Are These Scammers Serious?
I have several email accounts as do most people. One I use for online purchases, because I am convinced the email address gets sent out to other lists, and that way I only have one account with a lot of junk in it. Another I use for writing work and I am reluctant to give out this address for any other reason. Still a third I use for friends.
I check the online purchase email sporadically, and lately it has been inundated with lottery winning offers, pleading letters from various nobility in African countries, and stranded “Friends” in foreign countries who have been robbed and need money to leave the country. (And now you know why I keep this email address separate!)
I sometimes open these to read them to have a good laugh and shake my head wondering if anyone is dumb enough to fall for their pitch. If I offended anyone elderly who has been the target of one of these scams, I apologize in advance, but I have always let my suspicious nature rule over my bleeding heart.
I have received emails titled ACCOUNT ALERT from the “account team.” The subject line looks authentic enough, and for some reason, these go to my regular mail rather than junk mail. I open them like the others to get a good laugh. The true return addressee is listed when you open it up, rather than the email server, and in all cases it is someone’s name – which makes it fairly obvious that it is a scam and not really the account team. The email requests my date of birth, social security number, account number, password, and possibly relinquishing my first born to “keep my account active.”
They read like the below, and note the poor use of the English language:
Dear Account Owner
This email is from Windows Live® and we are sending it to you account users for your safety. Due to the anonymous registrations of our account which is causing congestion to our service, so we are shutting down some account and your account was among those to be deleted,so the purpose of this email is for you to verify that you are the owner of this account and you are still using it by filling the information below after clicking on the reply button:
* Username:
* Password:
* Date of Birth:
* Country Or Territory:
Back to me: Pardon me while I pause to giggle some more.
Seriously. As if.
Most of these “notifications” have atrocious writing and horrendous grammar If it wasn’t noticed by someone opening it up and seeing a real name as the sender, then the poor English should be a dead giveaway.
All of these scammers must exchange the texts for each other, because they copy and paste the same poorly written texts. Even someone with a low threshold for suspicion and a high level of cluelessness should take pause from the language butchering alone.
Then there is the friend in distress as quoted below:
I am writing to you with Tears, My family and I came down here to Manila, Philippines for Holiday, Unfortunately we were mugged at the park, All money, credit card and Phones were stolen away from us, luckily for us we still have our passports saved with us. We have been to the consulate but they are not helping at all, Our return flight leaves soon but we are having some financial problems sorting our hotel bills and the hotel manager won’t let us leave until we sort the bills.
We need your help with a loan of ($2,100). or whatever amount you can spare right now, I promise to refund you back as soon as we return back home. Please let me know what you can do so that i can let you know how to get the money to us now.
Regards (A real friend’s name)
I shake my head thinking that anyone would just email back this kind of personal information, but since WC Fields told me that a sucker is born every minute, I sadly suppose that they have gotten people caught in their traps who then had their identities stolen.
But once, just once, I would like to reply to these scammers with a reply of HA HA HA in very large type.
Is there anyone else out there who will admit to reading these just to get a good chuckle?
I get them daily at work. I’ve been left a huge inheritance from a rich man in Egypt whose family disowned him. I won the lottery. I also can get pills for “enlargement” of body parts that I do not have. LOL Lately I get several a day saying someone just did a background check on me. I hate to say it but a few years ago, my oldest, normally very intelligent daughter fell for the scam where they mail you a check for $100,000 and all they ask is for you to deposit it in your account and then write them a check for half of that. The rest was hers to keep. I told her if this was true, I would quit my job that day and so would all the people I work with so that should have told her something. Instead she went to Fifth Third Bank, who told her the check was good and let her deposit it. The check was written from an Aflac account. It took a few weeks and because she wouldn’t send half the money until the check cleared, she started getting harassing calls from a guy in New York. The FBI got involved and it all worked out but I still can’t believe she fell for it. So yes, there’s a sucker born every minute and it appears I gave birth to one.
poor grammar is a red flag, but so is using a wrong name. I got one of these letters once, and for a moment, I thought maybe my friend HAD booked a last minute trip to England, but she”signed” it Andrea, a dead giveaway because my friend ONLY goes by “Andi”