I got an email from the Red Cross reminding me they need blood donors. All the links are legit links to redcross.org, which is their site. What gave me pause was the subject line:
It’s Critic_l! P_tients Need Y_u N_w!
Why would they use such a subject line for a bona fide email?
Defective A and O keys on their keyboard?
Thought of another possibility: they’re trying to get through spam filters. Of course, using the same techniques spammers use to do that is not the best way.
They probably were trying to use some fancy font to get your attention.
They screwed up or your email service or your computer does not support the font they tried to use.
Don’t click hyperlinks in your email. No matter who it’s from. No matter what it says.
It’s part of their current campaign, #MissingTypes. They’re highlighting a lack of A’s and O’s - notice those are missing from your email subject.
Coke is into it.
Here’s a pic from Red Cross of Tennessee.
You can get a t-shirt if you want
It may look spammy to you but…I guess to others, it’s not. I could tell what they were getting at right away, before I looked it up and saw it was a whole campaign.
Cute. I guess they outsmarted themselves. Here are some phishing or spam email subjects in my current junk folder:
lnsane New Cyber_Week_DeaI! .FREE-XT808 Tactical_FIashIight! 5272423
Free_Google Mini, with a Vivint_Home Security-Sign_Up. 41148
Тrust us. You nеed Amеrⅰcan Homе Shield.
Stoр gettⅰng conneⅾ on heаltһ coverage, get the RIGНT coverage today!
(Note the “I” used for the “l” in Deal and Flashlight in the first one, and the non-ASCII Unicode character used for “i” in “American” in the third, and “getting” in the last. I don’t know why they do that, but I get a ton of similar ones. They all have two links in the emails, and nothing else.)
Anything that looks like this:
It’s Critic_l! P_tients Need Y_u N_w!
just looks suspicious. If they ran an ad like that it might work but as the subject of an email it just looks wrong.
Those non-ascii and other misspellings are an attempt to get past spam filters. It may work for some filters, but, as your example shows, not for all (and probably not for very many).
That’s actually kinda clever, but I have to admit, if I got an email like that it would be deleted before I made it to the end of the subject line.
First reaction: this is stupid. Everyone will think it’s spam and delete it without reading it.
Second reaction: Apparently there are an immense number of idiots who read spam and keep giving the spammers money. So, maybe this will work.
If only there was a nice quote about not underestimating the stupidity of people …
Have you donated in the past? Perhaps they made the (mistaken) assumption that previous donors would be familiar with the campaign and recognized it right away.
I mean, ok, it looks spammy to you. But what does a spam email subject look like anymore? Most of the spam that I get that gets through my filters are like “We need your opinion” or “Can you check this out?”
The Red Cross sends about 3 emails a week, if not more. They get through to mailboxes if their domain reputation is good and their emails have content. They most likely are not using that subject for all recipients (I’m on their list and I didn’t get it). They’ll judge the effectiveness of the campaign by their campaign results - they’ll know deliverability and open rates. If it shakes out that their squirrely subject had very low deliverability and open rates, they’ll be sure to not try it again.
You guys are all super geniuses and won’t be fooled by something that looks so spammy. Good for you. Now please, go to https://www.redcrossblood.org/ and sign up to donate blood.