Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Internet Scammers In War Zones


Of course they never give up. They don't take a hint, either. The internet scammers and spammers of the world are always out there, trying to find new ways to reach their target suckers and fleece them, either out of thousands of dollars outright, or for crap they weren't looking for in the first place.

Sometimes weeks can go by without a message from the scammers in junk email or blog junk message folders. While I get the odd spam junk mail for watches or sunglasses, I don't get the inevitable scammer messages for awhile. And then they seem to come out of nowhere. Such was the case with an email sent from one Mike Jones, with one email address in the header and another listed in the message itself, which I've removed, just copying and pasting below.


Hi,
My name is Mike.
I've found your email address from the internet. I am sending you an private message because i dont know what to do.
We live in Syria, We are financial not in a good shape
My wife has no option to work because she has 3 little children at home.
We have no options to become any support or any help somehow.
If you can help us even with one dollar it will help us a lot and make us very happy.
Please help us.. My Paypal address is :


Yes, it's a scam. Some of the tell tales are there. One email address listed doesn't match up to the other. In fact, the listed email in the header was for someone at getabs.net. Which leads to spam for an exercise site. It's not a match for the email in the body of his message, which claims to be for Paypal.

There's also punctuation issues and grammar snafus. I mean, it's not "an private message", Mr. Jones, or whatever your real name is. And it's not "i dont know", it's "I don't know". If you're going to try to scam people, you might want to take some basic English lessons as opposed to reading out of a whatever the hell to English dictionary.


"We are financial not in a good shape." Oh, that's just wonderfully written. As is the case with "We have no options to become any support or any help somehow." You know, if you found my email from the internet, you could at least learn to structure sentences properly.

But let's face it, you're not actually Mike Jones. And if you're in Syria, which you're not, you're wasting time trying to scam people as opposed to running from Bashar al-Assad or Daesh, depending on who's around this week. But you're not in Syria. You're a scammer in some other third world hellhole hoping this time the scam might pay off. 

Nice try. Just for good measure, go to Syria. Go on up to Assad. Hit him in the nose. See what happens.

I'm thinking summary execution by firing squad at high noon.

11 comments:

  1. There's nothing they won't try to part you from your money!

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  2. Sure, there are lots of Mike Joneses in Syria. It's a very common Islamic name.

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  3. Oh No.... it's a trap !
    money money money !

    cheers, parsnip

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  4. And then there is all that junk that says you have won an Amazon Card or a Costco card (right). The ones that offer refi for your college loan debt or credit card debt (neither of which I have). Oh, and don't forget the ones that want you to go to a site.

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  5. @Norma: they'll try it all.

    @Eve: oh yes.

    @JE: yes, it's like John Smith here.

    @Parsnip: definitely a trap!

    @Mari: I tend to get a lot of spam for sunglasses for some reason.

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  6. Yes. I get so tired of spam. Who believes this stuff?

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  7. It seems the scammers/spammers are more ubiquitous and more numerous than usual these days. And somehow, many of them get through my spam filters. Aaargh!

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  8. I never read my spam. Ever. I have a great spam filter and I just empty the spam folder every day.

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  9. "I've found your email address from the internet."

    LOL!! Ain't that ironic. :D

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's quite twisted of the scammers to profit off the atrocities happening in Syria. Makes me sick.

    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.