They are a plague upon the universe. A pestilence that proves to be more irritating and everlasting than the plagues of Egypt. I speak of course of the vile lot we refer to as homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus. That repugnant subspecies of human that can only make a living with endless spam and scams, sent in random emails and random comments on our posts and other places across the web. How did these people operate before the internet? Random phone calls? And before that, random telegrams? And before that, random mail?
They never take a hint and just go away. No, they persist in their nonsense. Such as the following, which found its way into my email a few days back.
Attention Box Beneficiary,The Swedish Maritime Administration (Swedish:Sjцfartsverket)/Task Force wishes to notify you that we have busted and impounded an American ship for illegal maritime practices, the incident took place here at the Swedish maritime administration border with russia.On board we have discovered over 10,000 consignment boxes among which two were found to carry your name as it aim to be deliver to the Ukrainian government to aid their Russian war, please kindly Authenticate yourself with a copy of passport, Drivers license and utility bill, also your phone and home address so we can direct you on the requirement for clearance and delivery.Regards,Magnus AndersonMarine Pilot & Managing directorAnderson Maritime Consulting AB
Well then, where to begin? For starters, the responding email was not listed to one Magnus Anderson, which of course is a huge red flag where these things are concerned. It's just the first in a long line of emails addresses leading back to the semi-literate spammer who sent this.
There is a Magnus Anderson, and an Anderson Maritime Consulting in Sweden. You wonder how he feels about having his name co-opted in a scam email. Because that's precisely what this is. There are some of the usual tell-tales. The email that's overly formal but doesn't read as if it's written by someone with a command of the English language. Punctuation, capitalization of the wrong words.... the usual hallmarks.
And from a glance at the real Magnus Anderson's bona fides, Swedish or not, that guy would be fluent in English. He'd know well enough how to write an email that doesn't set off scammer alarm bells. But then he wouldn't be sending an email like this. Because he's too damned busy to be sending random emails to people.
No, this scammer hiding behind his name tells us a story about how the Swedes have impounded an American ship for "illegal maritime practices", and how among 10 000 consignment boxes there are a couple of them with my name on them. This is made more complicated by the suggestion that they were bound for the Ukraine to help in the war against Russia (see, scammer? It's not that hard to capitalize a country name).
This is fascinating to me. Because when I read that these were bound for the Ukraine to help in their war against the Russkies, I'm thinking weapons. And that baffles me, because I wasn't aware that I'm an arms dealer. But according to this scammer, two of those boxes came from me.
First it's a line of bull. There are no ten thousand boxes, there's just a story that's going to inevitably wind up in this scammer hoping I'll send a few thousand dollars along as a processing fee to allow these totally non-existent arms to be sent forward.
And second, while they're not trotting out money, they are now resorting to a different aspect of the internet scammer modus operandi: using the Ukraine-Russian war as their source material.
Now I'll cheerfully admit I'm on the side of the Ukraine in this whole thing. That petty little man in the Kremlin (emphasis on little), bent on getting even with the world, insists on making things worse for himself by carrying on a war that's not gone his way from the start. What that petty little man deserves is two rounds in the back of the head courtesy of anyone in his country with nothing to lose and an opportunity. but that's beside the point.
Because handing over copies of your passport, license, utility bills, etc. to a complete stranger online is a way to put yourself on the fast track to identity theft, loss of your savings, and things even less pleasant. And that's what would happen.
Nice try. Really, points for creativity. Plus let's face it, this is just the beginning. Soon we'll see the emails coming from Cancer Widow of a former minister/ politician/ general of either side of the Ukraine conflict, flooding our junk email. Because that's what spammers do- take a real tragedy and try to exploit it. Assuming they can find someone gullible enough among the half million random email addresses they send such things to who'll actually believe the con.
In an ideal world, whoever you really are (because you're not Magnus Anderson), you'd get what you'd have coming to you. An encounter with an angry Kraken.
But unfortunately Krakens are fictional.
