Got an e-mail to one of my webmail accounts last week with the header “Hi there” (I know, probably a very good invitation right there to delete without reading), with a message from “Karan”, identifying her/it/themselves as “an employee with a mid-level pharmaceutical firm” who just happened to notice my online profile and wants to get to know me better - complete with a coy reference to her hopefully-not-objectionable boldness and willingness to, ahem, send me pictures if I’d be interested.
I have a total of 2 online profiles (on this and one other message board), neither of which is likely to inspire mad amorous interest in 23-year-old pharm reps.* Plus I was not addressed by name. And the incoming e-mail address is different from the one she/it/they gave me to contact her.
So what’s the scam here? Have I already, without clicking on anything, introduced the Worm Of Doom into my computer? Is this a prelude to a version of the Nigerian Bank Scam? Or part of a sinister LonelyHearts murder scheme, in which I am to be dumped off a Carnival Cruise ship into the Atlantic some dark and stormy night?
*I’m guessing the “pharm rep” angle is supposed to promote the idea of access to drug samples with which Karan and I will be able to party. The possibilities intrigue. Advil? Dulcolax? Detrol LA? (“Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now…”).
Why waste time answering emails when the three coeds who live next door are just dying to have a menage with you? At least that’s what I have learnt from those documentaries they keep in a section called “porn”.
Where’s the romance? Where’s the sinister intrigue? (more importantly, where’s my stash of Dulcolax?)
Never mind Karan. For a really hot time, I can go down to Skyline and have a three-way*.
Maybe it’s real. You could sign up for a hotmail account then contact her from there. If its just a spammer, that won’t make it look like your real address is alive.
I’ve deleted plenty of porno-spam, but have yet to see one quite like yours. The porno messages always give a website URL (which makes it easy to send spam complaints to their ISP.) Does she claim to be local? If not, chances are much greater that it’s just a spammer.
Look at her message header. Is it the typically disguised spammer header? Or does the IP address in the first line actually match the “from” address of the message? For example, if the “From” line is a hotmail address, is the IP address owned by hotmail? If you have the four-number IP address from the first line of her message header, you can usually find the domain name of the ISP it actually came from. Use “trace route” in one of the spam-buster websites:
0Hi there, how’s it going? Well for starters I must confess that this is indeed pretty awkward. I noticed your profile online and figured I’d drop ya a line…I bet that doesn’t happen to you everyday! I never really even thought about it until someone saw mine and got in touch a little while back. ANYWAY! My name is Karan, I’m 23, and I’m a sale rep for a mid-sized pharmaceutical company. Goodness I can’t get over how strange this is! I’m sure you’re probably thinking the same thing! hehe.
Oh well, I really don’t want to go on too far. Especially since I’m not sure whether or not you have any8 interest. But if you would like to get to know more about me, please drop me a line. I’ll be more than happy to include some pics as well.
Anything about you would be greatly appreciated as well o
Well I hope to hear from you soon! Take care.
xoxo,
Karan …
P.S. Do you use any messenger services, maybe we can chat on there sometime? My email address is Gina_382_forick@hotmail.com
She must have sent it to you by mistake. She really want’s me Dammit! ME!
There are newer and nwer algorithms used by spam detection programs (I had a really good link to one but lost it… one sec… nope)… basically, they analyze the words in the e-mail and score it. Saying “HOT SEXY BARELY LEGAL COED SLUTS ON WEBCAMS” will score high for several reasons. One, the full caps and lack of punctuation. Two, the terms - “sexy,” “coed,” “sluts,” “webcams” etc are keywords it looks for. Them strung together raises the score. Certain HTML tags (lots of font colors, larger text sizes, etc) in the messages raise the score. Additionally, there are certain words in some spam and language used in advertising that are looked for - not to mention the address it was sent from (which are often gibberish).
Just pulling one spam mail I got… “Dear Sir/madam,” and words like “market,” “high value,” “please contact us at your earliest convenience” etc. There are hundreds of words used commonly in marketting.
So, to get around these filters, companies rely more and more on mimicking a personal e-mail. This tricks the recipient and the filter.
The best way to look at a mail like that is to see how many specifics they mention. A real person would say “Your profile on AIM” or “Your profile on SDMB,” or especially mention you by name - usually your screen name, not your real name, as advertisements so often do.
The pharmaceutical rep angle is this: the people pharm. companies (at least the major ones) hire as reps are all incredibly attractive. They’re also great schmoozers; I have 3 friends who are pharm reps (1 guy, 2 girls) and they’re all what would be considered “hot” and charming. I’m guessing the spammers, for reasons I can’t understand, are assuming the general population knows this, and it lends a touch more credibility than the “Hi, I’m a hot bi-curious co-ed!!” approach which likely gets deleted immediately. That you stopped this long to think about it likely means there are a lot of guys out there who do write back.
I’ve gotten the same email, multiple times, with variations on the “sender’s” name / age / job / email. It is definitely spam, eggs, bacon, and spam.
From what I’ve read, if the email claims to respond to an online profile, but doesn’t refer back to the profile, the sender is most likely either missing the point or else a spammer.
o