| Author | Message | ||
     Blake |
Just got this in the email...
They'll be waiting for a long long time. | ||
| U4euh  |
Just reading her typing makes me laugh! | ||
| Seanp  |
Boy that stuff burns my butt. The best website for this kind of thing is 419Eater. Those guys take all those email spammers and string them along forever. It's very entertaining to read their stories... And since I can't reach through the screen and punch the bastards, this is a good alternative. | ||
| 99x1  |
I bid on a 2000 X1 on eBay (reserve wasn't met, I wasn't anywhere near high bidder), and a day later got an email from the seller via eBay: "!! Do not reply to this message,please contact the seller directly at jepixxl@yahoo.com !! By bidding you've expressed your interest in this item titled "2000 Buell : Lightning : LIGHTNING" (Item #4521207397),however the auction has ended with another member as the highest bidder.In compliance with eBay policy on this matter,the seller is making this Second Chance Offer to you at your last bid price (US $3,600.00).The Seller has issued this Second Chance Offer because either the winning bidder was unable to complete the transaction or the Seller has duplicate items for sale.If you accept this offer, you will be able to exchange feedback with the Seller and will be eligible for use of eBay services associated with a transaction,such as fraud protection. !! Do not reply to this message,please contact the seller directly at jepixxl@yahoo.com !!" Reported it to spoof@ebay.com - they informed me someone had hijacked an eBay identity (by phishing?), sent the Second Chance feature, and added the "!!Do not reply to this message,please contact seller directly at jepixxl@yahoo.com !!" Be careful out there! | ||
| Reepicheep  |
There is another scam actively being run as well. Russian organized crime (or whoever, but people that are pro's at this sort of thing) advertise for people to "work at home". They even advertise through big online job seeker sites. You take the job, and they tell you that you are doing market research or something. They give you a list of ID's / Passwords for online systems, tell you what to look for, and have you email them the results. The thing is, they ID/Passwords are typically stolen or created with a fradulent credit card transaction, and what they are asking you to find will then be used for identity theft or to cut false checks. Eventually, investigators will track this back to the person doing the search, which is this patsy that took the job. There the trail gets VERY cold. All the patsy has is an email address, which can be murder to track down to a real live "meatspace" person. (the bastards). Blake, I don't know if the email above is setting you up for the classic Nigerean scam, or setting up for one of the "meat proxy" attacks like I describe here. It is obviously a scam though. I got an interesting email that is supposedly from an ebay member this morning. Figuring out what they are up too will be my next project, it does not fit any of the classic attacks I am aware of. If you are in the information security business.... and buiness is GOOOD! | ||
| Outrider  |
I guess the only good thing about this is that I just researched a Country I never knew existed. Interesting read. Somehow Moldova escaped specific mention in all the history and geography classes I took at the UW back in the 1960's. It appears they took more of a regional approach an tacked it onto Romania, etc. | ||
| Firebolt020283  |
i get ones like the first one all the time they really agravate the heck out of me. | ||
| Blake |
I've seen the bike sales scams and the bank account scams (those go WAY back), I've even received the bank account scams via regular mail. The old addage that "if it sounds too good to be true, it is" has proven wise and true beyond doubt. How is it that some people are willing to believe that a complete stranger is contacting them to give them money??? I guess it's like P.T. Barnum said... | ||
| Cataract2 |
That's why I delete all mail that is not expected or sent from someone I know, and the people I know would never believe these BS e-mails. | ||
| Blublak  |
Hey Blake.. Spoke to a guy I know (working relationship) and mentioned your e-mail.. The two primary attacks that are being attempted are one or both of the following. Money Laundering - you will become part of a pipeline through which they will filter monies from other scams, drugs, terrorist support groups etc. Then, when John Law kicks in the door.. It’s your door... and they switch to scam two (below) and vanish.. Giggling all the way. Electronic theft - You will find, sooner or later, for your new business to start, you will have to give them your bank account info so funds can be 'free flowing' (they usually control the money senders as well and can be combined with the above scam). You may even see some of it for a day or so.. That is while they verify your accounts and amounts. Then they make a withdrawal and shut down their e-mail, opening a new one later. There are a few others, but those are the two most likely scams being run here. Yes, it's a variation of the Nigerian. Just a little more high tech and could even be more destructive to your life. Later, | ||
| Fullpower  |
yes lots of strangeness here online.but also some good old fashioned commerce also: had an ebay buyerlast week win my auction for a XB12 final drive belt. he mailed me cash the next day.i mailed his belt the following monday morning. just regular old business. very nice. | ||
| Slaughter  |
That's why you should NEVER put your - or anybody elses email address in a BBS posting(unless you want to play nasty and pay them back!). If you have ever gotten an email and noticed that other addresses on the distribution look very similar to yours - wonder no longer. doofus@bitemybutt.com will be grabbed by a spambot but... doofus -insert the at symbol- bitemybutt -period- com ...might defeat the spambots. Spambots are also programmed to check for "" and () around at and dot DISGUISE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES!!! | ||
| Seanp |
I wonder how hard it would be to create a program that just makes a whole bunch of ___@___.com words, just random words, and posts them to a website. Just make millions and billions of fake email addresses, to try to send the bots on a wild goose chase. Think it would work? What if a whole group of bulletin boards got together to do it. Or a large site like Craig's List or something... I'd love to screw with these people. I already have an idea for the next telemarketer that calls. I'm going to get really excited about their product, and then hang up right before it's time to close the deal. Waste at least ten or fifteen minutes of their time. I can still be productive during the whole thing, by wearing a headset, I'll have my hands free... If I can extend it out to a half hour or more, I'll consider that a successful day. | ||
| Slaughter |
Sean - I'm with you! The F-ing spammers must be defeated or at least screwed with. Telemarketers got their come-uppance when Tom Mabe decided to screw with them - maybe there's a way to just start a thread on every bbs dedicated to posting bogus emails. I don't know how the spambots work or if it would/could make any difference. I gotta check it out with some folks who know this sorta stuff. If you have broadband, check out Tom Mabe's audio samples of him screwing with telemarketers! This is my personal favorite: Carpet cleaning service calls and he goes into this "Can you come over right away? Can you get blood out? Good, I got it on the floor, walls, windows - get over here right away!" http://tommabe.com/audio/carpet.mp3 http://www.tommabe.com Ought to be something we can do | ||
| Slaughter |
Here's a post I picked up from the system administrator on one of the race BBS's (basically saying we're not going to find a way to outwit or screw with them): Hey bro, you and I aren't going to outwit spammers- a) they don't care b) they send out millions, and pay no attention to anything but returns. A month or two ago, Lycos proposed running spam filters that would answer every spam, thus bringing the spammer's mail servers down. They had some software ready to go. The idea lasted 1 day, before they shut it down. Why? because they were creating junk mail too, and the potential volume is staggering. They would have damaged everybody, not just the spammers. What can you do about spam and viruses? 1) Use a mail client that filters, get your ISP to filter. Generally Linux and Mac OSX have better tools, though most of the free tools are now ported to Windoze. 2) never never answer a spam - if dolts didn't participate, there'd be no market 3) use difficult-to-read representations of your address as Stevey has suggested. 4) Avoid AOL ( you should do this on moral, communitarian, and aesthetic grounds, not to mention the fear that it might be contagious - geeks POV) 5) use a virus filter - never allow Microsoft clients to automatically run apps inside mail. Easiest to just avoid IE & Outlook anyway. - all standard advice from the digitarians.... | ||
| Reepicheep |
google mail does a fantastic job of filtering mail. Seanp, there is exactly that program out there, it is called sugarplum. Makes a fake website that can be crawled forever that gives unlimited fake email addresses. The spammers sell those to other spammers also, even though they don't work. | ||
| Blake |
I support the tenth of a penny per email sent charge/tax. That will put a real quick end to the spammers. | ||
| Ingemar |
The unsubscribe function is another way spammers use to verify your email address. A very effective way to loose some spam is a tool like mailwasher that remotely looks in your pop mailbox and shows you sender, headers and subject lines. You can then bounce mail like your address doesn't exist. Sometimes returned mail like that are taken off the spam list. One time I was being spammed with cheap software. I went to their website and spend a few hours spread over a 4 or 5 days on their contact page. I must have sent a million "I AM *my email address* AND I HATE YOUR ••••••• SPAM SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!". They got the message and week later the spam stopped. | ||
| Krassh  |
New variation on the old Nigerian scam. When I was trying to sell a bike on Cycle Trader I received a similar offer in regard to my bike. |
