Phishing Scam Fail

[Mytical]

Ok..I get it, you send out these things blind..you assume that a few people will be idiotic enough to panic and think "OMG I had better fix this quick". Unfortunately for you, I have more then two brain cells to rub together..maybe only THREE, but more then two.

So..you send me a form letter stating that my last check to <Mortgage Lender> bounced. We are to contact you immediately to resolve this...then you get the amount for said check wrong. You sir or madam..fail. Hard. Not that it would have been any different but that was epic failure.

So we first talk to our bank (In person) yes it was paid..did not bounce (well DUH). Then we call the number on the monthly bill we get from <Mortgage Lender> that we KNOW is legit, instead of the number you said we HAD to contact. Hmm look at that, they received the check, deducted the amount, and we have our correct balance for next month. Weird how that works huh?

PS. If you are going to send us a letter supposedly from <Mortgage Lender>, at least make sure you use the logo they use hey? Won't help any, cause you know..we have the RIGHT numbers to contact..and will do so, but it would at LEAST be a tiny amount better.

[csquared]

I get those at work all the time.

1. I don't use my work email for my personal business.
2. The email is sent to about 20 people. If this is MY transfer to MY mortgage company, why are these other 19 people included on the mail?

FAIL!

[PepperElf]

if they sent you a snail mail letter talk to the post office
mail fraud and all

[Mytical]

I will have to do that, I did give all the info to the <Mortgage Lender> also..and surprisingly (yeah right) they have no clue what is going on. They definitely did not send it..and said they are going to look into it.

[MoonCat]

Gotta love (aka hate) these idiots. I really love the ones that claim to be from a bank I've never had an account with, or some online site I've never been to (like facebook).

[Kogarashi]

Gotta love (aka hate) these idiots. I really love the ones that claim to be from a bank I've never had an account with, or some online site I've never been to (like facebook).

Definitely this.

Then there's also the ones who spoof "webmaster@[mydomain].net" telling me that my e-mail account is going to be suspended. My domain is administered by myself and my college roommate, who I still keep in touch with (obviously). The actual webmaster e-mail at that address forwards to our personal accounts. I like to message her after receiving one of those asking why she's closing my e-mail account on me.

[Andara Bledin]

Hey, now, here's a fun one.

Just got a PayPal phishing email this morning to a "catchall" email account I monitor for the place I work.

It opened up with not one, but two typos in the title: "Your PayPal account has been limites untill we hear from you"

And then it moves right into the opening line: "Dear PayPal Costumer"



Idiots.

^-.-^

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I've had 3 within the past week claiming to be from Amazon claiming my order had been cancelled. All for different items that I've not heard of before (titles sounded like books to me.)

I haven't had any recent orders with them (not since December '11.) and when you click on the link at the bottom of the page, it takes you to a Canadian drugstore website (I wanted to see the actual place the link would take me to.)


So they've been forwarded over to the ACTUAL Amazon.com.

[Andara Bledin]

Since I work for a business and handle all of the non-deliverable mail to one of our domains I get a lot of professional phishing attempts.

My favorite are the ones that claim my ACH payment didn't go through but that are sent to random emails that don't and have never existed.

^-.-^

[AccountingDrone]

I got one for the mortgage holder for the house I shared with my *first* husband 25 years ago, that I was never named on the mortgage for. [probably connected me to the physical address somehow, maybe an old utility bill.] heck, my name isn't on the mortgage for this place I have been living in for 22 years

[MoonCat]

Hey, now, here's a fun one.

Just got a PayPal phishing email this morning to a "catchall" email account I monitor for the place I work.

It opened up with not one, but two typos in the title: "Your PayPal account has been limites untill we hear from you"

And then it moves right into the opening line: "Dear PayPal Costumer"



Idiots.

^-.-^

I think I received one of those. Sometimes I read through the junk emails for laughs. Lots of 18-year-old Nigerian girls whose fathers died in "recent troubles you may have read about", looking for investment opportunities for the millions of dollars he mysteriously saved. Oh, and widows dying of terrible diseases looking for someone to help them use their millions to help the needy...

[Pixilated]

Gotta love (aka hate) these idiots. I really love the ones that claim to be from a bank I've never had an account with, or some online site I've never been to (like facebook).

Yeah, I've gotten those. "You're gonna close my account at where?!?"

I think I received one of those. Sometimes I read through the junk emails for laughs. Lots of 18-year-old Nigerian girls whose fathers died in "recent troubles you may have read about", looking for investment opportunities for the millions of dollars he mysteriously saved. Oh, and widows dying of terrible diseases looking for someone to help them use their millions to help the needy...

Yes, and of course it's funny they never consider going to banks to help them invest the money ... or going through a lawyer to registered charities to help the needy ...
What's sad is that, despite all the attempts to bring these frauds to the public's attention, many people still continue to fall for them.

[RealUnimportant]

And why are so many of these frugal, generous tax evaders such religious people? If they have such large sums of money & no benefactors of their own, why not give it to their church?

[Kogarashi]

I keep getting ones from "YouTube" claiming either that my video is "TOP on Youtube!" or going to be removed immediately if I don't respond right away. I'm still trying to figure out how a 30-second soundless clip of my oldest child at age 8 months rolling around on the floor is so popular, but then she is rather cute....

[EyeTeaGuy]

I just got one from a World of Warcraft phisher -

"Return to Azeroth With Free 7 Days of Game Times"

It stuns me that people who run these scams make such blatant mistakes. Wouldn't eliminating them in theory net you more suckers, by making them more believable?

Yes - people really do try and scam others out of passwords/accounts that will grant access not to money directly, but to pixels representing imaginary items in a land far, far away that doesn't exist. They hack your account, sell anything they can off of your characters, transfer your gold & then use your characters to either spam trade chat for their gold selling (for real $$) business, or to farm items in game to get more gold.

It was to my email that I use for WoW, but that's not too shocking - they just blind blast millions of these emails out. And since I have an authenticator, they'd have to be REALLY good to get my stuff.