Those of you who’ve been following this site for a while might remember a post where I mentioned I was receiving another woman’s emails. A woman with the same name, same spelling, and same preference for lackluster email addresses. She lived in Texas.
Do you remember that?
Funny. I didn’t.
You see, last week I received an email from a “Smith, Zach” with the subject line “2019 Battle of the Piney Woods Winner!”
Despite my being fairly confident I didn’t know a Smith, Zach, and have never entered a Piney Woods battle in my life, being a curious person by nature, I opened said email.
Here’s what it said:
Is the image too small to read?
You know, I still haven’t figured out how to do the whole “click to enlarge” thing with images, despite a fellow blogger – Hi Dave! – telling me how, so I’ll type it out for you.
With edits.
You have won the Enter-To-Win Tickets to the 2019 Battle Of The Piney Woods. The game will be held here at NRG Stadium for the 10th year in a row. The game will be on Saturday, October 5th with a 3 p.m. kickoff. It is one of the longest rivalries in Texas with Stephen F. Austin State University taking on Sam Houston State University. You have won 2 tickets to the event! Please let me know if you are still interested in coming.
As soon as I finished reading the email, feeling certain it was a scam, I clicked *delete*.
I judged it delete-worthy based on two things:
- Who names a contest “Enter-To-Win Tickets”? If that’s not a clear indication of a scam, I don’t know what is.
- Rivalry’s.
Really Zach? Really?
Granted, there were other mistakes in the email and I’m sure any qualified English teacher would have caught more than I did. But most of the mistakes can be chalked up to poor typing, or in the case of pm rather than p.m., a matter of preference.
But a misused apostrophe is a travesty. I can find no history to back this up, but I’ll wager wars were started over misused apostrophes.
So you see why I deleted the email, yeah?
It was only the next day that I remembered the errant emails from a few years ago.
Oh no! What if the email was for Texas Christi? She doesn’t know she won! And here she was, probably longing to see one of the longest rivalries in Texas. (Are you paying attention Zach? It’s rivalries!)
I fished the email out of my delete folder, shook off the coffee grounds and checked Zach’s sign off: Lone Star Sports and Entertainment.
But before emailing him back, I did the Google thing. Because, you know, better safe than sorry.
Being the All-Knowing Entity that it is, Google led me straight to their lair.
This was on their About Us page:
ABOUT US
Lone Star Sports & Entertainment is a third-party event marketing company
based in Houston, Texas and affiliated with the Houston Texans
Okay, so now we know Zach Smith is a third-party marketer.
I don’t know about you, but the minute I hear “third-party” anything I get a little nervous. You could be having a casual little chat, not suspecting anything, and suddenly they’ll say, “All you have to do to claim your prize is–” Before you know it, all your personal information is out the window.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe they’re swell guys.
Scrolling down their About Us page, I came across their company “Team Roster”:
And you know what? They look exactly like third-party event marketers. Especially third-party event marketers from Texas.
I decided not to email Zach because… oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was the blue suits and red ties.
Anyway, it didn’t matter much for on Tuesday, Zach contacted me:
I decided to do the honorable thing. After I got home from work, I sent a reply. I explained how he had the wrong Christi. I even suggested he look at the email again. Perhaps there was a letter in between the “i” and the “h”? Perhaps this letter was a small “L” — easy to miss next to an “i” and “h”.
I also told him I lived in Central Minnesota. Not Texas.
Surprisingly, he did not hold this against me. He responded the next morning:
So I expect by now Texas Christi is celebrating. Telling all her friends she scored two tickets for the big game.
Or not. Maybe she entered the “Enter-To-Win” contest just to get a third-party marketer off her back.
Or maybe she was just as offended by Zach’s misused apostrophe as I was.
Yeah. I bet that’s it.
In any case, I now have a friend in the third-party event marketing business in Texas. So if any of you Texas people – Hi Brian! – has an event to plan but can’t be bothered with the details, just call my friend, Zach.
Only don’t ask him to spell.
Feeding on Folly 
This is really funny. I had something similar happen but it turned out NOT to be a scam. I regularly get “job offers” for Shipping Managers or Package Handlers or Logistics Supervisors. They will usually tell you, for 10 hours a week, you can make $5,000 a month working from home in your spare time. They usually talk about you handling either their product or getting the clients payment from the states back to them. So I got what I thought was one of “those” emails. The title was Import/Export Administrative Position. I was busy so did not look at it (almost deleted it) for half a day. But it was from someone with the last name of Dingwell so I couldn’t resist checking it out. Turns out it was a real recruiter from a local agency. I interviewed for the job this past Tuesday. I should know whether I got it within a week. And it really is with the logistics department.
Holy cow, I hope it goes well for you! I would have been suspicious of the email too. Glad you checked it out!
Remember those ads that used to be in newspapers, saying you could make up to $1,000 a week by stuffing envelopes at home. One time I answered the ad because I was burning with curiosity as to what it was. The job: put ads in newspapers telling people they can earn up to $1,000 a week by stuffing envelopes. When they write you for information, you stuff the envelope with instructions on placing ads telling people they can earn up to….
Wow. How do those people sleep at night?
Thanks. Either way, it gives me direction so it’s all good.
As for envelope stuffing, I got those and fell for it once. I felt totally ripped off but smart enough to avoid other pyramid schemes.
Same here! Lesson learned. 🙂
but, in their defense, NRG Stadium is in Huston … they got that part right.
and you found the first polite “third-party-marketer” on the planet!!!
Keep up the good work!
He was probably polite because I gave him yet another email to add to his list. (Gosh, I hope Texas Christi forgives me!)
You have a strong sense of responsibility regarding misdirected emails – I admire it 🙂
Oh! Never thought of it like that before… thanks!
I’m also really bothered by those misused apostrophes. It’s amazing just how many people don’t know when, or how, to use them!
Right?! One time I was in a little gift shop and wanted to use the restroom, but the hand painted sign said Ladie’s room.
I decided I didn’t have to go that badly. 😀
I agree with Candice. The misuse of the apostrophe is a bigger travesty than a potential marketing scam. Maybe Zach works in the LSS&E mail room and wears t-shirt and shorts (instead of a suit and red tie). I will not remember the Battle of the Piney Woods a year from now but I’ll surely remember that misused apostrophe. My inner editor is still smarting.
You too? I did some editing at a small newspaper and man, it just never leaves you.
You’re probably right on Zach’s apparel choices. It explains why his picture wasn’t on the Team Roster!
Uh oh.
I didn’t realise there were so many folks that new the proper use of a apostrofy. Now Im all paranoid about posting…
My God, man, you’re evil.
You know full well I can edit your comment, right? Of course you do.
The question is, can I resist? … Must. Not. Edit. … AUGH!!!
👹 Like fingernails on chalkboard? For what it’s worth, if it wasn’t for Grammarly and Pro Writing Aid I’d be embarrassing myself on a far more regular basis. I have only a moderate comfort zone with grammar and punctuation. And spelling? Forget about it. My ESL wife spells better than I do.
My husband uses those too – they saved our marriage. 😉
Of all the many, many life lessons you have imparted in this post, I am most proud of your acknowledgement that men in Texas sporting blue suits and red ties ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Ever. Something wicked that way dresses….
Right?! Granted, it may be true for continental U.S. in general, but there seems to be a particularly notorious variety of blue suit/red tie wearers hailing from Texas.
Thank you for affirming my supposition. Much appreciated.
You are a lot more courageous then I am, Christi. I am so afraid of scams that I delete anything that looks remotely suspect. Your bravery was rewarded with a good story and another hilarious blog post. For such a professionally dressed management team, you would think Lone Star Sports would proofread their announcements.
The lack of proofreaders does seem odd. As another commenter pointed out, Zach probably doesn’t own a suit. Perhaps he’s a renegade, bypassing the obligatory proof check by Dolores the secretary. 👩🏫