Today I’ve had 17 emails [Edit: over 100!] with basically the same solicitation appear in my inbox. And they are still coming. Sorted by section, here’s what they look like:
[TL;DR: If you get one of these, don’t respond. They will send you a link to your “personal account page” which contains a trojan, probably ransomware.]
Email Title:
It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Kenneth Jackson D id vvne6 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Paul Green V id sikb2 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Jason Perez Y id kdfl5 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Jason Perez Y id kdfl5 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager James Walker L id aezi2 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Christopher Garcia Q id icte9 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager John Nelson Q id yyaa9 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager George Miller Y id wlvj1 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager James Moore M id apja5 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Paul Perez H id yflf5 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Kevin Davis P id rllh4 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Jason Scott B id vair6 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Charles Martinez C id pffv3 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Kenneth Clark T id yzhe7 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Brian Rodriguez V id kmni9 It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Manager Richard Lee S id klhi8
Good afternoon program client id kfet6114b Greetings program client by number ejzc8095h Hello member id xnzn4252w Greetings partner by number zdar4054i Hello program client by number xoyl4179p Hello user id zhim7333n Hello member id biex4965z Greetings user No. xedp9085j Greetings member id zvme5736c Greetings member No. pezx1857k Greetings program client No. dodp1543s Hello program client id lquy5745m Hello partner by number lluy7602m Good afternoon program client by number jirz1269g Greetings user by number opsu7619t Greetings user No. epxl6557y
Email Body:
Yours Registered Check / Registered Account / Registered Main / Registered Invoice will be closed in 12:42:32 hours [or some other time]. Balance of your invoices 38,469.49 [or some other number]. Please contact us via return email and we will provide you with help for withdrawal savings / receipt savings. If you would like to keep your account active, please contact us in a return email.
Signature:
Support Thomas Johnson W Sincerely, the assistant Michael Carter N Sincerely, the assistant Donald Anderson P Sincerely, the assistant George Miller T Helper Kevin Rodriguez S Sincerely, the assistant Steven Allen X Sincerely, the assistant George Evans J Helper Charles Baker S Helper Ronald Thompson R Assistant Kenneth Williams L Helper Thomas Hall T Assistant Richard Phillips D Support Christopher Martin F Assistant Steven Evans J Support Mark Williams S Support Daniel Clark M
I responded with “Please tell me what this is about?” The return email was:
I tried two different times, and got the same result each time:
Visiting this website would probably have loaded drive-by malware onto my computer, most likely ransomware.
Edit: Today’s crop of spam:
Some of these have included the following crudely-crafted attachment:
Be very cautious about emails like this. Protect your loved ones by educating them about safe computing practices. Make sure all your computers have robust anti-virus progams on them; the number of scumbags out there is increasing daily.
It was the ’60s. I recall my mother sitting at the kitchen table typing out a letter with carbon paper, making multiple copies of something. I remember the words “chain letter,” I never read it, and I don’t know if any money exchanged hands – typical of the so-called “gifting scams – but the point is that these things have been around for a long time.
Back then it was all done by the US Post Office. Then came the advent of the fax machine, and along with the ubiquitous “Nigerian Prince” con, chain letters continued to enjoy popularity.
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson invented and developed electronic mail by creating ARPANET’s networked email system, and by 1976 a full 75% of ARPANET’s traffic was electronic mail. This invention, so useful and so fraught with complications (think Spam), allowed chain mail to come into its full glory.
Now, there are many kinds of chain letters, but the idea of all of them is self-propagation. They are, in a sense, viruses that replicate by the good graces of the receiver and are usually propagated based on the inculcation of guilt. They serve no purpose other than to stroke the ego of some twit who wants attention, and waste internet bandwidth and storage space.
Fully 21 years ago, a valued colleague (thanks, Stephanie) sent me this great send-up of chain letters (by email, of course) and I’ve had it in my files ever since. And it is not lost on me that the fact that I’m sharing it here makes it a chain letter of sorts.
Chain Letter Type 1: The Scroll Down
Make a wish!!!
Really, go on and make one!!!
Oh please… that person will never go out with YOU!!!
Wish something else!!!
Not that, you moron!!!
Something else! Quick!!!
Is your finger getting tired yet?
STOP!!!!
Wasn’t that fun? Hope you made a great wish.
Now, to make you feel guilty, here’s what I’ll do. First of all, if you don’t send this to 5,096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be attacked by a mad goat and then thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. it’s true! Because, you know, THIS letter isn’t like all of those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!!
Really!!! Here’s how it goes:
• Send this to 1 person: One person will be mad at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
• Send this to 2- 5 people: 2-5 people will be mad at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
• 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be mad at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
• 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be mad at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
• 20 to 674,951 people: 20 to 674,951 people will be mad at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!
Chain Letter Type 2: Starving Little Boy
Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy’s life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund. Remember, we have no way of counting letters sent and this is all bull. So go on, reach out, Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly.
Thanks again!!
Chain Letter Type 3: The Horror Story
Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many little 8 year olds writing chain letters.
So this is how it works. Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:
Stupid Horror Story #1: Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!!
Stupid Horror Story #2: Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his girlfriend. They both died. Their families were so upset that everyone related to them (even by marriage) went crazy and spent the rest of their miserable lives in an institution. This Could Happen To You!!!
Remember, you could end up like Pinsley and Bip did. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be OK.
Chain Letter Type 4: Meaningless Poem
As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of your friends.
Friends A friend is someone who is always at your side, A friend is someone who likes you even though you smell like poop, A friend is someone who likes you even though you’re disgustingly ugly, A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you’ve thrown up on yourself, A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your loser life, A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be attacked by a mad goat and then thrown in a pile of manure, A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet and vacuums and then gets the check and leaves and doesn’t speak much English… no, sorry that’s the cleaning lady, A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true. Now pass this on! If you don’t, you’ll be eaten by wild goats.
Chain Letter Type 5: Microsoft or Disney
This e mail is wicked cool! It was started by Microsoft to test it’s e mail tracking system because, you know, a big high tech company like Microsoft always sends important new software out over the internet to be available to any moron who can operate a computer, right? Plus, they have formed a secret merger with Disney Corp., who has agreed to give up millions of dollars in revenue by giving everyone who reads this e mail, passes it on, looks at it, knows someone that looked at it, or is related to someone who is a friend of someone who looks at it A FREE, ALL EXPENSES PAID TRIP to Disneyland, Disney World, or Euro Disney! So pass this on to everyone you know that is gullible enough to believe this (or not)!
Even if it’s not true, hey insulting all of your friends by implying that they are gullible by sending this to them is worth the improbable chance that you could go to Disneyland! Even if you lose all of your friends because they are tired of receiving this kind of junk from you, it’s worth the chance, right?
And just for good measure, if you don’t send this on, Microsoft will send its specially trained attack goats to pilfer your house and eat all of your family, SO SEND IT ON!!!!!
Chain Letter Type 6: Virus Warning
VIRUS WARNING!!! If you receive an email entitled “Badtimes” delete it immediately.
Do not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer.
It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards.
It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD’s you attempt to play.
It will re-calibrate your refrigerator’s coolness settings so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles.
It will program your phone AutoDial to call only your mother-in-law’s number.
So be careful! Forward this to all of your friends, relatives, neighbors, family, enemies, plumbers, garbage men, stock brokers, doctors, and any other acquaintances! It’s for their own good! Thank you.
Chain Letter Type 7: Meaningless Picture
Here is a cute picture I drew.
It is a decapitated angel. Send it on to all of your friends so it will brighten their day like it did yours! If you don’t, demon possessed goats will move into your house and eat all of your socks, leading you to believe that something is wrong with your washing machine because all of your socks keep disappearing.
Have a nice day!!!
Remember, the moral of the story is, if you get a chain letter, ignore the stupid thing. [Edit for 2020: Especially if it involves sending money or sensitive information to someone you don’t know!]
If it’s a joke or something, send it, sure, but if it’s gonna make people feel guilty (i.e. the goatless boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen) or nervous (i.e. Miranda Pinsley who ended up in a waterfall of turds) just delete it.
Do yourself a favor, and everyone else in the world, and say, “DEATH TO CHAIN LETTERS!”
Except this one of course. This one must be sent on to 4,170 people in the next 15 seconds or you’ll be eaten by wild goats.
People have hated chain mail since its inception:
Takk til Nemi.no
On the other hand, there is an entire subreddit dedicated to the kind of mindless trash that fills your inbox or WhatsApp or Messenger, r/forwardsfromgrandma. To this day there are people in my circles who send me the most idiotic things – political screeds, conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific garbage, or random bits of inane humor – despite my begging them to stop. There’s no getting through to these people. So many of these things could be easily put to bed with a 10-second Google search, but they can’t be bothered.
I can’t count the number of times I have been warned about a program that will “open an olympic torch that will burn the entire hard disc C” of my computer.
Oh no! There it is! My computer is ruined!
For some reason, many people seem resistant to education, so there’s probably no way to stop the flood of self-replicating messages on Facebook and other platforms. But over time I’ve learned a couple of discernable red flags that something you’re being sent is bogus:
If the message exhorts you to “send this to everyone you know” … just don’t.
If the message says “Snopes confirms this is true!” the odds are that it is completely bogus. Don’t forward it, trash it. A quick Google search is usually sufficient to confirm that the message is a self-replicating hoax.
If the information you’re being sent and asked to share outrages you, check it. Many people forward things that make them angry, thinking that they are doing something to mitigate a problem. In most cases, the information being spread is completely false, taken out of context, or badly misrepresented.
If you want to be metal AF, you could respond with something like this, but in today’s environment you had better be able to read your audience or your next visit might be from the FBI.
Knowing humanity, this kind of thing will probably never disappear entirely, but continuing education will serve to reduce the flood to a manageable level.
Share this blog post with everyone you know. ¹
The Old Wolf has spoken.
¹ That’s a joke, people. Of course I like increased engagement, but you’re not obliged to share anything you read here with anyone, unless you really think it has value.
Received in my spam folder just today, but I’m astonished that the stupid and the criminal are still trying these tired old campaigns, hoping to ensnare the foolish or the desperate. Be careful out there.
The bad English [as soonest as you contacts her] is a dead giveaway. Talking about money (that doesn’t exist) is a dead giveaway. Never respond to solicitations like this. There is no “Chashier’s Cheque” waiting for you. Ever.
Av.Bernardino Caballero.
Casi Piribebuy Bo San Pablo .
Presidente Franco.
Tel: 00595-61-572263
Fax: 00595-61-574599.
PARAGUAY.
Dear Good Friend,
How are you doing today, I hope you haven’t forgotten me? I am Dr. Youssef Bakary, the former manager at the Bank of Africa (B.O.A) Bank in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso over there in West Africa, who has contacted you some time ago to assist me in order to secure the release of a deceased customer’s fund into your bank account.
Though, you weren’t able to assist me up to the conclusion stage in that transaction by then, I am very much happy to inform you about my success in getting the fund transferred under the assistance and co-operation of a new partner from Paraguay.
Presently, I am in Paraguay for investment projects with my share of the total sum.
Meanwhile, I didn’t forget your past efforts, and attempts to assist me on the transferring of the fund, and I makes sure that you aren’t left behind or out from the benefits of the transaction. Hence, I have kept aside for you the total sum of: $1,675,000.00 (One Million Six hundred, and seventy-five thousand, Usa-dollars) in the ‘CHASHIER’S CHEQUE’.
My new partner and I have agreed to compensate you with that above said amount for all your past efforts and attempt to assist me in that past successful matters. I have appreciated your kind efforts at that time very much, so feel very free to contact the bank’s secretary via her below email address, and the name of the secretary of the (B.O.A) is MRS. CAROLINA ILBOUDOU.
And make sure that you instructed her on how to send the ‘CHASHIER’S CHEQUE’ to you, and please do let me know immediately you receives the ‘CHASHIER’S CHEQUE’ so that we can share the joy together after all the stress at the past times.
At the moment, am very busy here in Paraguay because of the investment projects of which my partner and I were having at hands presently, and finally remember that I had left an instruction to the secretary of the (B.O.A) MRS. CAROLINA ILBOUDOU.
Therefore, as soonest as you contacts her for the said ‘CHASHIER’S CHEQUE’ to be sent to you, she will surely send the ‘CHASHIER’S CHEQUE’ to you. Below is the contact of the secretary of the (B.O.A) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso over there in West Africa .
Contact this below person immediately for your cheque:-
MRS. CAROLINA ILBOUDOU.
Secretary of the (B.O.A),
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Email Address: (caro.ilboudouu@outlook.fr )
Yours good friend,
Dr. Youssef Bakary.
Edit 7/18/2017 – I thought I’d tweak these cretins a bit.
I responded in my usual manner:
Dem no born u reach, onioburu. U no fit comot face, just skip along. Mugu no chop my dollar, chop only black powder and death from Olumba Olumba Obu.
If you’re not up on Nigerian pidgin, this says, in effect, “Don’t even think about it, you gong-farmer. You’re not worthy of showing up in public, away with you. You fool, you won’t get my money – you’ll only get cursed by Olumba Olumba Obu.” (Obu was the founder of The Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (BCS), a religious organisation in Nigeria. Obu was believed to have miraculous powers.)
And hilariously, I got a response – clearly the scammers don’t even bother to read any return messages they receive.
Attention:
Thank you for your prompt mail been received by me, and also as you have contacted me for your confirmable bank Cheque of $1.675,000.00 United States dollars only. I was in our bank’s reconciliation department with the Cheque to confirm if the Cheque has expired or getting near to the date of expiration, and Mrs. Mary Ouattara, the directress of the reconciliation department of our bank here told me that before the Cheque will get to your hand that it will expire as I don’t actually know the exact day and when you will contact me for your confirmable bank Cheque, because it has been more than two weeks which your partner left the Cheque with me.
Therefore, I quickly told Mrs. Mary Ouattara, the directress of the reconciliation department of our bank to cash the $1.675,000.00 united states dollars, and she has converted it into a cash payment since one week now and this is to avoid losing this fund under expiration of the Cheque as your ex-partner who dropped the Cheque has travelled for business trip, and might not return back here again as he said, and according to my personal decision, I decided to send the cash payment to you through dhl courier company in a consignment packaged as an African Clothes box because I cannot keep those funds with me to avoid any suspicious from my Bank.
What you have to do right now is to contact the dhl courier company as soon as possible to know when they will deliver your consignment to you, but make sure you did not disclose the content to dhl because I told dhl that the content is African Clothes.
You have to quickly contact the dhl courier company with your home address and telephone number for the delivery of your consignment to your door step, but do not allow DHL Company to discover those funds in your consignment because I registered your consignment as African Clothes’ content. HERE IS THE DHL COURIER COMPANY CONTACTS
The Dhl Office Manager’s Name: Josaine Sawadogo Zagre.
The Dhl Office Of The Manager’s Telephone Number: +226 74 85 38 20.
The Dhl Customer’s Service Telephone Number +226 50 311947 or +226 50 335171.
The Dhl Courier Company’s Customer care Email Address: servicedhlbfouaga@gmail.com
The Dhl Courier Company’s Web-Site: www.dhl.com/en/bf/country_profile.html
Note this is very clearly, the dhl courier company does not know the content of the box, I have registered it as a box of African Clothes, they don’t know that the content is money, and this is to avoid them delaying with the box from delivering.
Make sure that you follow up these above instructions carefully in order to get your package (your fund) delivered at your door step in your country.
Congratulations!!!. Good luck as well. Contact the dhl courier service company right now for your consignment (your fund).
I will send to you in my next email your consignment’s Certificate of Deposit which I received from DHL Burkina Faso on the day which I deposited your consignment in their custody.
Contact them right now!!!
My best regards,
Mrs. Carolina Ilboudou. Secretary of the Bank.
I wrote to the indicated address, saying “I am supposed to contact you regarding the consignment of a box.” I’ll report back if anyone responds.
Subject: Request to Terminate Your account has been accepted From: AccountUpdate qAvmWq4@zbikfv.uk via physics.metu.edu.tr Date: Apr 26 (10 days ago) to _To: millions of people
Dear Gmail Customer,
You submitted a request to terminate your Gmail mail account and the process has started by our Gmail mail Team, Please give us 3 working days to close your mail account.
To cancel the termination request reply to this mail.
All files on your Gmail mail including (Inbox, Sent, Spam, Trash, Draft) will be deleted and access to your Gmail mail account will be Denied.
If you wish to Terminate your Email Address, you can Sign Up for a new Gmail mail account.
For further help please contact by replying to this mail.
Regards,
Gmail! Account Services
Please watch out for emails like this. No, I didn’t ask for my Gmail account to be terminated, and neither did you.
If you respond to the email, you will be confirming that you are a live sucker to these people:
And it’s a penny to a quid that every one of them is a scammer who will do their best to get your personal information or your money.
How do you know this message is not from Gmail? It was sent from The Gmail! account team (Gmail doesn’t use a “!” in their name like “Yahoo!” does. In addition to that, the return address is:
AccountUpdate qAvmWq4@zbikfv.uk via physics.metu.edu.tr
A double redirect, one from the UK and one from Turkey. No, Virginia, that’s not Gmail.
This should go without saying, but I just thought I’d point out one of many reasons why you should never respond to spam messages.
(We wanted to let you know that we noticed that you still did not claim your $200 Amazon-shopping bonus that was gifted to you as a thank you for your business in past.
Please be sure to claim this before Aug 25
But Hurry! This Ends on Aug 25!
Please Go Here Now to Claim Your $200 Amazon-Shopping Bonus)
Click on the “Claim Your Bonus” link and your email program will generate a message to the following addresses:
info@delopment.net
sports@southeoffice.com,
mailtech@provintimate.net
reply@republck.com
info@templervices.net
Whatever message you send, such as “Ooh yes I want my bonus” or whatever, you have just given a live email address to five spammers/criminals/scammers or Mogg knows what, with a loud additional shout: “I am a sucker! Please Scam Me!”
Just don’t. Never respond to anything in your Spam box, and if you get email from people you have never done business with, delete it at once.
The “obfusticated” prevents anyone from actually going to the bad site, and protects the wordpress user whose website (“obfusticated.com”) has been compromised. For what it’s worth, I’ve done my best to warn the individual involved that there is a problem at their website.
The gateway page is below. It looks very official, but don’t let that fool you. It’s a fake.
Then you get to give the criminals your login PIN:
The malicious code appears to fail the first time and makes you re-enter the data. It doesn’t matter what you put in the second time, you’ll advance to the next page:
Please be aware: BANKS WILL NEVER DO THIS. NEVER GIVE OUT SENSITIVE INFORMATION BY EMAIL OR ON THE WEB.
Next you are asked to hand the criminals your credit card password.
Once they have your data – or in my case, a whole raft of obscenities – you are redirected to the real Bank of Ireland website.
If you have a WordPress blog (or any other website) please make sure you are using strong passwords. If bad guys get in, they can park malicious code in your web space and direct their victims there, not to mention steal whatever valuable data is there.
Never give out sensitive financial information over the web. If you suspect your accounts have truly been compromised or locked, call your bank directly and ask for verification.
Subject: FDA approval is about to send this stock up fifty fold
Why is Quest Management (Symbol: QSMG) guaranteed to jump 5,000% this month?
They have a cure for cancer.
This biotech is run by some of the most prolific scientists in America. Together, they have more than 400 years of experience in the field and have more diplomas than we can even imagine.
Cancer kills 1 out of 4 people in our country and we have all been affected by it either directly or indirectly.
Who doesn’t know someone who’s died from it?
The company’s scientists are targeting cancer using stem cells. They are able to identify the bad cells and destroy them without radiating the entire body (like is common with chemo).
Apart from saving millions of lives, their treatment will surely become the No1 selling drug on earth.
The company has already made serious headway thanks to nearly two decades of research.
This cutting edge biotech company has completed animal trials successfully and just wrapped up FDA-approved human trials last week.
The next step is the public announcement of those results, which we hear through the grapevine have beat all expectations and will change the world of medicine forever.
The results will be announced this month, and once they are out the stock will jump to $25 a share overnight and will continue up to $50 or more quickly after.
“Quest”‘s biotech arm could have a cancer cure that can be totally effective in killing tumors in more than 40% of patients worldwide available in hospitals throughout the globe by the end of the year.
Once that happens, we’re talking about a $1000 a share stock.
We’re literally coming in at the last mile, out of no where, and grabbing profits from their last 2 decades of hard work.
Consider buying QSMG right now while it’s still at under 5 dollars and make sure to tell all your friends to do the same before the price explodes.
If you’re not familiar with Pump-and-Dump schemes that have been around for centuries, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
“Pump and dump” (P&D) is a form of microcap stock fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme “dump” sell their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. Stocks that are the subject of pump and dump schemes are sometimes called “chop stocks”.
While fraudsters in the past relied on cold calls, the Internet now offers a cheaper and easier way of reaching large numbers of potential investors.
Here’s a chart of Quest Management’s stock over the last 5 days:
You can see that on April 17th, the stock was at around $2.50 per share. The next day it had plummeted to around 70¢. It’s possible that the pump and dump had already taken place, and these emails of today were a smokescreen – or an attempt to make another hit.
Penny stocks are, by definition, a very poor place to try to make money – and there are a lot of ruthless and unscrupulous people out there willing to take you for every dime you’re foolish enough to give them.
Be careful out there. Unsolicited email (spam) regarding investment opportunities is worth about as much as the electrons they’re printed on.
All of these arrived in my inbox today; many are duplicated versions of the same message with minor changes.
Dear info,
Cathleen Holcomb asked me to send you the attached Word document, which contains the final version of the report.
Please let me know if you have any trouble with the file, and please let Cathleen know if you have any questions about the contents of the report.
Kind regards
Alisa Harper
Managing Director
Notice that all of these emails begin with “Dear Info,” since the relevant address is “info@devnull.com.” This in itself should be a red flag.
Dear info:
Thank you for your email regarding your order of 21 June, and sorry for the delay in replying. I am writing to confirm receipt of your order, and to inform you that the item you requested will be delivered by 25 June at the latest. If you require more information regarding this order, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Also, our records show that we have not yet received payment for the previous order of 11 June, so I would be grateful if you could send payment as soon as possible. Please find attached the corresponding invoice.
If there is anything else you require, our company would be pleased to help. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely
Benjamin Martin
Chief Executive Officer
Information. A report. An invoice with request for payment. A spreadsheet. All looking innocuous and legitimate.
Dear info,
The reference you requested is attached.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards
Erma Frederick
CEO
No matter how official emails like this look, you should verify every detail before proceeding.
Dear info,
Our records show that we have not yet received payment for the previous order #A-393685
Could you please send payment as soon as possible?
Please find attached file for details.
Yours sincerely
Jami Garrett
Mexico Key Account Director
Don’t open those attachments! They are almost certainly javascript files which will download an encryption virus or something equally vicious.
My name is [Audra|Joni|Gus|Emily], I am the personnel manager of a large International company. (I got four of these in my mailbox today).
Most of the work you can do from home, that is, at a distance. Salary is $2500-$5000.
If you are interested in this offer, please visit Our Site
Best regards!
If you’re careless enough to click that link (disabled above), what you’ll be taken to is this:
It’s safe to say that there are as many ways to scam as there are scammers.
From: “Abranco” <demoonth@demo.ontha.com>
To: <abranco@cheshirect.org>
Cc: <undisclosed recipients>
Subject: Government Job Offer
Dear Sir or Madam
Would you like to work for the Government organization and participate in
the development of the United States?
Perhaps it is your talent the country needs at this moment.
Requirements – U.S. citizenship and minimum age 21
We invite you to work closely, anyone who does not care about the life of the state.
If you are a student, military, businessman, retired – we’ll be happy to listen to the opinions of everyone and take help from you.
Please send a brief summary to the human resource assistant on the lyne.holt@gmail.com and you will be assigned to interview
Naturally I never responded to this illicit offer, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the response would have somehow involved wiring funds via Western Union to someone in Africa for “interview fees,” or perhaps lead to a mail forwarding scam.
In the 1st quarter of 2015, spam accounted for almost 60% of all email traffic, according to this excellent article from SecureList. Have a look at the very top of my Spam inbox:
Even if these emails are not directly criminal in nature (that is, loaded with malware or phishing attempts), my rule of thumb is this:
“If a company spams you, avoid them at all costs.”
It’s a virtual certainty that their “offer” is fraudulent or, at the very least, a bad deal for you and a good deal for them.
Playing in the World Game 