as advertized. But wait. WTF! A Gibson Custom Shop 50th Anniversary Sunburst guitar - listed at $4,999.00 at my local purveyor - only $380!!! AND, Free Shipping if you purchase more than one! POTFP's daughter plays guitar...

As I battle the urge to actually read their "Payment Policy," I Google the "company" to find a flood of identical reports of "Chinese hacking my Gmail account, deleting all my messages, & sending [the same message as shown above] to all my contacts from my 'vacation' setting." Oh, oh... I email my friend, only later to receive the simple response, "I got hacked."

I am reminded of the time my checking account was gutted - an event, I report with some irony, that I discovered immediately upon returning from a visit with my friend and his family - in a series of ATM withdrawals by a thief to my south. The bank turned out to be quite conciliatory, immediately restoring my funds, but making the odd request that I be so kind as to file a police report. Possessing, in fact, an unlikely "association" with law enforcement, I (apparently) naively inquired, "Do you think they'll go looking for them?"

My concluding thought here is two-fold: 1) This has befallen a most-undeserving victim; and 2) If you, perp, are, in fact, in China, live your life ill at ease, sleep with one eye open. Trust me on this...