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....

Cancer Widows And Scamming Bankers

It's been awhile since last I posted, and it may be awhile longer yet until another post. But I thought I'd share a couple of the following. They are of course two examples of the standard internet scammer emails that turn up in junk email folders, never to be taken seriously. They're the same messages sent out to a half million or so random email addresses in the hopes that some dumbass sucker will believe it and send off a few thousand bucks in administration fees before realizing that they got conned by a con man. As such, they're only good for being the subject of ridicule and scorn. 

God will bless you as you fulfilled my wish

My name is Mrs Joy Smith Johnson, I am a dying woman who had decided

to donate what I have to the Charities. I am 77 years old and was

diagnosed for cancer about four years ago, immediately after the death

of my husband; I have been touched to donate from what I have

inherited from my late husband for the good work rather than allow his

 relatives to use my husband's hard earned fund.

As I lay on my sick bed, I want you to help me in carrying out my last

wish on earth which will be very profitable to you. I want to WILL a

total sum of $5.5 million USD to you which I want you to distribute

part of it to any charity home for me and the rest for yourself and

your family which I will inform you on how to share all, please for

further information contact me ASAP.

Best Regards,

Mrs Joy Smith Johnson

ALEXANDER NONDH LANGFELDT

Head of International Transaction Banking

2nd Floor. 3000 Phahonyothin Road,

Chom Phon Sub-district,

Chatuchak District,Bangkok Province 10900

Attention: BENEFICIARY

Your inheritance funds of $32.6m this is to notify you that your over due inheritance funds has been gazetted to be released, via key telex transfer (ktt)-direct wire transfer to you by the senate committee for foreign overdue fund transfer.

Meanwhile, a woman came to my office few days ago with a letter, claiming to be your true representative. Here are her information:

Name BINGELLIGELLI PETERMANN

Bank name:ANZ

Account number:113388520034

Please do reconfirm to this office, as a matter of urgency if this woman is from you so the bank Will not be held responsible for paying into the wrong account name.

The reserve bank governor, executive, board of directors and the committee for foreign over due inheritance fund have approved and accredited this reputable bank with the office of the director, international Remittance / foreign operations, to handle and transfer all foreign inheritance funds this second quarter payment of the year.

However, we shall proceed to issue all payments details to the said Mrs.Petermann if we do not hear from you within the next seven working days from today.

You should forward all your information

1 Your full name and address

2 Your phone and fax number

3 Your state id

Best regards,

ALEXANDER NONDH LANGFELDT

Head of International Transaction

2nd Floor. 3000 Phahonyothin Road,

Chom Phon Sub-district, Banking

Chatuchak District,Bangkok Province 10900

The first presents us with the usual sob story- the cancer ridden widow who has a whole lot of money she wants to will (no, WILL, because all capitals means she means business) to a complete stranger to hand off to distribute part of it to charity houses and keep the rest. She uses the standard pious godly routine, the standard screwing up of punctuation, the standard capitalization of words that don't need to be capitalized. She claims she was diagnosed "about four years ago, immediately after the death of my husband." About? Really? You'd think the death of your totally fake husband and being diagnosed with terminal cancer would fix that in your mind, so you'd be saying, four years and two months ago, as opposed to about. 

But no, there's no Mrs. Joy Smith Johnson. Because she doesn't exist. Well, I imagine there are Joy Smith Johnsons out there in the world, they're just not spending their days passing themselves off as 77 year old cancer victim widows with money to hand out to strangers. Just that this Joy Smith Johnson doesn't exist. Because she's as fake as the rest of the message. Which was sent by someone at the far end of a long daisy chain of cut-out emails who's sent the same damned message to hundreds of thousands of other people.

And then there's Alexander Nondh Langfeldt. Or whatever the hell his real name is, because there's no way that belong to a real person. He claims to be head of international transaction banking of a bank in Thailand (while not mentioning the actual bank itself). You'd think that an actual person of that sort of responsibility and job would have a reasonable command of the English language, but instead he screws up wording, phrasing, punctuation, capitalization, and common sense throughout his rambling text.

He throws out a name of a woman claiming to be my representative, with a first name and a last name that have absolutely no common tie, culturally speaking. And he claims there's thirty two million dollars of an inheritance for me. This despite the fact that I don't have any rich dead relatives that would be sending out that kind of money to me.

It's also telling that he wants details out of me: my name, address, phone and fax number (who the hell has a fax in this day and age?) and state ID.You'd think that an actual banker (which he is not) would already have that information in hand). Oh, sure, and the next step will be personal bank account numbers. 

Okay then. I'll give you my bank account number.

It's actually not a number at all, but a phrase.

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE

And the password is 

DROP DEAD.

Somewhere out there a spammer will try entering those two phrases into their bank account searches, thinking I'm serious. No, I am not. But the sentiment is legitimate. That's the amount of regard I have for spammers and internet scammers. 

I want you to drop dead. Not next week, not in a year. Right now. Cease your wasting of oxygen. This applies to cancer widows, fake bankers, the concubines of deposed warlords, and the idiots sending the exact same barely literate spam comments over and over again. To them I can only say these final words.

None of you will ever do the world any good until you are no longer in it. Remedy that as swiftly as possible.

Breaking Out Of The Big House

Well, that's done. I'm free and clear. Out of the joint. On the lam. Released from the cooler. Yesterday I was released from thirty days in stir (otherwise known as thirty days of totally wrongful and unjustified suspension) from Facebook Jail. Or as I like to call it, the Chateau d'If. It was time well spent, mind you. This American pilot was in his cell throwing baseballs against the wall and asking what I know about moles. An old priest was helping me dig my way out and making mention of a treasure in a place called Monte Cristo. And Morgan Freeman was narrating the whole escape sequence.

It had been quite awhile since my last suspension, but I've been suspended before from Facebook. Each time it was for violating their so called "community standards". Each of those times I would swear up and down that I never came close to violating their community standards. That said, Facebook offers no avenue of appeal, and offers only silence to any objection to a suspension. They throw you out without so much as a second thought and never respond in any meaningful way. In the long run, that sort of thing is going to wind up destroying the site. Just putting that out there.

In those thirty days, I was restricted to viewing only. No posting, no likes, no messages. I know I've missed several birthdays. During a previous suspension, I even missed my own birthday- the height of irony, getting the automatic message from the dirtbags who suspended me in the first place: a happy birthday greetings from Facebook. 

This particular time, as I mentioned in a post earlier this month, it was for insulting a member of Ford Nation (come to think of it, a previous suspension had been for insulting another Ford Nationite). But the remark in question didn't come close to violating their community standards. To be honest, if you were going to throw me out, the other guy's remarks were worse, and would have warranted the same. But no, if you're a repeat offender (totally unwarranted, again, I'm just saying), Facebook tells you in their own way to go fuck yourself and tosses you out for a month. Or more. 

The community standards, of course, are a joke, a two faced hypocrisy. I've lost track of how many times I've reported remarks that have crossed the line, and yet in Facebook's opinion... "that does not violate our community standards." I've seen white supremacists, racists, bigots, and all sorts of hate mongering filth get away with whatever they want to say. Take this, for instance. 

"Whites are always gonna be the dominant race and everyone is hating on that fact. Call us racists all you want, fix your own situations before blaming the whites for ur problems (see Africa)"

That comment comes from an accountant of all things in my home town. And yet Facebook finds that comment perfectly acceptable. A comment that a white supremacist would love. Let's face it, the guy is a white supremacist. We've got a few of those extremist organizations up here too, unfortunately.

But he gets a pass from Facebook, which persists in throwing people out for no just cause, without so much as an opportunity to object or argue against it. It is nothing more than rank, two faced hypocrisy.

I know where the impulse to be snarky with jerks, twits, and knuckle-dragging buffoons comes from. The plain fact is that I spent far too much time being civil to assholes (the various exes of my sisters come to mind, and let's be honest, there are good reasons I'd prefer to never speak to my sisters themselves either, so they qualify for the title too). And that was all for naught.

So these days I don't see the point in being civil to assholes and biting my tongue.

Especially when it's so much more fun treating them with the derision and contempt they deserve.

I suppose it's just a matter of time before I get suspended again, and surely there'll be a betting pool running on how long that takes. I'm not surprised when it happens. This is the nature of what the site has become. It proclaims itself a social network and yet proving to be anything but. It throws one person out without cause, while giving free rein to hate mongerers. Sidewinding, two faced, sanctimonious hypocrites.

To Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the hypocritical howling jackals at Facebook, I can only sum up things in this way.