Thursday, February 16, 2017

Thursday, 2/16

You know, at least the spammers could put a little effort into it.

I don't know about you, but I've seen a marked increase in the amount of spam reaching my e-mail inbox the past month or so. It's actually getting to the point where I have to spend five minutes a day weeding out everything from offers for magazines I've never heard of to promises that I can make “(my) partner scream for hours”, which is something Loraine already does, at least when it comes to reading some of the subject lines in the spam that she herself gets.

I never actually open any of the spam I get; I just click “delete” and it's all gone. But someone, somewhere, must click on the spam and then actually reply to it. I mean, all it takes is for one sucker to justify sending out 10 zillion pieces of junk, right? However, I received one piece yesterday that made me laugh, and I had to open it, if only because it seems like whoever put it together wasn't even trying.

Now, I know almost all spam comes from a country other than the U.S. But it seems to me that the more savvy spammers make it sound like they know what they're talking about. After all, they're trying to reel in a sucker or two, and it's usually easier to do that when you look and sound like you know what you're talking about. Not the e-mail I received yesterday, though. First of all, it came from a company that called itself “Tax Releif” (spelled that way), and had as its subject line this--

“Taxes is our business”.

Like I said, I don't expect much out of spam (aside from the occasional laugh) but anyone in their right mind would know that, based on spelling and grammatical errors, this ISN'T a company that's legit. However, the errors were so egregious that I just had to see from where the e-mail came. So I opened the e-mail, which promised to get me “maximun (sic) savings on my taxes” sent directly to my bank account. And all I'd have to do is sent my Social Security and bank account numbers (nothing else) to a website that ends with a “.ru”. What does that all mean? Well, it means two things—that someone promised to do my taxes without needing to see any W2 forms.

And that “.ru” means the company is located in Russia.

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be having that particular company do my taxes this year. And I would hope that no one—absolutely no one--would get suckered in by such a low-rent, low-quality, obvious sham of a scam. But then that's the thing about spammers and scammers—it only takes one. Like I said before, it doesn't cost anything (aside from server time, which is usually pirated) to send out ten zillion e-mails, and if even ONE person decides that sending their Social Security and bank account numbers to a Russian company will give them a little “tax releif”, then they've succeeded without even putting much effort into it.

I know you're all smart and that you'd never fall for anything promised by spam, but just let me say this—if you ever DO fall for a spam scam, at least make sure you fall for one where everything's spelled right, okay?

Thanks.


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