Category Archives: Fraud

Use this “one weird trick” to rob consumers blind!

Posted on by The Old Wolf

When I’m using my home computers, I never see ads. Ever. Browser add-ons Ad Block Plus and F.B. Purity (available for both Firefox and Chrome)  ensure that affiliate ads are a thing of the past. My Droid is not so fortunate, and this morning I happened across this one:

I smiled wryly because despite its overwhelming appearance everywhere, the “weird trick” (in this case, “sneaky linguistic secret”) meme is still generating millions of dollars from uneducated and unwary consumers.

  1. Check out this article at the Daily Kos about “one weird trick discovered by a mom.”
  2. For more about how affiliate marketing scams work, an excellent read is found at the Washington Post’s “Ubiquitous ‘tiny belly’ online ad” article; I have discussed the Açaí berry scam in detail as well.

Now that that’s out of the way, the “Pimsleur Approach” is a scam. Plain and simple, no ifs, ands, or buts.

  • Be aware: This is NOT the Pimsleur Method, (a legitimate language-learning concern) but rather a marketing scam run by a network of affiliates, some of them known criminals,  who are promoting Pimsleur products.

We’re talking about rampant spamming and deceptive marketing practices; before Comcast filtered them out, I used to get several of their spam mails each week, and the complaints boards are full of unhappy people – just have a look at the WOT (Web of Trust) feedback site for pimlseurapproach.com, or Ripoff Report’s complaint board.

  • Look at the phony endorsements: PBS, Forbes, and the Daily News. I’d bet each of these concerns have mentioned the Pimsleur Method at one point or another, but not this particular company.
  • “Doctor’s Discovery” refers to Paul M. Pimsleur, PhD, whose research focused on understanding the learning process of children, who acquire languages without understanding its formal structure. Pimsleur developed an audio language course method that is actually quite effective in acquiring a basic level of proficiency in a language, but “learn a language in 10 days” would have Dr. Pimsleur spinning in his grave.
  • Have a look at their website:

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Most people sign up for the $9.95 offer without reading the (†) box, which states:

† Pimsleur Rapid Fluency Purchase Program:
One month after you receive your Quick & Simple you’ll begin receiving 30 day trial copies of advanced Pimsleur courses in the language you selected. Each course is yours to try for 30 days. You’ll receive a new course once every 60 days. For each course you keep we’ll bill you in four monthly payments of $64. Remember, there’s never an immediate obligation to buy any course because of the 30-day trial period provided with each shipment. And you may cancel future shipments at any time by calling 1-877-802-5283. See Key Details.

The “Key Details” spell out in greater detail your obligation to receive and be charged $256.00 for each additional course they send you, the first 30 days after you place your initial order, and every 60 days thereafter.

Yes, it’s all there on the website, but cleverly hidden in small, gray type which most people won’t read. The complaints boards are rampant with people being charged recurring fees, difficulty obtaining refunds, rude customer support agents (a hallmark of shady operators who bully unhappy customers), and of course, the unbridled spamming.

Stay far away from this company. I’ll be writing more about the actual Pimsleur Method later, but if you want to check it out, just head for your local library. It’s a good bet they have several of the beginner courses there for you to check out for free and see if you like the method. If you can’t find anything at your branch, go directly to Pimsleur’s site (they are now a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster); they offer a free lesson with each language so you can see how it works. If you decide you like the method, head over to Amazon where you can usually find the courses at a significant discount.

Just don’t have anything to do with this sleazy “Pimsleur Approach” outfit.

This has been a public service announcement from The Old Wolf.

Some Thoughts About Nutritional Supplements

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Even though Mother slipped quietly into the Great Beyond last year at the respected age of 94, she still gets mail from all sorts of places – 99% of them wanting her money. Yesterday our mailbox was graced with a 32-page full color glossy brochure (even had circles and arrows) from an outfit named Biowell, guaranteeing her a restored memory and the mind of a 20-year-old if only she would buy a 6-month supply of MentaFit Ultra at the special price of $269.95.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I happen to believe that nutritional supplementation is an essential part of good health, especially given the Standard American Diet (aptly abbreviated SAD) which is chock full of high-glycemic carbohydrates, fats, and very little actual nutrition which our cells are screaming for.

Unfortunately, the largely unregulated supplement industry is a hotbed of fraud, waste, and abuse, and there are precious few reputable companies out there.

MentaFit Ultra is a good example of the worst kind of nonsense. Let’s look at some of the claims found in this brochure:

  • A study showed that the product restored 70% of memory lost over 5 decades of aging
  • Losing your memory, forgetting things and disorientation are NOT normal, but the signs of an aging mind. The only way to get off this slippery slope is with MentaFit Ultra… the ONLY way to not be jeopardized by your fading mind any longer. However, if you choose to do nothing, you will likely suffer from a poor memory, poor recall, and poor mental energy in ever-increasing amounts as the problem gets worse. (Scare tactics)
  • The product was designed specifically to correct mental decline and is the ONLY treatment to help rejuvenate your mind, so you stay mentally healthy into your 80’s, 90’s, and even longer!
  • Biowell’s B Vitamin Complex (free with the maximum order) will help REVERSE BRAIN SHRINKAGE!
  • Just one single ingredient is so powerful it even helps exhausted ER doctors stay alert all night long!
  • A steel-trap memory can be yours… Call now and let it go to work in your brain, clearing out the rust, restoring sharpness, clarity, order and youthful vitality better than any other formula!
  • Will help you return your mental state back to your 20’s in only ONE HOUR!
  • You can restore up to 70% of your memory loss due to aging!

And on and on. Pages and pages of references to obscure and misinterpreted studies, pictures of doctors, hyped up claims about the individual ingredients (sage, rhodolia rosea, vinpocetine and Vitamin D3), and hype worthy of a used-car salesman. And a bottle of this relatively worthless stuff sells for $49.95, where it probably cost $3.95 to manufacture, all without any guarantee whatsoever of quality. Face it – if things like this worked even a fraction as well as they claimed, every doctor in the world would be prescribing it, and Alzheimer’s disease and dementia would be a thing of the past.

There’s a huge irony in targeting advertising materials like this at the elderly. They are losing mental acuity as the result of natural aging processes, and hence are more susceptible to slick advertising campaigns which promise outlandish results and offer false hopes, for the low low price of whatever. And Biowell is only one of hundreds of outfits out there who are dedicated to only one proposition: extracting money from unwary and vulnerable consumers. In the last 10 years of my mother’s life, I had to deal with dozens of companies who sold her things she didn’t want, didn’t need, couldn’t use, and didn’t understand – and most of it was (to be charitable) camel ejecta.

“Do not resent growing old, it is a privilege denied to many,” said someone wise. Aging is a normal part of life; every time our cells divide, our telomeres get a bit shorter, and thus far science has not found a way to reverse the process. All physical degeneration can be slowed, however, by making sure the body has ample supplies of the elements needed to keep our cells functioning at the top of their game – vitamins, minerals, co-factors and antioxidants – and sadly we don’t get everything we need from our daily diets. Supplementation is a must for optimal health, but there are only a handful of companies out there that manufacture effective products. If you take things like One-A-Day or Centrum, you might as well be swallowing rocks for all the good you’re doing yourself; do your research – look for companies that follow pharmaceutical good manufacturing processes, and whose products are submitted to independent laboratories like NSF, and which exceed industry standards for completeness, bioavailablilty, purity, potency, and safety.

You may be wondering why I haven’t recommended any of these companies by name. It’s simple – I distribute for one of them, and this post is not designed as a guerrilla marketing pitch. But the takeaways here are two:

  1. Protect your elderly loved ones from worthless products and questionable marketing campaigns. Be involved in their lives, and make sure that you are aware what they are spending their hard-earned money on. Telemarketers are ruthless, and mail solicitations are deceptive and misleading – most supplements offered through the mail are worth less than the powder to blow them to Hell with.
  2. Get on some high-quality supplements. What you need won’t be found at your grocery or discount store – do your homework and get informed. Your body will thank you for it.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

WOSML: Wrong on So Many Levels

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Having recently posted about cigarette advertising, some of my readers pointed out that cigarettes were routinely hawked by doctors as being harmless at best, and actually good for you at worst. Here are some of the choicer examples, of which there are hundreds:

Even with all this historical nonsense, my head did a Linda Blair when I saw this picture over at Frog Blog:

I immediately went back to this Dilbert cartoon (click the link for the full-size version):

By the dessicated skull of Mogg’s grandmother – it’s like recommending arsenic to treat the symptoms of poisoning; apparently Dr. Batty (no offense intended to my dear friend in Dubbo) thinks the image of a 7-year-old puffing away on his death sticks would be fine. (“You don’t want to sell me death sticks. You want to go home and rethink your life.”)

Advertisements like this seem impossible in today’s world, but gullibility comes in many different forms. In the olden days, people believed just about anything they saw in print; authority and social validation are still powerful persuasion factors which can elicit the “click-whirr” response in a consumer’s brain. If you’re intersted in how marketers get your money, I recommend reading Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.)

Depending on a person’s level of awareness, however, the concept of “If you see it in the Weekly World News, it must be true” persists.

The parody issue of “The Irrational Inquirer,” published in 1983 by Larry Durocher and Tony Hendra, illustrates perfectly that most thinking people look at the supermarket tabloids with rolling eyes and shaking heads, but there is a segment of the population who buy these rags and actually believe what they contain, simply because it’s in print. “Alien Psychic Boondoggle Cripples Human Scum” is the best headline ever!

Pathetic… yet Americans alone are wasting billions of dollars annualy on bogus cures, nostrums, worthless weight loss products and other remedies, just because they find the information on the Internet.

The number of web pages like this which are out there number in the millions – because there’s money to be made from gullible people. Many of these deceptive ads claim that their products have been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Oz or others (again, using authority and social validation as marketing hooks) – but just like the snake-oil of old, it’s nothing but bald-face lies. For further reading, you might want to check out my previous post about the Açaí Berry.

Don’t get me wrong – there are countless products out there that do a body good – but my beef is with the deceptive marketing practices and false claims, particularly for products or systems (like tobacco) which science has shown to be harmful.

In closing, I recommend the following strategy for anyone who wishes to make wise purchasing decisions:

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Old Phishing Hole

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Thieves want your information and your money. They’ll take it any way they can get it. Eastern Europe is a hotbed of cyber-crime but, sensing the opportunity for profit, other nations are getting into the act, and the same old techniques resurface.

Here’s a typical phishing scam email which landed in my inbox today. Protect yourself, be aware, exercise safe computing, and warn your loved ones. This stands to be repeated often and loudly.

From: service@chase.com<gpwtnf@admin.net>
To: admin@chase.com

Subject: NOTICE ID : DXEUWSPLNT
Dear Chase Bank Customer
It has come to our attention that your Chase Bank account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could please take 5-10 minutes
out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into
any future problems with the online service.
To update your Chase records click on the following link:
http://secureaccess.chase.glchzprjo.%5BLink Obfuscated]-wi.com/chs/chk/index.php?email_login=comcast.net/
Thank you for your patience in this matter.
Sincerely,
Ammy Smith,
Chase Bank Security Departament.
Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
Copyright 2012, CHASE BANK SERVICE, INC. All Rights Reserved.

NICHMOKENLWJJFLDBVSKYXRCHQRWEFILLLKYSO

Right. First off, look at anything that’s green in the email above. These are red flags.

1) Garbage text. Any email that contains strings of junk or random English words strung together is trying to thwart Bayesian spam filtering. It’s a complex algorithgm that is employed by service providers and email clients to try to keep Spam from ever getting to you.

2) Mis-spellings. While human error is possible, most legitimate companies (especially large financial institutions like Chase) are pretty careful about the quality of messages they send out. Bad English, strange punctuation, odd collocations and mis-spellings are all red flags for fraudulent activity (which includes most spam, by the way).

3) Garbage or misdirected links. Just because a web address has the word “Chase” in it doesn’t mean that it’s from Chase. URL’s that contain alphabet soup are to be regarded very suspiciously. Never click on links from an email, especially if the word “money” or “finances” enters into the equation. If you have an account with Wells Fargo, for example, go directly to wellsfargo.com with your browser.

As it turns out, the link above redirects you to this URL:

http://[Link Removed].endoftheinternet.org/chs/chk/index1.php
?source=chase&customer=CrazvSTcCtTvoOIhYiLNI1bplxauXFAqWAQijzkM

(I obfuscated the link to make sure nobody actually clicks on this and goes there.) If you did, what you would see is this:

It looks very, very authentic – except for that garbage URL. In fact, the scammers copied the actual http://chase.com website exactly. If you enter your UserID and password, bingo! You’ve just given Russian cyber-criminals access to all your accounts.

Again: Never click on links inside an email. Always type addresses directly into your browser window to make sure you’re going to the real company’s website.

These particular drones aren’t through with you yet, though. If you enter your information (I put in some really insulting stuff which I can’t repeat here), you’ll be taken to this URL:

http://%5BLink Removed].chaseonline.chase.com.crazvstccttvooihyilni1bplxauxfaqwaqijzkm.
csqifywdn.endoftheinternet.org/chs/chk/email.php

which gives you this page:

So these scumsuckers not only want your financial data, they want access to your email account as well, so they can scam all your friends and send messages from your account.

If you’re aware of these antics, they seem pretty transparent. Unfortunately, a huge percentage of our population is working with computers and the Internet at a “cookbook” level, without any more than a superficial understanding of what they are doing. There’s no judgement around that – it’s great that they’re learning new skills. But if you have loved ones, especially elderly family members who fall into that category, please make sure they are watched over and educated.

Practice Safe Computing

1) Be afraid of any email that includes the words

  • “Verify your account.”
  • “Update your account.”
  • “During regular account maintenance…”
  • “Failure to update your records will result in account suspension.”

or similar things. Legitimate organizations will never ask for your ID or sensitive information by email or telephone

2) Do not click on links inside an email. Always go directly to your financial institution’s website from your browser.

3)Never send sensitive information to anyone in an email. Even if it’s legitimate, emails can be intercepted and read by the bad guys.

Be careful out there, it’s a jungle.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Snake oil: Alive and Well

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Light shined into dark corners will make the cockroaches scurry for cover. Today we’re talking about Ketonic Labs Green Coffee Bean extract.

Executive Summary: This product is a fraud, this product is a scam, and this product is snake oil.

Here’s the spam email I got this morning:

The spam issue

In the first place, I shouldn’t be getting this junk because I’ve never done business with Ketonic Labs, Micronet Tech or Performemmbers.net. That’s the beauty of the toothless CAN-SPAM act passed by our amazing congressmen, it means that anyone “can spam” you by simply offering an unsubscribe link: thank you very little, you gutless cabrones. Comcast does a pretty good job keeping most spam out of my inbox, but image-based ads like this continue to slip through their filters.

The scam issue

Supplements are almost totally unregulated. You can claim that a product will give you wings and allow you to mate with sphinges (that’s plural for sphinx), as long as you tack on this little disclaimer: “These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.” The FDA will, in general, only come after companies whose ad copy actually does claim such things, despite the disclaimer, and they’ll only take the time to prosecute the biggest players because their resources are limited. But from where I sit, the email itself violates all the rules, and the web page is even worse.

Notice the almost-invisble “ADVERTORIAL” at the top of the page. I hate that word, for what it’s worth.

  • Melt away fat
  • Get high-school slim
  • Potent Fat Burner
  • Effective Appetite Suppressant
  • Works Quickly, Proven Results
  • Affordable Prices
  • Tremendous Weight loss results
  • Increase in Focus
  • Energy Throughout the day
  • No Crash

In short, these people, like hundreds of thousands of others, are dazzling you with weasel words and pseudo-scientific horsehockey, and it’s almost a guarantee that enough people in our country will believe it that they can recoup their costs and walk away with a tidy profit before moving on to another fraud. Make no mistake – they know they are shoveling out the barn- just have a look at this great disclaimer at the bottom of the page:

DISCLAIMER
*THIS PAGE RECEIVES COMPENSATION FOR CLICKS ON OR PURCHASE OF PRODUCTS FEATURED ON THIS SITE.
*The story depicted on this site and the person depicted in the story are not real. rather this story is based on the results that some people who have used these products have achieved. The results portrayed in the story and in the comments are illustrative and may not be the results that you achieve with these products. The depictions on this page are fictitious and indicitive [sic] of potential results. Actual results may vary.

Of course, none of this is new. People have been hawking snake oil since the earliest days:

The less educated a population, the more likely you are to be able to sell them anything. You’d think as the availability of information increases, people would become more enlightened, but the general trend in my own experience is downward; mass media caters to the lowest common denominator and good information on the internet is covered with a layer of bovine ejecta worthy of the Augean stables. The older I get, the more cynical I become about sales and marketing in general, and that’s a problem because I have products of my own to sell, and it’s a constant battle to figure out how to carve out market sector without being a douchebag.

With thanks to B. Kliban

Here’s the product label:

So what is Ketonic selling you for $50.00 a bottle? Caffeine, which has long been combined in numerous diet pills and combined with other quack ingredients including PPA, ginseng, green tea extract and countless others. Double-blind, placebo-based trials, however, seem to indicate that caffeine is not effective as a weight-loss aid. But please, don’t confuse us with the facts – where there’s money to be made, the marketers will sell you all they can.

Conclusion

There are some solid principles for losing weight, but as I have said elsewhere, there is no magic bullet. Do yourself a favor and stay away from the snake oil.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Work-at-home Scams

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Received today in my inbox an email from a cousin, with a link to this website: http://worldwide%5Bdash%5Dworkathomeblog.com/job%5Bdash%5Dreport/index.html (I have obfuscated the link so it’s not clickable, but left it intact in case you want to see what’s there.)

My cousin, of course, did not send me this email – her account was hacked.

Would you consider it safe and ethical to deal with a company that advertises in this fashion? No? Well, you’re not alone. Just have a look here and see what kind of tactics this company uses to extract hard-earned cash from the wallets of desperate people.

Red flag No. 2: Try to leave the page or close your browser and this is what you get:

Any website that uses this technique is highly suspect, and I would never do business with any enterprise that employes mousejacking or browser exploits of this nature.

These scams just keep reinventing themselves with different names, on different servers. As soon as the heat gets too intense, they change names, IP addresses, and off they go again. They have no product, benefit only the people who developed the scam, and effectively steal thousands of dollars a day from folks looking for a way out of their financial desperation.

Stay away from them, and warn your loved ones.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Selling it

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Consumer Reports runs a section called “Selling It,” which documents advertised goofs, glitches and gotchas. Years and years ago I came across a bit on a box of Cheerios™ that offered consumers a free T-Shirt. The fine print on the coupon indicated that shipping and handling was only $18.95. This was back in the days before the internet or digital photography, so I wasn’t able to capture or document it, but I was absolutely gobsmacked that  General Mills would have the chutzpah to put something like this on their product, unless it was a failure in their quality control process.

Sadly, when it comes to separating workers from their dollars, some people have neither scruples nor morals. In fact, the following ad sits at the top of my “Advertising Hall of Shame”. It appeared in Parade Magazine, on August 12, 1990 (click for a larger version):

I have never seen a more deceptive, deviously-crafted advert in my entire life. It is designed to make the uneducated or the unaware think they are getting a satellite dish for $5.00 – even though it says multiple times that they’re not. In fact, what the ad says is:

“We’re selling pretty rabbit ears. Throw away yours, and buy ours.”

But here’s the text:

Why Are We offering Our Nationally Advertised
GFX-100 INDOOR TV “DISH'” ANTENNAS
for only $5

  • No cable box necessary–uses “RF” technology to capture signals right out of the air!
  • Brings in every local VHF and UHF channel from 2 to 83!
  • Legal in all 50 states!
  • No wiring or installation!
  • Works like ordinary pair of “rabbit ears”!
  • You pay NO satellite fees because you DON’T use satellite signals!!!
  • You pay NO cable fees because you’re NOT getting cable!!!

ALLOW UP TO 6-8 WEEKS FOR SHIPMENT. FULL 1-YEAR MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE.

GUARANTEED TO FIRST 10,000 WHO RESPOND BEFORE SEPTEMBER 25, 1990
Throw away your old TV rod antenna! The GFX-100 looks like an outdoor satellite “dish,” but works indoors like ordinary “rabbit ears.” No wiring or installation! Legal in all 50 states. You pay NO cable fees because you’re NOT getting cable!!! You pay NO satellite fees because you’re NOT using satellite technology or service!!! Works entirely via proven “RF” technology–actually pulls signals right out of the air. Instantly locks into every local VHF and UHF channel from 2 to 83 to bring you their movies, sports and special events just like an ordinary pair of “rabbit ears.” No cable box or special attachments needed! Enhances color and clarity, helps pull in weak signals. Compatible with all TVs from 3-inch portables to giant 7-footers. Sits on any TV top in less than 4 linear inches of space! Guaranteed not to utilize, replicate, transmit or interfere with any satellite signal. Complies with all applicable federal regulations. Not technical razzle-dazzle but the sheer aesthetic superiority of its elegant parabolic design make the GFX-100 a marketing breakthrough! At this price, put one on every TV in your home! (Sorry, limit 5 per address. No dealers or wholesalers, please!) We reserve right to extend above time and quantity guarantee. Hurry!
© 1990 RBM Ltd., 1200 Shames Drive, Westbury, NY 11590

Almost every sentence in this ad can be interpreted one of two ways. It’s so devious that it’s almost beautiful. I noticed with wry humor that they never answered their own question, but the answer is clear: “Because we want your money.”

I’m curious how many of these units RBM moved, because nine years later, on July 2, 1999, the same ad appeared in the Weekly World News (which goes to show which demographic they were targeting)

Word-for-word the same – only the price has doubled.

Sheesh.

Working a Craigslist Scammer (and his friends)

Posted on by The Old Wolf

If you use Craigslist or other similar bulletin boards to sell goods locally, you need to be acutely aware that there is a whole raft of bottom-feeders out there (usually overseas) who use these vehicles to separate innocent victims from their hard-earned cash. I will occasionally engage these drones, a) to waste their time and money, and b) to see if I can gather any information that might be useful to the authorities.

Executive summary of this post:

  • CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY — AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
  • Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
  • Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
  • More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

Never accept payment by check. Never send money by Western Union. Deal locally only!

Note: Today, 12/18/2013, I received a comment on this post from someone named Devil (very appropriate choice). While I’ve spammed the original, I’ll show it here (redacted a bit for decency) to give you an idea of the mentality of these bottom-dwelling scum-eaters.

SHUT THE **** UP OLD WOLF!!!! **** u.. ***hole. Find yourself another job and allow the fools pay the price..#HATER

Hit you where it hurts, didn’t I, Devil? “Allow the fools to pay the price?” That’s exactly why I post things like this. These criminal drones have no ethics, no morals, no sense of human decency. They steal from their victims and hold them in contempt for their gullibility at the same time. While it’s true that most of the people who fall for these Nigerian 419 advance-fee scams are victims of their own greed, there are many who are in financial distress and who are taken in by the cruel and insensitive lies fed to them by the Lads from Lagos. No, Devil, I’ll continue to do all I can to thwart you and your scamming friends. If I can keep even one person from being taken in by your criminal antics, all the effort will have been worth it.

Be careful out there.

Here’s how the scam works. Take note of this if you’re not aware of it, and let anyone know who might be interested. Education is the best weapon we have to make these scams unprofitable.

1) Here’s an ad I had on Craigslist.

It’s real. Notice the part in color, it’s important – there will be a test later.

Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk – $550 (location redacted)

Date: 2012-08-13, 12:55PM MDT
Reply to: your anonymous craigslist address will appear here

This is a piece to refinish, it’s had a long life and needs restorative work, but would be gorgeous with some TLC.

A similar item recently sold on eBay for $750.00.

Principals only. Cash only sale. No checks, money orders, shipping agents, Western Union money transfers, or anything else a Nigerian scammer may be using this week.

2) Invariably, the first few emails I get simply say, “Still available? -Sent from my iPhone”

3) I respond, and let the writer know that the item is still available.

4) Here comes an email from my buyer:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk
From: Lewis Duke <lewisduke900@gmail.com>
To: (Name Redacted)
Hello,
I really appreciate your response and consider this item sold.Am very
okay with the price and condition as stated in your advert I promise
to give addition $50 if you remove the advert from Craigslist
completely,so I will be rest assured am in hand of this item.
I will pay you as soon as possible with USPS MONEY ORDER OR CERTIFIED
CHECK,so I will be sending the payment to you via FedEx or USPS
courier company and it will be delivered to you.So you need to
provide me the information to facilitate the mailing of the payment as
thus:
Full name on the check…………………………………

Physical address to post the check………………………

City, State and Zip Code……………………………….

Home & Cell Phone to contact you…………………………

NOTE:I would forward all your details to my secretary to make the
payment out to you quickly and the payment will be shipped to your
address via FedEx next day air service or via USPS and i will take
care of the shipment of the item.As soon as you notifies the clearance
of my check,I will inform my shipper to come down to your address and
pick my item.
Thanks and I hope to hear from you as soon as possible.

Regards. Lewis

Notice the guy has totally ignored my warning, posted clearly on the ad, that I only deal locally, in cash, and all the rest. He has offered to send me a check, and wants his “shipper” to pick up the item. They never even read the adverts – somehow they have a scraping system that notifies them of recent posts.

5) I respond thusly:

Dear Mr. Duke,
Name for the check: Wolfington X. Analemma
Address: (Redacted)
Cell Phone: (Redacted)
Just one thing – I won’t be removing the Craigslist ad until the transaction is complete, I have been dealing with Craigslist for a long time, and I have had bad experiences with buyers who did not buy after asking me to take the ad down. I hope you’ll understand.
-W

6) A couple of days go by, and I get this email:

Hello dear seller,
am very sorry for the delayed or inconvenence i might caused
in sending your payment, i lost my cousin on Sunday in a vital
accident, hope my apology is granted,
i have send out the payment to your address,also i will email you the
tracking number asap and the instruction to follow

N:B, please do get back to me you got my message

7) I let him know I will wait for the check

I have received your message, please accept my condolences on the loss of your cousin.
I will watch for the payment.
-W

Of course, he has not lost his cousin or anyone else.

8) Today, I get this in the mail via USPS priority mail:

I loved getting a piece of mail with this name on it.

Inside is a check:

The check looks real. It comes with the stub information and everything, and is obviously printed on a stock check form, but the check is as bogus as a $9.00 bill.

Note that the package was supposedly mailed from San Francisco, but the tracking number indicates that it was actually dropped off in Torrance. Note also that it cost someone $5.15 to mail this.

9) Now I get the following two emails:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk
From: Lewis Duke <lewisduke900@gmail.com>
To: (Name redacted)
Your Tracking Information
Status: DELIVERED
Last Scan: August 15, 2012 11:43 am Delivered
Delivery Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Delivery Time: 11:43 AM
Delivery Location: (redacted)
Carrier: US Postal Service

US Postal Service Tracking Number: (Redacted)

Subject: PAYMENT DELIVERED TODAY, FOLLOW INSTRUCTION BELOW $ GET BACK TO ME ASAP
From: Lewis Duke <lewisduke900@gmail.com>

To: (Name Redacted)
Hello,
Thanks for your endurance for the payment of the item sold, the
payment will delivered to you via USPS with tracking number I had
to spent $10 to the payment with USPS….priority overnight so that
you can quickly receive the payment.
Get the check cash deduct the money for your item sold, plus the $50 i
promised for keeping the item hold ,then the rest fund will be send
via money gram to the shipper, who will come down to your house for
the pick up.
HERE IS THE SHIPPER INFORMATION VIA MONEY GRAM TRANSFER::
Name: William Alvarado
Address: 802 S Virginia Dare Trl
City: Kill Devil Hills
State: NC.
Zip code: 27041
Note: You have to deduct the Money gram charges from the money you
are sending to the shipper and make the money available in a minutes
after you have send it and then get back to me with the
money gram transfer details below as it is appears on the money gram
Receipts
1….Sender’s Name and Address
2…. REFERENCE NUMBER, 8 DIGIT
3….Total Amount Sent After the Money Gram Charges
What’s your schedule regarding pick up as i have some other
properties to be moved alongside the item.

Regards

10) Here’s the rub:
  • The check is bogus
  • Anyone who sends money to one of these scammers will lose all of it, without recourse
  • Cashing a bogus check is grounds for prosecution, and victims have been arrested for attempting to pass fraudulent documents

So, I send the following email back to “Lewis”.

Hello, Lewis.

Yes, I have the check in hand. It’s lovely. I’ve always wanted a souvenir.
So, you read the advert for the item very carefully, and you were satisfied? Perhaps you didn’t read the part at the end where it says, very plainly:

Principals only. Cash only sale. No checks, money orders, shipping agents, Western Union money transfers, or anything else a Nigerian scammer may be using this week.

The fact that you ignored this, combined with your lousy English, was a solid guarantee that you are a criminal, a liar, a thief and a moron. I will keep your worthless check in my “Fraud Prevention” file.
Onioburu, dem no born you reach. Mugu no chop my dollar, chop only black powder from Olumba Olumba Obu, straight to you, not for me. U no fit comot face, just skip along.
I’m glad I wasted your time and money.

No love,
Martins Tanjul

Thus far, no response. Sometimes these scammers get their knickers in a twist and respond with a whole raft full of Nigerian insults, but usually there is no answer to my “game over” message.

Update: Wait, there’s more! Despite my sending Lewis the above email, I get this the next day:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk – $550
From: Lewis Duke <lewisduke900@gmail.com>

To: (redacted)
Hello,

why did you keep silence since you received the payment

from USPS, you are to deduct your money out the money received
if i did not read from you today, i will report to the authority.

HERE IS THE SHIPPER INFORMATION VIA MONEY GRAM TRANSFER::

Name: William Alvarado
Address: 802 S Virginia Dare Trl
City: Kill Devil Hills
State: NC.
Zip code: 27041.
am looking forward to read from you the money gram transfer detail

and the best time for the pick up

I again send him the same letter as above, with some additional “up yours” information. After that, no further response.

As a followup, I notified the following companies and agencies so they would be aware that their name was being used for fraudulent purposes:

  • Liquid Realty Partners
  • Hamilton Health Center, Inc.
  • Fulton Bank

I also contacted

  • The Torrance, California, Police Deparment
  • The Kill Devil Hills, NC Police Department
  • http://www.ic3.gov

Now, how this waste of human cytoplasm has something mailed in Torrance, CA and gets funds picked up in North Carolina is a mystery to me. All I know is he won’t get a red cent out of this transaction, which has cost him time and money.

Summary

On the top of every Craigslist response is the following text:

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY — AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
And that’s solid advice. Yet despite this, people continue to fall for scams like this, or others – including apartment rentals, relationship scams, “grandson in trouble,” and lost pets.
Follow the advice. If you use Craigslist, always deal locally, and face to face. Never send money via Western Union to anyone for anything, unless you initiate the transaction and you know your recipient.
Be careful – it’s crazy out there.
The Old Wolf has spoken.

Update 8-20-2012

Absolutely gobsmacked at the number of scammers that have landed on my Craigslist page for this same item. I’m not sure what sort of network they have, but something out there is being passed around. Whee! More fun for me.

So here’s the next one. After the usual “Is this item still for sale?” (that seems to be the standard opener for all of these bottom-feeders),  I get:

From: “Menia Dykes” <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>
To: (redacted)
Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk
Hello! thanks for getting back to me let’s do like this, actually now
I’m not in town for now, I came to visit my family so i wont be able
to meet with you to see the item but am ok with the price as seen on
the advert. I don’t mind to give you $50 to withdraw the advert for
you to see how serious i am in the transaction, i will contact my
secretary to issuing a Check out to you and when you received the
check I will make arrangement for pick up. So get back to me with
below details to be on the
check asap.
Name:
Address:
City:
State:
Postal Code:
Phone Number:
And as soon as this is provided, the payment will be overnight to you
and i will let you know when its mailed out. I need you to be honest
with the sale as I am a God fearing person.Note you don’t need to
worry about shipping the items for me as soon as you have the check
and have the check cash my shipper will come over for pick up
Thanks

God Bless

Wolfington X. Analemma responds with an address, and get a similar response back:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk
From: Menia Dykes <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>
To: (redacted)
Hello I appreciate your quick response sorry for late respond and am
happy you are selling to me. I got your details and have forward it to my
secretary, payment has been issued out to you and sent to you via
USPS POSTAL SERVICE, I will email you with the tracking number for
confirmation as soon as am provided with it. I will also like to let
you know that shipping company funds was included with your payment
due to i might not be around once the payment arrive to you because
am going to ALABAMA for my honeymoon Once the payment arrive you will
go ahead and have the check cash then you deduct the money for your
item with additional $100 for your Gas and running around then you have
the rest of the money send to my shipper via western union and money
gram then i will contact shipper to get ready to come over for pick up
immediately. LET ME KNOW IF I CAN trust you in this transaction.
Note you are not responsible for shipping as soon as you have the check
and have it cashed my shipper will be coming over for pick up Hope to
hear back from you soon.

Thanks for your understanding

Aside from the noise about a honeymoon, it looks very similar. These people must either copy from or share with each other – the scam is almost identical in nature. I respond:

Thank you for the message, I will keep an eye out for the payment. I look forward to completing this transaction.
-W

Next communication from the scammer:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk
From: Menia Dykes <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>
To: (redacted)
Hello how are you doing i just want to let you know that the payment
had been issued and sent to you via USPS courier service which is
going to arrive to you latest on on friday 3PM once you receive
it let me know so that all the arrangement for pick up can be getting
done immediately i will soon get back to you with the shipper
information and USPS tracking number so you can be able to check

the status of delivery till then stay blessed.

I respond,

Thank you for this notification.
-W

The Scammer has sent me a check.

Notice that her name has now changed from Menia Dykes to Menia Elliott (with an extra “L”). It is almost guaranteed that she does not work at Sultana High School, but it is interesting to note that this package was indeed dropped off in Hesperia, CA according to the USPS tracking number.

I like the “Pay with Valid ID” bit. “Daniel J. Saxt on P.C” and Suntrust Bank have been notified that their identities are being stolen for this scam. So here are a couple more emails from the scammer, first the instructions on how to send her the “overage”.

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk – $550
From: Menia Ellliott <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>
To: (redacted)
Hello how are you doing today i had a confirmed from USPS that the
payment had been delivered to you Here is the tracking number for
you to check the status of the delivery {redacted} As i told
you before that i might not be around when the check arrive due to am
going to ALABAMA for my honeymoon Here is what you need to do. Just
go straight to your bank and cashed the check instantly or you can deposit
it into your bank account it will only take 24hrs for the check to be verify
and the money will be available in your account and as soon as you have
the cash go ahead and deduct your money for the item with additional $50
for your Gas and running around then have the rest of the money send to
mover via western union money transfer so that shipper can be coming
over for pick up immediately. Herae is the shipper information to send the
rest of the money to via western union or money gram transafer.
NAME: Lara Sepanosian
ADDRESS : 4827 Romulus dr
CITY: Glendal
STATE: CA
ZIP CODE: 91205
Shipper have ready to come to your location anytime from now She informed me
that the only thing holding her up is the shipping funds. so immediately you
have the money send to shipper i will require the following information on the
western union transfer receipt such as……..
1: Sender’s name and address used in sending the money
2: The MTCN number which is the 10 digits number on the western union receipt
3: Actual amount sent.after western union charging
4: date and time you want shipper to come over for pick up
Note. email me your map quest for shipper to locate to place with the best
time you want the shipper to come over for the pick up today cos i do
still have some other items at another location with shipper need to pick up for
me that is why you need to send all the rest of the money to my shipper for
shipper to proceed on is work immediately **Please note that youwill be paying
whatever the western union charges to send the money from the excess fund
before sending the rest to shipper thanks for your understanding hope to hear
back from you soon.

God bless you

Interestingly enough, there is a Lara Sepanosian in Glendale, CA – but Western Union doesn’t require ID for pickup, as far as I know – all you have to do is provide a name and a control number to pick up funds. Later the same day I get this – she’s really anxious to get her money, isn’t she?

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk – $550
From: Menia Ellliott <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>

To: (redacted)
Hello how are you doing what is going on? i was wondering why you keep
silent since the payment had been delivered to you i will like you to
get back to me with the western union details that you use to send the
rest of the money to my shipper for me to contact shipper to get ready
for pick up immediately i will also like you to email me your map
quest for shipper to locate you with the best date and time that you
want shipper to come over for pick up. Hope to hear back from you
soon..
Your Tracking Information

Status: DELIVERED

Last Scan: August 17, 2012 11:52 am Delivered
Delivery Date: Friday, August 17, 2012
Delivery Time: 11:52 AM
Delivery Location: (redacted)
Carrier: US Postal Service
US Postal Service Tracking Number: (redacted)

Notice the “keep silent” is very similar to the “keep silence” used by Lewis Dukes in the first scam above. An American would say “I’m wondering why I have not heard from you” or something similar. As it happens, it’s the weekend, so I respond:

Menia, the parcel is probably in my mailbox, which is a long way away. I usually pick up my mail in the evening. When I see if the payment is there, I will get back to you.
-W

and later that evening,

OK, I have the check in hand. Tomorrow is Saturday, banks are closed until Monday so I won’t be able to cash the check until then. When the bank has cashed the check I will send you the rest of the information you asked for.
-W

The scammer writes back:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk – $550
From: Menia Ellliott <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>

To: (redacted)
Thanks for the updating i will contact shipper to wait till monday
then as soon as you have the check cash on monday go ahead and deduct
$550 for your item then deduct additional $100 for your gas and
running around making $650 Then have the rest of the money send to
shipper via western union and get back to me with the western union
details for me to contact shipper to get ready for pick up immediately

Hope to hear back from you soon

Today is Monday, but I’m not going to respond at all until I get her frantic “Where is my money” email. In a previous post, I tweak a scammer who is obviously in Africa, and get him to go to Western Union five times in an attempt to collect money. I could do that again, but I really don’t have the time. I’m just interested in collecting enough information from these people to see if I can identify a pattern in where they are working.

More as it becomes available. For what it’s worth, I now have several other scammers promising to send me money:

  1. “Tim” or “Ben Carson” (ben.carson103@gmail.com)
  2. Natasha William (natasha.william9211@gmail.com)
  3. Kristal Beauchamp (michael.frank03@gmail.com)
  4. And just today, “Chloe Burton” (chloeburton61@gmail.com) has inquired about three of my items for sale. It will be interesting to see how that one turns out.

Update: 8-23-2012

Here’s Menia’s “Where is my money” letter:

Subject: Re: Solid Hardwood Antique Secretary’s Desk – $550
From: Menia Ellliott <pherrysmith02@gmail.com>

To: (Redacted)
Hello how are you doing i was wondering why you keep silent since
monday you promise to get back to me i have been awaiting for the
western union details that you use to send the rest of the money to my
shipper for me to contact shipper to get ready for pick up immediately

Hope to hear back from you soon

And here’s what I wrote her back:
Menia,I took the check to my bank and they looked at the name on it:
DANIEL J. SAXT ON P.C
They are telling me a certified check should never have typographical errors on it, and they think this check might be faked. Can you explain this?
I don’t want to proceed until I know these funds are valid.
Please get back to me at once because I have several other people interested in my item.
-W

I’ll be curious to see if I get a response on this one, or if the scammer will assume he’s been outed and just fade away. As of 8/29, “Menia” has not responded – but it looks like he actually got lucky with someone else, which is a shame.

Also:

Another scammer takes the bait. I’ll not report the entire email exchange, but here’s the essential marrow:

This one was posted from Memphis, TN.

The Priority envelope supposedly came from John Sharon at the University of Memphis:

and the Western Union transfer is supposed to go to:

Rachel Fowler
8382 brooks road
Memphis TN 38116
According to Google Maps, Rachel lives in the middle of a container storage lot, but oh well – I guess the economy is not all that great for scammers. Seriously, though – every piece of data these drones use is falsified, but I noticed one very interesting thing about this check:
The signature above is from the check from “Krystal Beauchamp,” (Memphis, TN); the one on the bottom from the check sent me by “Menia Elliott (Glendal,e CA). Identical. Are we dealing with a ring of connected people here? Do they swap information and files among themselves?
Impossible to tell. I only wish that the FBI would consider investigating these drones and getting them off the streets – I’m willing to bet they’re taking a lot of people for a lot of money, and very little of it ends up in a centralized database anywhere.
Update 8/29/2012
Another one bites the dust:
The printing on this one is abominable – I’m not sure who would think this is a valid check. Sent by scammer “Ben Carson,” package mailed from Los Angeles, with a supposed “shipper” at
Samara Olivo
804 Hampton Drive.
Sacramento, CA 94203
This address is just totally bogus.
According to FedEx, I should have another one coming tomorrow from “Natasha William.”

The Old Wolf keeps on speaking.

Açaí, a Sigh, Assai! – The Great Weight Loss Scam

Posted on by The Old Wolf

(Cross-posted from my LiveJournal)

If you haven’t heard about the “Açaí Berry / Colon Cleanse” diet rage, you’re either a luddite or have been living in a cave somewhere.

  

It astonishes and saddens me that people in the 21st century continue cheerfuly sending money to scammers in the hopes of getting something for nothing, or losing weight without effort.

Enough, already. This particular scam, which has flooded infomercials, targeted advertising and AdSense slots, and promoted (like just about every other fraud, as having been seen on Oprah, MSNBC, and the Dark Side of the Moon), is

a) unadulterated horse-hockey that redlines the BS-meter, and
b) potentially harmful to your health.

So here are a few facts.

1) People want your money, they don’t care about your health, and you are being lied to. The outright dishonesty with which this “miracle diet” is promoted should be enough of a red flag to send anyone with half a brain screaming in the opposite direction. Want some examples? Check out the açai scams update at Waffles At Noon. The deception goes many, many layers deep. Look up “açai berry scams”, and most of the links either take you to more product websites, or fraudulent E-zine articles or “blogs” which look like “unbiased” reviews. The depth and breadth of advertising fraud is absolutely heart-stopping, and it’s “all about the Benjamins, baby.”

2) There is nothing special about the açaí berry. Antioxidants are good. Virtually thousands of randomized, double-blind, placebo-based studies published in JAMA, Lancet and other mainstream medical journals show that free-radical scavengers help improve overall health. Fruits are full of antioxidants. The açaí berry is a fruit. Just like strawberries, kiwis, oranges, grapefruits, pomegranates, mangosteens, ningxia wolfberries, and you name it. When consumed as part of a balanced diet, they’re all good for you. But there is nothing “miraculous” about this or any other fruit.

3) Colon cleansing is unnecessary and potentially harmful. Your colon is an amazing apparatus. With the exception of abnormal medical conditions such as fecal impaction due to longstanding constipation, or intestinal torsion, your colon cleanses itself efficiently and regularly. If you do a colon cleanse, you’re likely to lose a few pounds as the result of clearing out two days worth of food in your system, but as soon as you start eating again, it will come right back. Colon cleansing on a regular basis can disrupt the natural intestinal flora, and impair the colon’s natural ability to regenerate its lining. A diet rich in soluble and insoluble fibers is all your body needs to keep your colon happy, and doing what it does best – absorbing nutrients and expelling wastes.

4) Detoxification is something your body does all by itself. There are three ways the body handles toxins. It can store them, neutralize them, or excrete them. Adequate fiber in the diet increases the motility of the bowel, reducing transit time and thereby decreasing the amount of time any potential toxins are present in the colon, thus reducing reabsorption. An adequate supply of vitamins, minerals and co-factors in the diet ensure that the liver is given all the tools it needs either to convert toxins into harmless compounds, or conjugate them with other molecules, rendering them less toxic, and eject them along with the bile.

So if you’re interested in releasing weight, what can you do?

Eat less, eat better, and exercise more. There, I’ve just saved you hundreds of dollars. There really is no other answer to sustained weight release.

A few pointers:

Eating is fun. We like to eat tasty, appetizing and satisfying foods. And you can, and still lose weight. One of my favorite books (with which I have no affiliation or financial interest) is Picture Perfect Weight Loss. While I don’t necessarily recommend this specific program above certain others, if you want an eye-popping look at really yummy, healthy eating alternatives, this is a good book to keep around. It will get you thinking along the right lines.

Low-glycemic eating makes sense. Low-Carb diets are bad for you. Carbohydrates are your body’s primary energy source, and robbing your body of carbs makes it turn to secondary sources of energy which can have deleterious effects on your overall health. However, as a nation we are addicted to high-density carbs which have the effect of rocketing our blood sugar into the stratosphere. When this happens, a chain-reaction of events takes place:

a) Your body releases insulin to bring the blood sugar down to normal.
b) Because this is a “red alert” reaction, blood sugar levels tend to fall below healthy levels.
c) In response to this, your body releases a cascade of hormones to promote conversion of fat into glucose, and also stimulate your appetite.
d) You typically reach for something quick, unhealthy and satisfying – and the cycle starts all over again.

Thus we find ourselves in a constant blood sugar loop of spike and crash, spike and crash – and as we do so, our insulin levels become elevated over time. Since insulin is your body’s primary fat-storage hormone, hyperinsulinemia is effectively telling your body to store fat no matter what else you do. This is the main reason people fail at weight loss: they are carb-addicted and can’t break the sugar-spiking cycle.

Your body does best when blood-sugar levels are kept in a very narrow band just above your fasting glucose baseline. To do this, choose foods that have a glycemic index below 55, and a glycemic load below 10, and eat smaller, more frequent meals. In addition to all the physical benefits of not spiking your blood sugar, such as reducing the arterial aging rate, it helps you stay satisfied and functions as a defense against binge eating.

Get Social Help If you want a commercial plan to help you along, I recommend Weight Watchers. (Again, I have no financial interest here.) I say this because their rates are reasonable, you don’t have to buy special foods, and because their plans (point-based or an essentially low-glycemic list of core foods) give you the flexibility you need to enjoy life and still be successful.

Exercise. Just do it. 5 times a week. Get off your duff and move, getting your heart rate up for 20 minutes at the very least, and your body will thank you for it.

Get adequate vitamin support. I’m not going to tell you what to take, because I happen to promote a specific solution and I’m trying to keep this unbiased. What I will tell you is that out of thousands of products on the market, there are only about 4 or 5 companies who provide an adequate balance of vitamins, minerals and co-factors for optimal health, and almost none of them are found on grocery-store shelves. Do your research. For a number of reasons, this is a critcal part of a good weight-release plan.

Drink plenty of water. Your liver is essential in weight-release. If you get dehydrated, your kidneys don’t function as well, and shift some of the detoxification process over to your liver, which is then less able to perform its fat-burning functions. 8 oz of water, 8 times a day is baseline, with an added 8 oz. per day for every 25 lbs of extra weight you are carrying.

As a nation, we’re obsessed with weight loss, because 30% of us are morbidly obese, and 65% of us are overweight. That means that the sleazeballs will come crawling out of the woodwork to sell you anything you’ll buy.

Do yourself a huge favor, and stay away from it all. There is no magic bullet.

Use Strong Passwords!

Posted on by The Old Wolf

The incidence of email hijacking is on the rise – spammers have discovered that many email accounts are child’s play to get into. Once done, the victim’s entire address book is scarfed up and used to send out spam, phishing solicitations or malware.

First of all, I hope these wastes of human cytoplasm find themselves buried beneath 7 kilometers of burning camel ejecta in Bolgia 11 of the Eighth Circle of Hell (also called Malebolge, reserved for those who perpetrate fraud.) Students of Dante will remind me that there are only 10 Bolgias. I just created a new one for cybercriminals, so there.

Now that I have that off my chest…

Use strong passwords!

Eset.com published a list of the 25 most common passwords, which I reproduce below:

  1. password
  2. 123456
  3. 12345678
  4. 1234
  5. qwerty
  6. 12345
  7. dragon
  8. pussy
  9. baseball
  10. football
  11. letmein
  12. monkey
  13. 696969
  14. abc123
  15. mustang
  16. michael
  17. shadow
  18. master
  19. jennifer
  20. 111111
  21. 2000
  22. jordan
  23. superman
  24. harley
  25. 1234567

I won’t go into a Freudian analysis of this list, although that topic would be rife with opportunities for sarcasm; however, each of these passwords would be cracked instantly by the average scammer.

Simply adding a few numbers or special characters changes the landscape radically; below is a table of variations on “password”, along with the time required for the average desktop PC to crack it1:

password instantly
password1234 37 years
Password1234 25,000 years
password 1234 333,000 years
Password!1234 26 million years
 Password 1234 51 million years
P@ssword 1234  465 million years
 This Password Is Mine  5 sextillion years

So here are some simple rules about creating passwords that you can use to keep your private accounts safe from hackers:

  • Never use a dictionary word
  • Capital letters are good
  • Special characters are good2.
  • Combinations of capital letters are even better
  • Adding spaces is best of all (see footnote). A sequence of random words, such as “wolf aardvark tapioca wellsfargo” would take 633 decillion years to crack (that’s 633,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.)

So use some common sense with passwords. Try the most secure option within the limitations of whatever website or application you are using, and you’ll most likely be safe from even the most determined of hackers.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Edit: Related article – 10,000 Top Passwords

1 These figures are calculated over at “How Secure is my Password“. Check it out – it will tell you instantly how strong your password is.
2 If allowed – some system administrators – even financial institutions, if you can believe it – only allow letters and numbers, which insanity irritates me beyond measure.