Anyone else getting many of these? Lately, I’ve been getting one or two a day. It’s like the scammers have a pool going to see which one I’ll finally fall for.
They’re a little more sophisticated than they used to be, rarely all caps anymore, although Warren Buffett recently wrote me in all caps. That could be because he was preoccupied with his terminal illness. He was just leaving for treatment in Japan but wanted to let me know my e-mail had been selected at random as recipient of some of the riches he wanted to disburse before he died.
I usually answer these e-mails. It’s almost always to tell them in graphic detail what they can do with their loot that they want to deposit in my bank account. Once or twice, I’ve gotten an e-mail from a friend or acquaintance stating he or she had been ripped off and was stranded in England or some such place. I write back that I never really liked them anyway and hope they wind up getting sold into slavery. Some of the scammers claim to be women such as the wife of a deposed tyrant or Muammar Gaddafi’s daughter. In those cases, I’ll offer $5 to perform whatever sexual act springs to mind at the moment. I never hear back from any of these people, except Gaddafi’s daughter did write to inform me my penis was way too small for what I was asking.
It’s not personal. Their emails are like sperm, they only expect one or two to strike lucky, and the rest will die. Your email address was probably contained in a data breach, and so it gets bought by lots of scammers to add to their mailing lists.
I don’t think replying to the messages goes anywhere but the bit bucket; it may be personally satisfying, but it’s not going to shock anyone into changing their scamming ways. On the other hand, if you should fall for one so far as to click a link in it, your email will be confirmed as a “live” one, and you will get more spam and scam emails on that particular topic than you thought possible.
I did this recently. I had two days before taken delivery of a large kitchen appliance from Costco, and this (coincidentally, I think) purported to be a survey about the quality of their service. By the time I got to the end of the survey I realized it was a scam, so I didn’t click on any of the “prize” choices that were offered to me just for completing the survey, but I immediately started getting survey scam and spam emails by the dozens.
So yes, I get them, I mark any new ones as Spam and future attempts go directly into the Spam folder. It’s a mild nuisance, I think, part of the cost of having email. Has there every been any human activity that wasn’t infested by lice like these?
@Mangetout (as Atomic Shrimp)
I rarely get scam mail but the last few weeks I’m getting a steady stream of “McAfee/your virus protection is expiring in 24 hours” emails. Every day. 3-6 at a time(less than a minute apart), 2-3 times a day.
What I don’t understand is why they think sending a cluster of identical emails at the same time is more effective.
Probably being sent from different instances of bots on hijacked computers with no centralised function recording who has been spammed, I’d say.
Most spam tactics seem to involve a great deal of waste like that - that is, you are a wasted target by virtue of noticing the multitude of messages - fewer of them might have been more effective in catching you, but ‘fewer’ isn’t a thing that spam does - it’s conducted in huge bulk in the expectation that a tiny proportion of the total will stick
FBI Director Christopher Wray was kind enough to write me early this week. He’s taken it upon himself personally to oversee the transfer of a large amount of money to me. I gave him some explicit suggestions as to what, exactly, he could do with his service gun and told him they would never take me alive.
Wouldn’t it be funny if that really was Christopher Wray?
The scammers are getting more creative. I recently heard from an official with some Africa division of the IMF, who said they were reimbursing victims of the African fraud scams and that my name appeared on a list of victims. I just needed to send him my details to get my $1.5-million judgment. And another one was from a bank official in Nigeria who said two people, a man and a woman, American and Canadian respectively, had shown up at her bank with a certificate showing I had died from Covid and a last statement from me willing my tens of millions of dollars to them. The official said I needed to prove I was still alive if I wanted to get my award directly and not have it given to these two potential scammers.
I got one the other day at work that totally came off as one of those fakes that a company will send its own employees to see who is gullible enough to open it. I don’t know why I thought that. In any case, I think that gave me double the incentive to avoid it. The last thing I’m interested in getting is a “Ha ha, you dummy!” lecture from the higher-ups.
I got one today that, according to the header, warned me that my iCloud account had been locked. As one might expect, hovering over the sender revealed a string of gobbledegook having nothing whatsoever to do with Apple. It went unopened into “permanent delete.”
(I seem to recall having an iPod Shuffle that was given to me by the Elder Ottlet when she upgraded; outside of that, I’m pretty sure I’ve never owned an Apple product. And the closest I’ve come to having an iCloud account was a short-lived iTunes account well over a decade ago.)
Yeah, I’m constantly being told my Facebook account has been locked even though I have never signed up for Facebook. I think the scammers just figure everyone must have an account by now.
Most spam goes into the bit bucket before I even see it, but I’ve gotten a few of these, though I haven’t used McAfee in years. The real McAfee security people must be feeble to not track down these clowns.
I’ve watched a few YouTube videos lately where someone has let a spammer connect to their computer, opening a port to the spammer’s computer, and then deleting all the spammer’s files while the hacker keeps the spammer on. Great fun.
I’ve been receiving email stating that I’ve won a gift certificate to Sams Club or Kohl’s etc. Just click here to enter your information.
When I examine the sending email, guess what? It’s not kohls.com or samsclub.com. Its some string of text that appears to have no connection to the company that’s supposedly sent it.
I’ve been getting a lot of scam texts lately too. A fairly new phenomenon I think, they consist of someone supposedly texting you by mistake, starting off with something seemingly innocuous like, “What time are we meeting?” or “Is this Kenneth, the guy I met on vacation last month?” or even just “Hey, what’s up with you these days?” Then you answer to explain you’re not that person, getting drawn into a back-and-forth with the scammer. They’ve been highlighting these on the local news.
Before blocking the number, I’ll usually reply with something like, “Are you the girl from the ad? I still need to know how much for all night and if it includes anal.”
More proof that some of the scammers are reading e-mail replies. When an African banking official recently contacted me about depositing hundreds of millions of dollars in my bank account, I offered her $5 for a specific sexual act, and she replied that I was a very stupid man.
Also still getting some in all caps, although those are much less common these days than they used to be.
The scammers are changing tack a little. Anyone else been getting the more sexually explicit e-mail come-ons? This is my most recent, and it’s not as explicit as some have been:
Hello, my name is Joyce, I’m requesting a link up with a mature dude, and he should be good in bed. look forward to meeting a tall, attractive man. He should be ready for regular health checkups. I’m an self-reliant lady living alone, therefore, I’m not searching for man to take care of me, maybe just emotionally. I’m financially well off. I just want some fun times with you, I promise to be loyal, romantic and caring partner. .
Included are helpful links for me to click on and see her pictures or unsubscribe.
Two possibilities. If you send nudes of yourself back, they’ll either threaten to send them to your friends and family if you don’t pay or you’ll get a message from the girl’s “father” (or police) claiming she’s underage and you’ll be reported/arrested unless you pay up.
The ones I’ve gotten haven’t had links, just offers to share pictures.
Like this morning.
Hello Dear,
how are you today?hope you are fine
My name is Dr Ava Smith ,Am an English and French nationalities.
I will give you pictures and more details about me as soon as i hear from you
Thanks
Ava
My answer: Greetings upon the day, Dr. Smith
I appreciate your offer but I must decline as I have many leather-bound books to keep me entertained. Peter Mosse
Got an auto-reply immediately with an empty message but often scammers take a day or two to actually reply.