There are search programs that scan websites, including blogs, looking for keywords.  For instance, somebody who maintains a website devoted to auto racing just might have one of these programs to feed him online articles that he can use for reference or ideas.  Some low-lifes even have a program that automatically generates a “comment” and posts it on the website that is geared to advertise something.  Automatic spam, in other words.  I get this crap all the time, but you never see it because my spam filter screens out most of it and I catch the stray one that gets through once in a while.

Now it turns out that those smelly, ambulance-chasing lawyers are using these “comment” generators to skim through blogs and social networks looking for keywords like “died” or “seriously injured.”  Then it will automatically send a message of condolence, oftentimes using the name of the deceased if it was able to grab it, and finish it up with a friendly suggestion recommending some sleazeball attorney who might help them determine if they have a good claim to sue somebody, anybody, for trillions of dollars.

Social/political blogger Ann Althouse recently had a similar experience and she wrote on her blog:

I just got a comment on an old post of mine — “The mystery of Bob Dylan’s motorcycle crash.” It contained some key words like “very seriously injured” (in the phrase “not very seriously injured”) and “ambulance” (in “no ambulance was called to the scene”) and “died” (in “he would have died if” he hadn’t, after the accident, changed the way he lived).

This morning I discovered the comment — already deleted — from “John” — who sounds like a caring individual: “I feel very sad to know about the cause of Bob Dylan’s death….” Now, the program didn’t quite work the way it was supposed to, because the accident happened long ago, Bob Dylan didn’t die, and, however much I may love Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan is not one of my loved ones. So I’m not the target of the material that follows about the nature of motorcycle accidents and how “it is best to look over your case with a personal injury attorney beforehand to see if you have a strong case for a accident death claim.”

Now that’s funny stuff.  And it partly explains why you no longer see some seedy character strolling through hospital ER’s dropping business cards onto some suffering stooge’s cot.  It also reminded me that it has been a long time now since I’ve gotten one of those emails from somebody offering to write a nice, informative article about how mesothelioma is the firefighter’s worst enemy now.  These despicable people always refer me to a fancy website containing 300 pages of “everything” known about mesothelioma, but they never disclose that they are lawyers.  The website itself will have that information in very tiny print tucked away on a hard-to-reach page.

These people never take a moment to check the search engine on my website for “mesothelioma,” because if they did, they would have found my previous screeds on what I think about them HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Now that I’ve used the “M” word three times on this one posting, I will probaby get a response from some alligator-shoes-lawyer’s bot that is trolling for the word.  If I do, I’ll be sure to let you know, as I always do.

Now let’s get this equipment checked out.  I have to get some more coffee started.  We’ll meet back in the day room later if we haven’t come down sick with some litigious disease.