I tend to think, in retrospect, that it was. It’s remarkably normal until the last email, and the lack of specific info in the first didn’t stand out at all at first glance.
The level of social engineering is a little scary.
Scenario:
Saw an ad in the free section of Craigslist, for a copier on its last legs but still working. ‘wanted to give it to a small business or startup’ who could get some use out of it before it died.
The actual posting has been deleted, but that’s the gist.
I responded, and heard nothing for two days, then this:
my response:
Another day went by and this came:
So, yeah, I’m thinking it was all a well-thought out and engineered phishing attempt - probably to a site with malware embedded. What say you, Dopers?
Probably a scam of some sort. Either phish your bank account information or send you a fake check and then discover that there was an “error with your application” and you need to Western Union the money back to them.
It is most certainly a scam, of the “pay for something that’s actually free” variety. It may or may not be a phishing scam as well (these guys often run multiple scams at once). It’s all over Craigslist at the moment.
Please report it to Craigslist, including the URL you showed me.
The site itself probably isn’t an immediate threat provided you don’t actually fill in any forms, but it does use a bunch of tricks to try to hide what it’s really doing. Avoid.
This person responded almost exactly the same:
The item posted was a free dog house.
Hey,
I’m so SO sorry, the first person just emailed me back again, turned out her first email ended up in my junk mail and I must have missed it. I feel like an idiot…
I actually wasnt going to mention this, but a few weeks ago I received this check in the mail for $1100 from the state gov. Apparently if your income isn’t over $85k each year you can qualify for it too as part of a grant program. I’m not sure about you, but kindergarden teachers dont earn too much and the income really helped us out a lot this month.
I received grant #KU9204, it was the choice with “Income Assistance” in the title. It was easy, just go to this website:
The application only takes 2-3 minutes and you can do it all on the computer. Just one thing: please dont tell too many people about it. I dont think theyve got unlimited money and I want to make sure that my friends can receive the money as well. Thanks, and i’m sorry again for the whole mixup.
I do not understand what is the purpose of this because whenever I try to see the page it says that I do not have a valid grant ID.