I hope no one thought I was disparaging the North Fork Bank or claiming it was not real. I was just mentioning that an offer, any offer, from the First Southern Spork Bank would automatically make me participate. Can’t we forkgive and forkget?
I had one last week that was a very good imitation of CitiBank, telling me I needed to check my credit card with them (I don’t have one). But scrolling down, in the same email, was an ad for Phaaarmaccy Pills.
Oh, I don’t care if you disparage North Fork Bank - I don’t particularly care for them, myself. I just thought that you considered a bank named after an eating utensil to be a poor attempt by a bad spammer to make up a bank name, so I thought I’d correct you and point out that it really is a bank.
I once received an email from a girl I “knew” (more on these scare-quotes later) claiming that she’d gone to London and been robbed, so she needed to borrow £2600 (nearly $5000!) to pay her bills and get back to the States.
It really was from her email address, but there were two problems with this idea:
1 - I “knew” her in the sense that I’d taken her picture once, two years ago, and emailed back and forth with her for a week or so. That’s it. I was still in her address book, it seems, but that’s really not the kind of relationship that’s close enough for you to ask to borrow $5000.
2 - I had her phone number too. It took me some digging to find it, but I did have it.
I called her up, confirmed that no, she was not in England, not robbed, and did not need $5000 to get home (though it would be nice!), considering that she was in her apartment having breakfast at the time.
We had a good laugh about it, I advised that she change her password, and I wrote an email back congratulating her on her safe return without needing my help.
And now for a new tactic (well, at least for me), saying they are the IRS and have a refund waiting for you, if only you send them your CC details :rolleyes: Of course, IRS means nothing to me
And I thought it couldn’t get more lame. But it could! Here’s an e-mail I received today, copied verbatim. Aside from the obvious lack of editing, it looks like the sender couldn’t even be bothered to fill in the name of a bank, etc… Don’t they know about the old adage: Teach a man to phish…
