The economics of spam Viagra

last updated 8 January 2015

Three out of four email messages sent today are spam, said Karen Weise in Bloomberg Businessweek, much of it viruses or cash requests from scammers. But some messages are from companies that “sell real goods,” mostly prescription drugs. To better understand the spam business, a team of California researchers tracked billions of spam messages and made more than 200 random buys. They found that “a surprising 91 percent of purchases are ultimately delivered.” More than half of U.S. spam purchases are for knockoff Viagra, which can sell for just $3 per 100 milligrams versus $20.70 retail—though often without any active ingredient. Most spam links come from just a few Russian merchants, who employ customer-service reps to remind previous buyers to refill their drug orders. “They have better customer service than most real businesses,” said one researcher.