Banks, Soda, And The Scammer

And rounding out the month, another of these grievous examples of halfwits and morons, useless and worthless people known as internet scammers and spammers. Yes, that infernal lot of twits who can't find a real job and so spend all their time cooking up preposterous too good to be true (because they're not) schemes in the hopes that someone they send it to will be dumb enough to believe it. These people are more irritating than... well, blackflies. And if you've ever been around those in May, you'll know what I'm talking about.

The following has been turning up with some regularity in my email over the last couple of weeks.

Attention,

This is to inform you that a Lottery Winning payment in the amount of US$12,000,000.00 (Twelve million United State Dollars) was legally approved and deposited with this Bank, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The lottery won by your e-mail address via online active e-mail address selected from sponsor of Coca Cola Company award. It was registered with your email address by the Lottery Board Executive Directors Of Coca-Cola Company Canada Branch, and they instructed this Bank to credit this Winning directly to your private bank account with immediate effect.

Please take note that Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) have decided and agreed together towards the actualization of the above subject matter which will be conducted under a legitimate arrangement that will protect both parties from any breach of law. To actualize this The new arrangement. Be well informed that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was successfully opened a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Checking Account on behalf of your personal name and the total $12 million has been transferred to the non-resident account.

Meanwhile, the good news about your payment now is that this paying have made a Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Checking Account Booklet and Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Platinum MasterCard on behalf of your personal name, which you will be using to withdraw from your non-resident account with this Bank smoothly.

And we shall proceed with the delivery of your Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Checking Account Booklet and Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Platinum MasterCard to you, upon receipt of the Activation fee of $320.00 USD only. This means that as soon as we receive the activation fee we will activate the account for you to be able to withdraw immediately from the account, once we make the delivery of your Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Checking Account Booklet and Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Platinum MasterCard with some of the legal documents backing this prize to your address within 24 hours, because we were mandated to transfer this Winning to you as one of the winners whose name is listed in the Coca-Cola Company Canada Lottery award . Please expedite actions as the rightful winner, as the administrative overheads statement account valued added balance sheet have been issued in your favor. $12,000,000.00 USD Payment notification from Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC).

So you are therefore advised to send the requested fee of $ 320 USD to us, the payment details will be sent to you as soon as you provide the below data:

Below are the details we need from you.

1. Your Full Name:.........
2. Address:..........
3. City:..........
4. Country:..........
5. Cell/Mobile Number:...........

Email : offiefdxebsjwme@gmail.com

If at any time you have questions, concerns or comments, please contact us as we strive to ensure that you will always receive prompt and courteous attention.

Yours faithfully,

David I Mckay
The President and CEO.
Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC).
Head Office Location Address: 200 Bay Street,
Royal Bank

Okay, so where to start? Well, how about the end- with David Mckay, as spelled here. The president and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada is in fact David McKay, so you'd think he'd know that k should be capitalized. But this, of course, is not Mr. McKay. Just as this is not a real offer.

Because when you look up Coca-Cola lottery, all sorts of articles come up about how it's a phishing scam, as if that wasn't already obvious. 

Because there is no such lottery, and because this is all a fake. You can see it pretty quick in, where the standard giveaway of a scammer can be seen when they write it as 'United State Dollars'. I mean, really, is it that hard for you bloody morons to write States? It's one letter, but you bloody idiots trip over it all the time.

There are the other tell-tales. An abundance of capitalized words that don't need capitalization. Overly formal phrasing that does not read like it was written by someone with a strong grasp of the English language but instead put through translation software without being vetted. The millions of dollars serving as the hook for the sucker to believe this is all real.

I should point out that they mention the "activation fee" of 320 dollars, which is rare for a scammer. Usually they do this after the sucker has bought the scam, bringing up a processing fee or something of that sort. That 320 bucks is pretty much all these scammers expect to get out of these before the mark gets wise to the scam.

I should also bring up the irony of these weasels bringing up the non-resident account notion. Because I'm Canadian. And the Royal Bank of Canada is a Canadian bank. Not the one I use, but that's beside the point. Because they're forgetting that some of the 500 000 random emails they send this crap to will be Canadian, and we might find it annoying that we're not residents of our own country.

But I digress. Because I've seen far too many signs that tell me when I'm dealing with scammers to have a go at that bait. I know better. Maybe one of the other half a million email addresses you sent this to might believe it, but I don't. 

In closing, whoever you really are at the far end of that daisy chain of emails that sent this crap to me, I can only tell you, from the bottom of my heart....