Funny spams

[HotelMinion]

So I was bored one day so I took a look thru my junk email folder. Most were amusing, like the Nigerian scams (do they STILL do those), facebook friend requests (I don't even HAVE a FB account) and bogus job offers.
However, I found one that had my friends first and last name on it. I was surprised that his email would be in my junk mail, but I figured that it has accidentally been sorted there. I had it happened before so I opened it.
It was an ad selling me drugs, for weight loss. I thought immediately how can my friend send me an ad for this, was it a joke or something? So I texted him: "Why are you sending me ads for drugs?"
He said: "Oh lol. Did you get one of those too? I got one from you too."
So either someone hacked into his email and sent me this ad, or someone looked thru my contacts list, took his name, and sent me it with his name. Wow... The cleverness of these spammers!
I'll admit that I'm not the most cautious about computers. About ten years ago when I got my first one as a teen, I fell for that "Your computer is infected; Click here to find virus!" scam. Has anyone had the contact list scam done to them?

[fireheart]

Mostly Facebook contacts, but I've avoided being the VICTIM of those. I just wind up getting ten people with the "Get free tickets via Qantas" post on Facebook, when they don't realise it's a scam.

[BPFH]

So I was bored one day so I took a look thru my junk email folder. Most were amusing, like the Nigerian scams (do they STILL do those)

Of course they do. It's even more fun when they invoke some Nigerian prince, because Nigeria, like the United States, is a federal republic, and therefore doesn't have princes...

facebook friend requests (I don't even HAVE a FB account)

I do, but I have the language set to "English (Pirate)", which affects not only the Facebook user interface, but any notification emails they send out to you as well.

The spammers never account for that.

and bogus job offers.

My favorite. Especially since I'm job-hunting right now.

Has anyone had the contact list scam done to them?

Not to my knowledge, but my email address has been publicly available for years through USENET posts, open groups on Yahoo, my web page, etc., so the spammers already have it.

I'm now at the point where I just look at the SpamAssassin scores (score >= 5.0 is spam) to see who's going for the gold (the Nigerian 419ers usually fall in this category and get scores of 30+), who's trying to artfully craft it to make it squeeze by just under the threshhold (4.5 - 5.5), and who's just plain not trying (pretty much everyone else who sends spam).

Edit: Speak of the devil. I just had a Nigerian spam come through that scored 69.5.

[EricKei]

The sad thing is: they keep doing this because, even if only one person in a thousand reads their scam email, and one in a thousand of THOSE people fall for the scam, they have made their money back. One of the biggest/worst spammers in the nation used to live less than an hour away from my old hometown. When interviewed, he (of course) insisted that every one of the millions of emails he sent out every hour were from people who had willingly opted-in to the products and/or "services" he represented. Uh-huh, tell me another one.

Just as an aside -- as many of you know, message boards get spam, too - including this one, from time to time. That's why new users' posts all have to be manually approved ^_^ We deal with the crap so you don't have to

[Golden Phoenix]

I've had the contact list attack before. A change of email password fixes it right up.

A number of my friends have had it happen too.

Right now i'm getting a lot of ads for male enhancement (I'm female) and a lot of "Hi, i'm a lonely housewife, text me!" type messages.

Before that it was almost entirely dodgy loans.

[KellyHabersham]

I've gotten the "contact list" spam before - most recent one was "supposedly" from my sister. Which was funny considering that she and her husband have cut off contact from most of the family.

[Aragarthiel]

I got a spam email from one of my uncles, but I've never gotten one since. It was legitimately from his email and everything, so I think spammers took over his account.

[csquared]

Any chance it was a Yahoo/Bellsouth/SBC/ATT account? Yahoo hosts AT&T's email. They had their servers hacked. They got the email logs. So they know the addresses of everyone at Yahoo and who they have sent an email to. It happened a couple of years ago. Yahoo finally admitted it last year.

I had thought that several friends had their email hacked. Then I got emails on three of my accounts from my Yahoo account. I don't keep emails (POP client) or an address book at Yahoo.

I seem to recall that AOL recently had there logs stolen.

As for the return address, that is easily spoofed.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I got a spam email from one of my uncles, but I've never gotten one since. It was legitimately from his email and everything, so I think spammers took over his account.

That's becoming more common than you think nowadays. I had to close my Yahoo account after 10+ years because of spam being sent.

Reporting it to Yahoo didn't help, nor did constantly changing my password - their security was prompting me sometimes every single day to change my password on that account. Got to the point where I couldn't keep up with what I'd changed it to.

So I have ZERO love for these scammers.

Any chance it was a Yahoo/Bellsouth/SBC/ATT account? Yahoo hosts AT&T's email. They had their servers hacked. They got the email logs. So they know the addresses of everyone at Yahoo and who they have sent an email to. It happened a couple of years ago. Yahoo finally admitted it last year.

I still have my Bellsouth email account (2 of those) and so far they've not been affected by the hack - only my Yahoo. I have to use Thunderbird to retrieve my Bellsouth mail though - I've had issues checking it from Yahoo (even though my password hasn't changed since I opened it in the early 00's when I first signed up for DSL.)

Most of the spam I'm getting is either for the loans/viagra (nevermind I'm female and my address wouldn't belong to a guy )/dating sites. Haven't seen a Nigerian one in quite a while but I've gotten those fake FBI emails once in a blue moon.

[MoonCat]

I still get the Nigerian ones. Or Libyan, or whatever's the flavor-of-the-week. Plus those "I saw your profile on Facebook!" ones, which is a helluva trick because I don't have one Sometimes I get one of those "hi just moved to your city" ones in which the sender claims to be a hot girl who does sexy Youtube videos for a living "and here's a free password for you." Yeah, right....

I have a Yahoo email that I rarely use. Maybe I should cancel it. Didn't know they'd gotten hacked.

[HotelMinion]

Of course they do. It's even more fun when they invoke some Nigerian prince, because Nigeria, like the United States, is a federal republic, and therefore doesn't have princes...

The funny thing is, they are no longer claiming to be from Africa princes, (when I said "Nigerian scams" I meant the 419 scams that used to come from there and now come from all over) now the ones I get are claiming to be from the U.S., have very American sounding names and claim they are trying to reimburse me for the millions of dollars I lost in scams. I got one claiming that she has cancer and wants to give me all her savings, but mostly they're from the "US Embassy" or US "Scam Reimbursement Dept". I just shake my head. They sound soooo fake it's funny.

[HawaiianShirts]

Before that it was almost entirely dodgy loans.

That's what I've been getting lately, from senders with names like "Monday Help" and "February Assistance" and "Thursday Quick Loan" and stuff like that. Just makes it easier for me to delete.

Oh, and I've had a few offers to buy my house... using the address of the crappy apartment I lived in at college... twelve years ago.

..now the ones I get are claiming to be from the U.S., have very American sounding names and claim they are trying to reimburse me for the millions of dollars I lost in scams. I got one claiming that she has cancer and wants to give me all her savings...

I don't know about the American-sounding names. I think they try for that, but they seem to get the first name and last name conventions mixed up. I once played with a scammer (using my throwaway email account) who called himself Mr. Johnson Wilson Michael. I strung him along for a little over a week with "are you sure I can trust you" messages until I finally gave him my phone number, which was really one of those rejection hotlines.

I still get a lot of the "I'm dying and want you to give my money to charity" scams. And some pretending to be from the director of the FBI and trying to scare me into thinking I'm in trouble for not claiming my millions of dollars from some bank in Africa that only needs a small processing fee.

[ComputerNecromancer]

However, I found one that had my friends first and last name on it. I was surprised that his email would be in my junk mail, but I figured that it has accidentally been sorted there. I had it happened before so I opened it.
It was an ad selling me drugs, for weight loss. I thought immediately how can my friend send me an ad for this, was it a joke or something? So I texted him: "Why are you sending me ads for drugs?"
He said: "Oh lol. Did you get one of those too? I got one from you too."
So either someone hacked into his email and sent me this ad, or someone looked thru my contacts list, took his name, and sent me it with his name. Wow... The cleverness of these spammers!
I'll admit that I'm not the most cautious about computers. About ten years ago when I got my first one as a teen, I fell for that "Your computer is infected; Click here to find virus!" scam. Has anyone had the contact list scam done to them?

Ok, most likely scenario is that someone who has both of you on their contact list joined a site and responded "yes' to the "do you want us to send invites to your friends?" prompt.

What that usually does is let the site access your contact list to send those invites. Which also gives them a copy of your contact list...

In fact a number of sites pretty much *exist* for the purpose of harvesting addresses that way.

[ADoyle90815]

If I don't recognize something, or if I didn't send an e-mail, I end up deleting it if it's in my spam folder, or I send it to that folder for later deletion. I have an ex who is the reason those Nigerian scams still go around, as if he didn't show me the e-mail, he would have basically kissed his bank account goodbye. Even then, it was difficult for me to convince him it was a scam.

Now, every time I see a Nigerian scam in my spam folder when I get around to checking it, I think of that ex. As I had gotten a newer car last fall, the latest spam I've been getting are those for checking your credit score. Just last night, one made it to my inbox, then when I checked my junk folder, there were 7 more of the same message. The one that didn't make that folder got marked as spam, and the contents of that folder were deleted.

[EricKei]

I've been using gmail for so long that I never actually seem to SEE spams in my inbox anymore -- I guess it has a heuristic "learning" thing going on. I used to try to check the spam folder once a month to make sure there were no false positives, but it's so rare that I seldom bother anymore.