Monday, August 29, 2016

Scammers With A Side Of Egg Roll


They never do go away, do they? I refer of course to the vilest of the vile, the most despicable lot out there on the dark fringes of the Net. Yes, the scammers and spammers. They flood our junk mail with spam for crap we don't want, like knock off luggage, insurance, and dubious escort agencies. And they mass email to thousands of people the exact same message, hoping there's someone dumb enough to buy into their scam. I received a couple of these recently, and will be covering them over the next couple of posts. The first was this one, sent to my email and ending up in the junk email.


I hope this email finds you well. I want to establish a business and investment partnership with you if you are interested and capable. I am Zheng Changbo, Assistant President of CNOOC New Energy Investment Co., Ltd. Chairman and General manager of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, the largest offshore oil and gas producer in China and a mega government owned company. You may check my profile on the web. In a nutshell, I am willing to discuss the possibility of establishing a Joint investment cooperation in your country and under your commitment. I will be pleased to explain my investment ideas in detail on hearing from you. Most Importantly, I want our possible future business to be carried out legally and transparently. Best Regard ____________ Mr. Zheng Changbo Assistant President,Chairman and General Manager CNOOC New Energy Investment Co., Ltd. No.25 Chaoyangmenbei Dajie,Dongcheng District, Beijing 100010 P.R China.


Looking around, one can find out that there actually was a Zheng Changbo in that position with CNOOC. Only he's not in that position now, having had left earlier this year. So that's one big hint that this Zheng is a fake, seeing as how he's claiming he's still there. Another hint? His email address, an Outlook email, is suspicious. China has numerous email providers- Outlook doesn't even rate in the top five of them. Surely an actual executive would have an actual email address more or less fitting with his country's providers, right?


Whoever he is, our scammer tries to impress the reader with lots of titles for his fake facade, inviting us to check him out on the Web. Well, I did, and that very same message turns up in scam warning posts. You can see some of the hallmarks of the typical internet scammer too. Capitalizing words that don't need to be capitalized, like Joint, or not getting a capital M on the word manager. And of course "I want our possible future business to be carried out legally and transparently", a typical tactic by a scammer to assure that everything is on the up and up- even though it certainly is anything but.

Uh huh. Sure. Whatever you say. Even if you were real, which you are not, why on earth would I want to do business with anyone who cold-emails total strangers? And why on earth would I want to do business with a company representing a government I find repugnant?

Two events come to mind that provide all the reason I'd ever need to object to investing in China: Tiananmen Square and Tibet. 


And then there's that whole problem with the Chinese government thinking that respect means everyone else in the world has to defer to you. Rather arrogant, you know. And off putting. 

Nice try, Zheng, or whoever you really are. Maybe someone out there really is dumb enough to fall for your bull. For me, I'd just as soon rather see you get what's coming to you. Like seeing you tied up to fireworks and launched into the night sky at Chinese New Years.

13 comments:

  1. I opened up my blog to "Everyone" and began once again getting offers of zillions of dollars for merely giving certain people, usually somewhere in Africa, a few basic details of my person. I hate that. So, I now have changed back to "Registered" only.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL! I haven't had a good spam lately. I think Gmail is onto them and just deletes them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gmail is pretty good about dumping spam. Outlook, Hotmail, Live, etc.--one would think MSN would be better at it. I've gotten spam from my own email addy.

      Delete
  3. I realize some people are gullible or just not playing with a full deck so they fall for scams like this, but the thing that really shocks me is the number of intelligent people who don't realize the danger in those apparently innocent question and answer memes on Facebook. You know the ones where you share things like where you were born, your favorite pet's name and so many other questions that the answers can be so helpful to hackers and scammers. A number of my friends share those types of posts and some of those very friends have had their Facebook accounts hacked into.

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  4. I've been getting spammy emails from "Walgreens" asking me to respond to them but they won't give me a reason. It's weird. Fortunately, gmail puts a big red flag on those emails.

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  5. Well done as usual. That's like the "men" who ask to be my friend. They always have two first names instead of a real surname and their about file is usually empty or a fake company or even government agency if they put anything down for employment. I mark them a spam, but it does not good.

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  6. @Lowell: usually email's pretty good for snapping them up, and blogs deal with spam, but every once in awhile, something gets through.

    @Shelly: I know I used to get more.

    @Anita: that's why I don't do quizzes or play Facebook games.

    @Auden: Walgreens of all things?

    @Mari: they're useless, aren't they?

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  7. hahahahaha.
    I agree with your spam post and reasons not to deal with China.
    Plus for me it is the fact they still kill baby girls and beat, strip the skin off live dogs, kill and eat them.
    A Big No !

    cheers, parsnip and thehamish

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  8. It's not just scammers that are pissing me off these days, it's the auto subscribe newsletters that won't unsubscribe when you tell them to!! GRR!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I got a really funny one the other day. I never open them, but the preview that popped up in my email had me cracking up. First, I'm apparently a man. Who knew? Then the spelling errors were so bad they were laughable.

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  10. I'm always amazed that some people actually do fall for this BS!

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  11. Yeah, they just won't go away. I'm glad my Gmail doesn't let those through. I used to get some, but not any more.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Guess they're like the junk mail we used to get tons of in the old days. Just toss them and let it go!

    ReplyDelete

Comments and opinions always welcome. If you're a spammer, your messages aren't going to last long here, even if they do make it past the spam filters. Keep it up with the spam, and I'll send Dick Cheney after you.