Writer Sanctum
Other & Off-Topics => Bar & Grill [Public] => Topic started by: Post-Doctorate D on October 10, 2018, 04:52:37 AM
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Spam is annoying but sometimes it can be amusing.
Today, I had one with the subject line "Gourmet Hot Chocolate . . . Ships in 7 Days" and I'm thinking, won't it be cold by then?
I get lots of ones from scammers claiming I need to upgrade my mailbox and click the link and login to upgrade. Silly spammers. I run my own mail server so when you claim to be the admin, I know you're not because I'm the admin. Plus, the links don't go to my server.
What's the silliest spam you've gotten?
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I got a spam email telling me how much they enjoyed my book, and asked for permission to feature it on their book blog. I replied that they had my permission to use excerpts, etc, and that I looked forward to seeing their review. They replied asking for $77.
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I got a spam email telling me how much they enjoyed my book, and asked for permission to feature it on their book blog. I replied that they had my permission to use excerpts, etc, and that I looked forward to seeing their review. They replied asking for $77.
You should have offered to pay them in spirit stones. :dance:
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I got a spam email telling me how much they enjoyed my book, and asked for permission to feature it on their book blog. I replied that they had my permission to use excerpts, etc, and that I looked forward to seeing their review. They replied asking for $77.
You should have offered to pay them in spirit stones. :dance:
i just reported the spam.
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Have you ever made haiku out of your website spam comments? It's fun and easy!
I discovered your
blog web site website on the
search engines and check
several of your
early posts. Always sustain
up the very ex-
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sented on your post.
They’re really convin-
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Still, the posts are very
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time? Thanks for the post
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joyed studying.
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Have you ever made haiku out of your website spam comments? It's fun and easy!
:goodpost:
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Right, since in most municipalities, it's not illegal, not to mention an increasingly accepted activity to engage in.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Right, since in most municipalities, it's not illegal, not to mention an increasingly accepted activity to engage in.
Now you tell me! :icon_redface:
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Right, since in most municipalities, it's not illegal, not to mention an increasingly accepted activity to engage in.
Now you tell me! :icon_redface:
He neglected to mention it causes hairy palms, odorous flatulence and early onset blindness.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Right, since in most municipalities, it's not illegal, not to mention an increasingly accepted activity to engage in.
Now you tell me! :icon_redface:
He neglected to mention it causes hairy palms, odorous flatulence and early onset blindness.
I've heard the twitching, drooling and uncontrollable fits of laughter eventually go away, too.
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Here's one that just came in. I've received it before, so they must be making money off it:
"Congratulations!
You have been recently selected as a potential candidate for inclusion in the new, 2018 Edition of the Professional Organization of Women of Excellence Recognized (P.O.W.E.R)
P.O.W.E.R is an exclusive network of professional females who have achieved excellence in their careers. It affords members with an incredible opportunity to network and engage with other successful women who are serious about their careers and achieving the highest levels of success.
Each candidate is selected individually, giving you the opportunity to represent and stand out in your industry & profession.
Once listed you will be featured among thousands of other well accomplished professional females such as yourself.
Members enjoy the following potential benefits:
Greater Name Recognition
Enhanced Status Amongst Your Industry Peers & Colleagues
Chances for Career Advancement
Professional Networking
and much much more
The Publishing Committee selected you as a potential candidate based not only upon your current standing but focusing as well on criteria from executive and professional directories, associations, and trade journals.
Given your background, the selection committee believes your profile makes a fitting addition to our publication."
:lalala
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Here's one that just came in. I've received it before, so they must be making money off it:
I don't recall getting one from P.O.W.E.R. but I've gotten plenty of offers of recognition for all my wonderous achievements as a woman. Also, offers for increasing my bust size.
:shrug
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It's probably not funny if they allege you watched child porn.
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Silliest spam was for viagra.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Right, since in most municipalities, it's not illegal, not to mention an increasingly accepted activity to engage in.
Now you tell me! :icon_redface:
*snort* There goes the morning coffee...
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Today . . .
"How about to meet a hot girl?"
Um, huh?
"Single mom lost 45 in 35 days"
I'm sorry, but you're not a very good mom if you misplaced 45 of your children in 35 days.
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Oh, I guess I have been receiving P.O.W.E.R. eMails. Got one today . . .
Dear,
You were recently selected as a potential candidate for P.O.W.E.R. (Professional Organization of Women of Excellence Recognized).
Our organization provides a powerful network of women who will mentor, inspire and empower each other to be the best they can be. Women understand the need to connect with other like-minded professionals and the importance of added exposure. Our platform is dedicated to enhancing the roles of women in the workplace and in the community, both individually and collectively.
Oh, and there is "No Cost To Be Included!"
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Received a web development spam message today.
I do web development. They should probably check for stuff like that. :icon_rolleyes:
Anyway, eMail goes on to offer mobile-friendly website design because being readable on mobile devices is "one of the most important requirements for Google."
These spams tempt me to eMail back, "What's Google?"
Or, "What's Google? Is that like Yahoo for people that can't spell?"
Googol is the proper spelling, you know. :hehe
Or "Why is a mobile-friendly site important to 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000? Why should I care? How important is a mobile-friendly site to #1? That's me, by the way. Can't say that I care. Do you also do photo retouching? I hear there's much demand for that."
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I got a spam email telling me how much they enjoyed my book, and asked for permission to feature it on their book blog. I replied that they had my permission to use excerpts, etc, and that I looked forward to seeing their review. They replied asking for $77.
You should have offered to pay them in spirit stones. :dance:
LOL. Will probably use that line.
Love this thread. Makes one laugh or smile even on a bum day.
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You know, if you're going to spam a forum with multiple messages trying to meet someone to date (LOL, like we believe that), you might want to try to be consistent with your age in each message on that same forum. :icon_rofl:
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Maybe she aged a year while posting all those spam messages.
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Maybe she aged a year while posting all those spam messages.
She aged a couple years. She was 21, 22 and 23. I am not sure but I think there might also have been a 24.
Also silly was trying to claim the forum was buggy for the photo not "uploading" properly when it was hyperlinked from another site.
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You know, if you're going to spam a forum with multiple messages trying to meet someone to date (LOL, like we believe that), you might want to try to be consistent with your age in each message on that same forum. :icon_rofl:
A spammer's love is very different from that of a square. :tap
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I know bots generate most SEO spam and they don't "analyze" your website at all, but they still generate some amusing results, like the one I just received a few minutes ago.
Here it is in part:
We’d like to inform you a very important issue regarding your website which is the reason why you are losing lots of traffic.
Your website is great in terms of design and content. However, it doesn’t follow Search Engine Guidelines. So, it has a very low visibility in search results.
We’ve done a thorough SEO audit of your website, and found that it has a big potential to generate more revenue than what it might be earning at the present. And yes, we have generated a report for the same as well.
My website has "great" "design and content" but has "low visibility in search results." It also has "big potential" for "more revenue" than it currently earns.
LOL.
This is a single page website. It only has a logo and a page counter. It doesn't try to sell anything or offer anything or even have ads. There is no content, other than the logo and page counter. That's it. No pages besides the landing page. Nothing. I only use the domain name for an eMail address for a specific use. I put up a webpage for it because, you know, why not? Hasn't been updated in 12 years and other than a logo change (I think) it hasn't changed in 17 years.
It's just silly to believe they've actually put together a "report" on how this site could earn more revenue. LOL.
Silly spammers.
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This made me curious so I looked up some stats. There are 14.5 billion spam emails sent a day. Only one in 12.5 million results in a reply. I now feel better about my mailing list stats.
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This made me curious so I looked up some stats. There are 14.5 billion spam emails sent a day. Only one in 12.5 million results in a reply. I now feel better about my mailing list stats.
You shouldn't. Spams are unsolicited and non-targeted. The response rate is naturally going to be low. Your mailing list is, presumably, opt-in so your subscribers requested to receive offers from you, so you should be getting a far, far better response rate.
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This made me curious so I looked up some stats. There are 14.5 billion spam emails sent a day. Only one in 12.5 million results in a reply. I now feel better about my mailing list stats.
You shouldn't. Spams are unsolicited and non-targeted. The response rate is naturally going to be low. Your mailing list is, presumably, opt-in so your subscribers requested to receive offers from you, so you should be getting a far, far better response rate.
I think Shoe was kidding. That said, there is a tendency for us to think we ought to be getting more responses than we do. However, if you look at norms in media and publishing, the norm according to Mailchimp is 17.3% opens and 3.6% clicks. Even on a bad day, I do far better than that, as I think most of us do. I have noticed, however, that the bigger my subscriber list is, the lower the percentages tend to get. I try to focus on raw number of opens and clicks (which keep going up) rather than percentages, which tend to go down as the list gets bigger.
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I mildly enjoyed today's comment form spam:
I had a look at your Instagram Instagram and it looks pretty good.
Never mind the "Instagram Instagram". I imagine they meant "Instagram page" or something.
Anyway, so, it's like, hmm, someone apparently likes my Instagram page. How curious.
It then goes on about whether I'm getting the results I want and how they can help me increase followers and engagement and stuff.
The thing is I don't have an Instagram account.
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Some more spam haiku for your enjoyment:
She’s very precise
about how she handles lead-
ing, include font is
special. If you can
begin with between four and
five pages about
your chosen subject
you might doing
well.
*****
Very also prob-
ably the most overlooked,
along with the cause
of several an
easily avoided di-
lemma. You aren’t
even required to
re-install some other hard-
ware or software be
capable of to
get this done.
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If you believe spam, and I haven't done an actual count to verify, but it seems like more people die in plane crashes than there are people on planes that have crashed. Seems a lot of wealthy royal families die in plane crashes. If you're royalty, maybe you should consider taking the bus. Seems like buses are less deadly. Or a boat. No reason you can't take a boat from Africa to Europe. Sure, it'll take longer than a plane, but you won't crash and leave all your millions to some nephew who will have to smuggle it out of the country with the help of a stranger in a foreign country he'll have to find by sending random eMails to people.
Earlier today, someone was apparently trying to steal funds due to me by claiming I died in a plane crash. The nerve of some people.
And, most recently, some poor woman contacted me. She was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, after her husband had died in a plane crash. Who knew that having a spouse die in a plane crash could cause cancer? I wonder if the FAA has looked into this. Anyway, she wants to make sure her money goes to charity, so she wants to give me her millions of dollars to distribute it to charities. Why she couldn't just list the charities in her will, I don't know. Oh, she said she doesn't want her husband's relatives getting the money. I, of course, get to keep a portion of it for my efforts.
Maybe I should take her up on the offer. Sounds like a better deal than refinancing the mortgage on my post office box.
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The thing is I don't have an Instagram account.
Maybe they can help with that too. I don't think there's much too it though. You just need a friend to take pictures of your butt.
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If you're royalty, maybe you should consider taking the bus.
No way, man. I've seen Romancing the Stone. I know what happens on buses. One minute, you think you're on your way to Cartegena to rescue your sister, and the next minute, you're in the middle of the jungle with some mustachioed villain who's trying to mug you.
Or a boat. No reason you can't take a boat from Africa to Europe.
A boat? In the Mediterranean? Ever heard of the Barbary pirates? :icon_eek:
Royalty are rich and connected, and that means they have access to Nicola Tesla's top secret teleportation technology. I learned about this tech on the internet, so that's how you know it's real. Those royals should just beam from here to there instead of "slumming" by using the vehicles of the masses.
Maybe I should take her up on the offer.
YOLO :cool:
The thing is I don't have an Instagram account.
Maybe they can help with that too. I don't think there's much too it though. You just need a friend to take pictures of your butt.
:icon_lol2:
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The thing is I don't have an Instagram account.
Maybe they can help with that too. I don't think there's much too it though. You just need a friend to take pictures of your butt.
Nobody would want to see such pictures.
No way, man. I've seen Romancing the Stone. I know what happens on buses. One minute, you think you're on your way to Cartegena to rescue your sister, and the next minute, you're in the middle of the jungle with some mustachioed villain who's trying to mug you.
Better that than a pistachioed villain. :icon_think:
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Got to laugh at the bitcoin spam.
The one where they tell you they hacked your computer, took over your cam, and recorded you wanking to porn.
Quite apart from the obvious issues like the email address they used not actually existing, failing to prove they even know who you are, and no evidence proving they even have access to your computer, let alone have recordings from it.
There is one part there where they tell you the bitcoin address is case sensitive, so copy and paste the address.
Only the whole email is a single IMAGE, which means no copy and paste is possible. And lets face it, no-one is ever going to type something that complicated without making errors.
Silly spammers!
:icon_rofl:
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Today's spam (one of them, anyway):
This new tool was just released a few weeks ago.
And I have to admit - it packs so much power in such a small package it even scares me!
And then blah, blah, blah and signed by someone I've never heard of.
It's like, gee, thanks guy I've never heard of. The fact this thing scares even you means a lot, given that I have no idea who you are or what might scare you. You might be frightened by a cotton swab. I've no idea. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Also doesn't help that the URL advertised has two typos. I mean, the unwary might overlook the first missing letter, but two? I don't know. Plus, when your domain name ends in .icu, yeah, no thanks.
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One of today's was a fake receipt (a .doc I'm supposed to open for more details on my supposed order).
Apparently, I placed my order on my "iPhone X, Ipad." Um, which was it? Also, I'm pretty sure if the eMail really was from Apple, they would know it's an "iPad" not an "Ipad".
And, the browser I used to place my order was "Safari, Chrome." Again, which was it?
Also, "This Order details:" is poor wording for a receipt.
Silly spammers.
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This is actually a legit technique for the spammers, because the smart people don't respond--only the stupid and illiterate (or elderly and confused) people actually miss all that stuff, which tells the spammers right away they are easy marks.
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Got to laugh at the bitcoin spam.
The one where they tell you they hacked your computer, took over your cam, and recorded you wanking to porn.
Quite apart from the obvious issues like the email address they used not actually existing, failing to prove they even know who you are, and no evidence proving they even have access to your computer, let alone have recordings from it.
There is one part there where they tell you the bitcoin address is case sensitive, so copy and paste the address.
I received one of these the other day as comment form spam which makes absolutely no sense. What "device" did they purportedly "install" their software on? The web server? A web server with a webcam? Was the web server being recorded pleasuring itself to videos of web servers with 42U 36"D racks? I'm kind of curious to see the video now. :hehe
I imagine they probably spoofed their IP (maybe, then again if you're sending this kind of message through comment form spam, you're probably not that bright) but their IP address indicates they are in Atlanta, Georgia.
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There's a new twist on the "embarrassing video" scam. Now they are claiming they actually slept with you, recorded it on video and downloaded all your passwords and contacts while you were in the bathroom.
Of course, they don't mention their name, only that it happened a "long, long time ago". You know, like probably before you had a smartphone. :hehe
I kind of like this bit: "For the obvious reason, I can not tell you my personal name, but yes, I can tell you one thing that, it was a long, long time back honey." Yeah, they don't want to mention their name, but they're perfectly willing to give a DVD of your night with them--which would obviously include them--to all your neighbors and family members. (After all, they know where you live.)
Silly spammers. Next thing you know, they'll claim they are you and if you don't send Bitcoin cash to them, er, you, they, er, you will streak down the aisles during church services or whatever.
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Two funny spam messages today . . .
First was one of those fake invoice scams, except instead of using a company name, they used the name John. And they closed the message with "Thank you for using John!"
You know, as opposed to going in the bushes or something, I guess.
Second was Internet marketing spam, offering a system to "create" your Kindle book in just a matter of hours! NO WRITING REQUIRED! I normally junk that stuff but was curious to take a look. I checked the summary and part of the process is making sure you create a good cover for CreateSpace and upload the book to CreateSpace as well as Amazon. And I was like, hmmm, CreateSpace, really? Do they really not know?
Upon further investigation, this product was first offered three years ago. And I'm thinking, you know, maybe, just maybe, you might want to update your stuff?
Especially when you're offering the stuff for the special low, low price of only $177. :eek: And that's a savings over the regular sales price of $247 which itself is a discount off the regular retail price of $497.
I guess maybe I need to write a book on how to write a book and sell said book for $97. It'll look like an awesome deal.
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There's another new twist on the "embarrassing video" scam.
Received one today that claims they know I am a pedophile because they've filmed me doing things while I was purportedly on websites with pictures/videos (they don't specify) of naked kids. But, not to worry, they don't care, just so long as I send them money. If not, they will forward the videos to my local police department. After all, they know where I live.
So, basically, they would be admitting to possessing child porn because if I had done what they claim and they possessed a split screen recording of me and these sites I was supposedly visiting, that means they not only watched child porn but they also possess it.
Smart move! LOL.
Oh, and if I contact the police, they will know and they will immediately send the videos they have to the police. Yep. Prove to the police that you possess child porn. Smart move, spammer!
Anyway, the funny part is . . .
"Because I know you are a wealthy person and that you do care
about your reputation, I am willing to gίve you a chance to atone and I
will leave you alone."
I'm a "wealthy person"? :icon_rofl:
So, now they have given me three reasons to not believe them . . .
1) I do not and have not watched child porn
2) The camera on my computer is non-functional
3) I am, sadly, certainly not wealthy
Silly spammer.
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Got to laugh at the bitcoin spam.
The one where they tell you they hacked your computer, took over your cam, and recorded you wanking to porn.
Quite apart from the obvious issues like the email address they used not actually existing, failing to prove they even know who you are, and no evidence proving they even have access to your computer, let alone have recordings from it.
There is one part there where they tell you the bitcoin address is case sensitive, so copy and paste the address.
I received one of these the other day as comment form spam which makes absolutely no sense. What "device" did they purportedly "install" their software on? The web server? A web server with a webcam? Was the web server being recorded pleasuring itself to videos of web servers with 42U 36"D racks? I'm kind of curious to see the video now. :hehe
I imagine they probably spoofed their IP (maybe, then again if you're sending this kind of message through comment form spam, you're probably not that bright) but their IP address indicates they are in Atlanta, Georgia.
Received two of these today as comment form spam.
Each listed a different password, neither of which is a password I have ever used anywhere.
Then they say how they embedded a pixel in the message so they will know I read it. You can't embed a pixel in comment form spam. At least not on my comment form, which I coded myself.
Maybe someone will fall for this, but having the wrong password certainly doesn't make the spam believable. LOL.
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I keep receiving emails about this incredible treatment for AIDS. Which, if I had AIDS or knew anyone with it, that might be great news, but I would expect to hear about it from major news headlines and not a random spammer. The miracle drug they're offering to sell? Viagra.
Maybe these are secretly sci-fi stories because it would take a really big stretch of imagination to believe that Viagra could somehow treat an immune disorder.
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Received spam on a contact form today on one of my websites. It opened with this:
I've received a few of your emails recently and it looks like you could use a little help with your copywriting.
This particular website does not have an eMail list and, thus, the spammer could not have received any of my eMails recently because said eMails do not exist.
Silly spammer.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
I doubly laugh at that because my desktop has no built in web camera.
"Good luck with that!"
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SPAMMER SAYS: "I'm sure you're busy and don't have time to read a whole email so we have prepared a quick explanation video."
Pretty sure I can read through a whole eMail faster than watching a video.
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So, yesterday, I received spam. Nothing new, of course, but it says at the bottom of the eMail:
"You signed up to get mail from [SPAMMER NAME] on 09/16/2019 16:00"
Um, no, I most certainly did not. That was this past Monday. I would have remembered that.
Now, normally, I ignore the unsubscribe links in spam since that just lets them know someone is receiving their junk. But, in a moment of weakness and because I was hoping for a form where they would ask for a reason for unsubscribing wherein I hoped to write a short sternly worded diatribe that I never subscribed to their junk and resented having to unsubscribe from something I never subscribed to. Instead, I get a short message that I have been unsubscribed from their list.
A bit less satisfying but glad to be rid of them nonetheless.
But, today, I received another spam from them. And, again, with the message that:
"You signed up to get mail from [SPAMMER NAME] on 09/16/2019 16:00"
No, I DID NOT!!!
But, lesson learned. I just flagged it as spam so future messages will just go to spam.
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I’ve just had a phone call where an automated female voice with an American accent informed me that my Amazon Prime subscription was due to be renewed at £39.99 a month. If I wished to speak to an Amazon Prime person to cancel the subscription then I should press 1.
At that price, I would certainly cancel.
We do NOT have a subscription to Amazon Prime.
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I’ve just had a phone call where an automated female voice with an American accent informed me that my Amazon Prime subscription was due to be renewed at £39.99 a month. If I wished to speak to an Amazon Prime person to cancel the subscription then I should press 1.
At that price, I would certainly cancel.
We do NOT have a subscription to Amazon Prime.
Bet they ask for your credit card number to verify so they can cancel it. Ugh.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Especially when your 74.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Especially when your 74.
More so when you don't even have a webcam.
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We don't answer the phone unless the Caller ID shows a name we recognize. Which frankly is not often.
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The "I made a video of you watching porn" extortion ploy seems very silly to me.
Especially when your 74.
More so when you don't even have a webcam.
Received another one of these today. It closed with some helpful advice:
For the future - just cover a sticker your device's camera when you visit adult sites!
LOL. My devices with cameras DO have black blocking stickers covering them so, if they actually had gained access to my devices, as they claimed, they would already know that. :hehe
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Dear Spammers,
Now may not be the optimal time to advertise mail order brides from the Ukraine.
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:clap: :icon_lol2:
Dear Spammers,
Now may not be the optimal time to advertise mail order brides from the Ukraine.
:icon_lol2: :clap: :dance:
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Just got spam for "male problems" but 50/50 odds weren't good enough for them, so they also carry stuff for women too. In fact, they have a full range of offerings:
- Antidiabetic
- Cancer
- Stomach
- Women's Health
- Anti-allergic
- Antibiotics
So, apparently, you can buy cancer.
But, wait!, there's more because they also have:
... and more than 1,000 positions
I don't wanna know.
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Just got spam for "male problems" but 50/50 odds weren't good enough for them, so they also carry stuff for women too. In fact, they have a full range of offerings:
- Antidiabetic
- Cancer
- Stomach
- Women's Health
- Anti-allergic
- Antibiotics
So, apparently, you can buy cancer.
But, wait!, there's more because they also have:
... and more than 1,000 positions
I don't wanna know.
:catrun
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I’ve been getting a number of emails from women saying they have pictures ready to send me and we could be soon be sweethearts.
This is in between others saying they have taken those pictures of me through my camera where I am watching porn and doing naughty things.
Don’t these guys have a marketing union or an association or something?
I mean...if I’m perfectly happy to play with myself, why would I need a partner? :icon_think:
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I mean...if I’m perfectly happy to play with myself, why would I need a partner? :icon_think:
:icon_rofl:
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I like the spam too where they warn you your eMail account has to be verified or something or it will be SHUT DOWN.
It's especially fun for me because I have my own mail server so I know it's a scam right off the bat. :hehe
Got one just now that my eMail account has reached its storage limit of 99.9 GB and will be locked if I don't re-validate the account.
Okay, for one, if it's reached its storage limit, wouldn't they want me to clean it out instead of re-validating the address?
For two, it's an SMTP account--the messages are deleted from the server once I download to my mail software so it's never going to reach a storage limit unless I don't check it for a long time.
For three, I don't think my eMail server even has a 99.9 GB hard drive. I think its 80 GB.
Silly spammers.
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With all the big company hacking, these guys must be bottom of the barrel scammers. Poor guys. They have to depend on stupid to make a living. And I thought selling books was hard.
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They have to depend on stupid to make a living.
I imagine they might do quite well. Unfortunately.
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Got one just now that my eMail account has reached its storage limit of 99.9 GB and will be locked if I don't re-validate the account.
You know what the really stupid part of that is?
If the storage limit had been reached, the email would have bounced, so you'd have never received it.
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Got one just now that my eMail account has reached its storage limit of 99.9 GB and will be locked if I don't re-validate the account.
You know what the really stupid part of that is?
If the storage limit had been reached, the email would have bounced, so you'd have never received it.
Unless they increased it just enough for their admin message to get through.
If they were actually the admin, that is.
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Dan, it might be about time you ditched your old email addresses and started over with new ones. :confused:
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Dan, it might be about time you ditched your old email addresses and started over with new ones. :confused:
I've had it for 23 years. I refuse to let the spammers win.
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Dan, it might be about time you ditched your old email addresses and started over with new ones. :confused:
I've had it for 23 years. I refuse to let the spammers win.
You know what worked for me?
When I moved my domains to another host, my email was down for a day or so.
When it came back up, most of my spam didn't come back with it. The fact the emails started bouncing seems to have removed me from their lists.
Getting all new spam these days, but not nearly so much.
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Today, I received a new variation on the "we have access to your account" spam. This time, it was they gained access to my friend's account and found pictures of his naked wife. Since he didn't pay them, they are sending the photos to all his contacts, of which I am one.
Now, normally, photos are stored as JPEGs. Maybe PNGs. But, these are apparently in a Word document. A Word document probably containing a macro virus or something. Nice try, spammer.
But I'm sure some people will click to open the file just to see which of their friend's were "hacked."
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Did your 'friend' actually have a wife?
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Today, I received a new variation on the "we have access to your account" spam. This time, it was they gained access to my friend's account and found pictures of his naked wife. Since he didn't pay them, they are sending the photos to all his contacts, of which I am one.
Now, normally, photos are stored as JPEGs. Maybe PNGs. But, these are apparently in a Word document. A Word document probably containing a macro virus or something. Nice try, spammer.
But I'm sure some people will click to open the file just to see which of their friend's were "hacked."
I'm safe. I don't want to see anyone's naked wife. Please don't show me! :catrun
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Did your 'friend' actually have a wife?
They don't identify the friend. I imagine that's part of the ploy to get you to open the Word document. You wouldn't know who the friend is until you see who the pictures are of.
Whether or not there are actually pictures in the Word document, I have no idea. I am not going to try to open it to find out.
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Is it doc or docx?
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Is it doc or docx?
It was a .doc.
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Is it doc or docx?
It was a .doc.
So very old version of Word as well. Probably not even from Word, but a text editor.
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I had a spam comment on my blog recently in which the spammer told me my content had become boring but this new post was really interesting so they were going to add me back to their reading list.
Do people actually let comments through on their blogs if they've been insulted? I have a sad feeling that some people would just to prove they were open to criticism. Well, screw them. I'm not open to criticism on my own blog! There's also the fact that I don't let spammers spam my blog. ;)
:D
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Do people actually let comments through on their blogs if they've been insulted?
I think it's a trick to make it appear as though it were a genuine comment and not something from a bot because for years, they would try to post glowing comments and you learned that someone commenting on how great your content was was probably a spammer or spambot. So, they shifted gears and tried to throw in some criticism mixed in with praise so you might think it was genuine.
What I always found amusing was that marketers had automated blogs which posted auto-written content which would then be auto-commented on by bots from other marketers so really a lot of times these blogs and comments were only being created, read and commented on by bots all the way around.
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Is it doc or docx?
It was a .doc.
So very old version of Word as well. Probably not even from Word, but a text editor.
You can make .doc files in OpenOffice, so I would guess there are a bunch of other programs that can do it, too.
I've been getting spam comments on my blog lately, though I've been reporting them, so the comments aren't there anymore. The traffic is from Turkmenistan.
(https://i.imgur.com/ekYSyqu.png)
I don't know if the spammers are actually Turkmen or not. They may be from some other place and are just routing their traffic through there. And yes, "Turkmen" is the proper name for people from Turkmenistan, in case anyone was wondering.
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I just got my first spam email claiming to have important COVID-19 information. I didn't open it.
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I just got my first spam email claiming to have important COVID-19 information. I didn't open it.
The one with a "military source" exposing the "Shocking TRUTH" about it?
I've also gotten a number offering masks and ones wanting you to visit their website to learn more.
Also a number of spam messages that have scraped news about the virus at the bottom of their messages, presumably to try to evade spam filters.
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I feel deprived. No spam of late. My spam controls are so tight I often don't even get emails from my close relatives.
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Lucky.
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I don't know if this is coincidental or how it would deter bots, but I have two comment forms on my website. One is for the company and the other is for me as the author. Company one is accessed via the main page; mine is from my author subdirectory.
I used to get spam on both.
Today, I received several in a row. And then I noticed that all the recent spam comments have been to the author comment form, not the company one. I checked and found I have not received any spam on the company contact form in over a year and a half. None.
Well, maybe I messed up and have the same subject line for both. So, I did a test submission. Nope. The message I get from the company contact form submission is different from the author one.
Hmm. What did I do to that form a year and a half ago that I didn't do to the other?
Well, and I don't see how this would deter bots, but I have on the company contact page that, if you're a spammer, by submitting the form, you are entering an agreement to pay me several hundred dollars per submission.
Who would have imagined that would actually work? :shrug
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Well, and I don't see how this would deter bots, but I have on the company contact page that, if you're a spammer, by submitting the form, you are entering an agreement to pay me several hundred dollars per submission.
Who would have imagined that would actually work? :shrug
:icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl:
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Well, and I don't see how this would deter bots, but I have on the company contact page that, if you're a spammer, by submitting the form, you are entering an agreement to pay me several hundred dollars per submission.
Who would have imagined that would actually work? :shrug
:icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl: :icon_rofl:
I just added it to my author contact form. We'll see what happens.
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I just added it to my author contact form. We'll see what happens.
So far, so good. One submission a few hours after I made the change but nothing since. And that submission was in Russian (I think) so maybe I need to add the line in a few different languages.
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Dang. Just received one.
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Well, it was a good theory, but it's apparently not working.
No idea why comment spam stopped on the other form then.
Maybe I need to try bold print on the author contact form.
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I modified the form and added a notice right by the submit button. Should give human senders pause. We'll see what happens this time.
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Well, it hasn't eliminated spam on that contact page, but it has dropped it from about 4 or 5 daily to 1 or 2 every couple days.
:shrug
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You could have it auto-load a payment form where they have to pay you a small amount of money. Say, $5.
You could say that you will refund the money to (whoever) if it's legit. Something like that. So truly legit people might be willing to do so, with the promised refund. But scammers rely on volume and that might deter them. Or you get $5.
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You guys are so funny! Every once in a while I'll open my spam folder, just to see what comes in. I think I'm happy enough with the size of my boobs, and no need for the male enhancements or... stiffeners. ;)
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Spammers are getting desperate. Today I got one basically saying that if you use toilet paper to wipe yourself after a bowel movement, it could be an early warning sign that you may have cancer, diabetes, a weight problem or be at risk for a stroke. And that is a "medical fact."
This is because animals don't need to wipe themselves after a bowel movement so if you do then something is wrong.
I guess they forgot that, instead of using toilet paper, many animals lick themselves clean. Or, in the case of dogs, scoot across the carpet.
:shocked:
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Spammers are getting desperate. Today I got one basically saying that if you use toilet paper to wipe yourself after a bowel movement, it could be an early warning sign that you may have cancer, diabetes, a weight problem or be at risk for a stroke. And that is a "medical fact."
This is because animals don't need to wipe themselves after a bowel movement so if you do then something is wrong.
I guess they forgot that, instead of using toilet paper, many animals lick themselves clean. Or, in the case of dogs, scoot across the carpet.
:shocked:
Animals also don't get spam emails, so they must be doing something right. ;)
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Well, the change hasn't really helped with the onslaught of comment form spam. It has reduced it but still receiving it, though still not getting anything on the main contact form for the site, only the author contact form. :shrug
Anyway, I was getting 2 or 3 a day from apparently the same place advertising, well, I don't remember. Something for money or whatever. But, they listed the same Telegram handle on each on. So, I added that handle to the filtering I have and--presto!--no more spam from them.
Some of these spammers are beyond stupid. "Reply to this message for more information" like it's eMail spam rather than comment form spam. At least be smart enough to tailor your message for your spamming method.
I am tempted to actually send a bill to some of these spammers that leave contact information just to see how they might react.
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Just rcvd this merry scamspam:
"Your yearly help for five contraption used is begun. Your record has been charged for $307.91 for this help program. likewise, it with willing be reflected in your records inside the going with 2 working days as '360 Security charge updation' We regard you for picking Norton.360 for your shielded web looking program."
If I were techie, I'd write a thriller about tracking down bozos like this to give them a talking to, or at least an English lesson.
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Just rcvd this merry scamspam:
"Your yearly help for five contraption used is begun. Your record has been charged for $307.91 for this help program. likewise, it with willing be reflected in your records inside the going with 2 working days as '360 Security charge updation' We regard you for picking Norton.360 for your shielded web looking program."
If I were techie, I'd write a thriller about tracking down bozos like this to give them a talking to, or at least an English lesson.
When I see spam like that, I wonder, is it so hard to find an authentic eMail bill from somewhere and, you know, COPY it word for word? I doubt spammers have any concern over plagiarism.
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Apparently, I am getting a divorce.
I guess we've grown apart these past few years. I mean, he/she's never at home when I am. I don't even know if my spouse is a man or a woman or otherwise. We've never actually met. I only found out a few years ago that I was married when I searched myself online and various sites reported that I am now (as of then) married. So, my spouse and I spend a lot of time apart. Whoever he/she is most likely doesn't even have a key to the house. Probably a good thing. I don't know how well I can trust this spouse of mine.
So, I suppose it's no surprise we're getting a divorce now.
Shocking that it came in an eMail.
Subject line said: "You getting a divorce"
Sounds kind of final, like he/she doesn't even want to try to work things out.
On the other hand, according to the eMail, a new girl wants to meet me. And she's a "hottie." Probably also Russian given that the URL ends in .ru.
But what if I was looking for a new guy instead? Silly spammer probably didn't do any research. Just assumed they had a 50/50 chance, you know?
It's that kind of lack of attention to detail that bugs me about spammers, among many other things, mind you.
Anyway, bottom line is that I'm apparently single and available now. Not that anyone cares, of course. But, if there are kids I don't know about, I could probably use some help finding them, unless they are hiding under the desk. Nope. Not there. So, you know, if you're single and don't want to see kids that may or may not exist starve to death, don't be afraid to offer some help finding them. They could be anywhere.
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I hate election time. All that paper wasted. I know who I'm voting for, I know how to look things up on the internet thing. It's still around, right? Oh, and I also know that I've voted in the last six elections (well, the last however many since 1982). Thanks for the reminder notice, snottily telling me that it's the right of my neighbors to know who is voting in their community. Except, you listed the elections I voted in, not my neighbors' records. Hm. Sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it? I'm forgetful, but it's not that bad yet.
Between this and the phone calls telling me I may have been injured in the Camp Lejuene mess the last fifty years... Never been there in my life. I had friends who married Marines. I'm pretty sure they're smart enough to figure out how to join a class action suit.
And don't get me started on all the Medicare insurance benefits I may miss, if I don't reply to this letter right this freaking second! And burial insurance. FFS I seem to recall knowing how to look this crap up on the internet, too.
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Hey, Post-Crisis D! Good luck in your divorce. I hope you take him/her/them for all the money. And full custody of the missing kids. They have to be around somewhere.
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Between this and the phone calls telling me I may have been injured in the Camp Lejuene mess the last fifty years... Never been there in my life. I had friends who married Marines. I'm pretty sure they're smart enough to figure out how to join a class action suit.
There have been ads on that on TV one after another, from different law firms. Now the local veterans agencies are advertising to tell veterans that may have served at Camp Lejuene to contact the local agency who can help them for free.
Alas, they don't have the advertising budgets of the law firms so those ads don't run nearly as often.
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What local veterans agencies? I'm dubious. Sounds like just another law firm looking to cash in. It's a class action lawsuit, none of the law firms advertising to sign up clients are going to charge the clients, they just want to sign up as many people as possible to increase their own cut.
The Veteran's administration site has a lot of information about disability benefits for Camp Lejeune victims, but nothing about the lawsuit.
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What local veterans agencies? I'm dubious. Sounds like just another law firm looking to cash in.
They are local agencies overseen by the county government.
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Thanks for the clarification.
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Okay, which one of you is the spammer?
Because after I posted this:
I am tempted to actually send a bill to some of these spammers that leave contact information just to see how they might react.
Spam comments slowed down and have seemingly now stopped. :icon_think:
I had to send myself a test on Saturday just to make sure it was working.
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On the other hand, according to the eMail, a new girl wants to meet me. And she's a "hottie." Probably also Russian given that the URL ends in .ru.
A Russian hottie, eh? Awesome! What could possibly go wrong? :icon_eek:
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The spam comments are back.
I'm wondering if changing the name on the submit button from "Submit" to "Add to Cart" will deter bots. Ah, heck. I'm gonna try it . . .
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Ah, yes, the continuous commercials!
The VA doesn't want vets signing up to lawsuits because it's admitting the government harmed service members. When we sign up, we agree that we can't suit the government for anything that happens to us. Congress had to pass a bill for this, and I'm still surprised they did.
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The spam comments are back.
I'm wondering if changing the name on the submit button from "Submit" to "Add to Cart" will deter bots. Ah, heck. I'm gonna try it . . .
Instead of that, I made it a payment button.
So far, now I'm only getting foreign language spam.
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Oh, silly spammers . . .
"If your is still in the market for additional funding . . ."
I mean, wow.
On top of that, it was sent to my eMail address and the company name listed is mine, but it isn't addressed to me. The last name is my father's first name and the first name is something out of Battlestar Galactica.
:icon_think:
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For those following along in the battle against comment spam, which is probably no one, I have a new update.
My last change was to have the "Submit" button read "Commit to Pay."
Overall, spam comments are down but not completely eliminated.
Meanwhile, the site's contact page has gotten no comment spam in months. For those who don't want to scroll back, I have two comment forms on the site. One is for the main site and one is for my author section of the site.
Earlier this week, I re-examined the two forms to try to figure out what the difference is. Why does one get no comment spam and the other gets a regular barrage of it? Especially baffling is that the main contact page should be easier to find as it is at the root level of the site whereas my author section is in its own directory.
Then I noticed that, in addition to everything else, I had at some point also added a field on the main contact page that asked the submitter to spell a specific word. Not hard to do especially when the word is right there but it's apparently something bots aren't able to figure out yet. Thank goodness for that.
So, I added such a field to my author contact page.
So far, so good. We'll see how it holds up long term.
I should also add something to track how many form submissions get rejected.
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Much of the spam from my website is from what I'd call bottom feeders in the self-pub industry. People trying to convince me to pay them to advertise my books to their supposedly large and responsive Twitter or Facebook accounts. I'm not sure that the clever spelling test would rule them out--unless they simply spam every website whose address they can find. In which case, yes, it would be useful. Do you have code for the spelling test that I could copy to add to my site?
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Much of the spam from my website is from what I'd call bottom feeders in the self-pub industry. People trying to convince me to pay them to advertise my books to their supposedly large and responsive Twitter or Facebook accounts. I'm not sure that the clever spelling test would rule them out--unless they simply spam every website whose address they can find.
The ones I get are more of a general "promote your business" nature. Or SEO. Or services that will remove negative reviews of my business. I don't recall any that actually recognized I write books.
In which case, yes, it would be useful. Do you have code for the spelling test that I could copy to add to my site?
It's very simple PHP code. I could PM it to you, but you'd have to figure out where to insert it into your comment form. Also, obviously, your comment form would have to be parsed by PHP for it to work.
If your site is a WordPress site, then it won't work. I did a number of custom PHP thingies for my WordPress sites back in the day and I gave up on trying to make any of them into plugins anyone else could use. I used them on my own site by manually editing the pages in the WordPress install.
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My site is indeed a WordPress site, hosted by SiteGround. Oh, well. It was an idea.
I don't get much spam anyway. I do wonder if one of the self-pub gurus sold me out to the bottom feeders. It's so silly. They all claim they can sell books of mine via methods I have tried that do not work.
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My site is indeed a WordPress site, hosted by SiteGround. Oh, well. It was an idea.
I've coded tons of stuff in PHP but WordPress is a royal PITA.
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Akismet seems to take care of the comment spam on my Wordpress site pretty well, but if you're using any kind of comment form plugin, you can probably add a field that would have the same result. I haven't used a comment form plugin recently, but my recollection is that the good ones were pretty customizable.
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I can second the Akismet recommendation. I forgot about that one since I don't really have any WordPress sites of my own anymore. I do have client sites using WordPress and Akismet seems to work well for them.
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Help! Have begun getting nasty spam in Google Drive where I backup manuscripts. The spam hits Drive as a shared/collaboration document and there is no gmail-like spam filter. Google will not allow me to turn off the collaboration function. I can block individual spammers but they return under other names. Any other ideas out there except to stop using Drive?
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That's disturbing. But I'm not clear how someone uploads anything to your Google drive.
None of this helps? https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9310248?hl=en#Drive_change_permissions (https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9310248?hl=en#Drive_change_permissions)
If the stuff is coming is as collaboration, it sounds as if it shouldn't be coming in if all of your documents are unshared or otherwise restricted.
I haven't used Google Drive that much lately, but I just checked mine, and there's absolutely no spam. And as I recall, a while ago, Google did away with documents being shared just with a link (which would have enabled spam if a hacker got ahold of the link, or so I imagine).
If you're looking for an alternative, I can recommend Dropbox, which has always worked well for me.
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Thanks, Bill, for the suggestion and link, however the link's solution is whack-a-mole. I've tried it. Turns out I am not alone w/the Drive/spam problem - others online report the same. Access appears to be via your gmail address. You may never have used shared files/collaboration (I never have) but the villains creep into your Drive files. I sometimes see the same or similar address in my gmail spam folder, so I suspect they are shotgunning. Google knows of the problem but offers no global solution. The quick and easy fix is a user option to turn off file sharing altogether. Or, as you say, Dropbox.
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If you want alternatives to Google Drive, there's also OnlyOffice.com. They have both a cloud-based and self-hosted solutions. They're also more privacy oriented than Google or Dropbox so perhaps there'd be less chance of spam.
Why not just backup to an external hard drive? You can get small ones that fit in your pocket, so they're easy to take with you if you work remotely and small enough to not take a lot of room in a media safe.
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So far, so good. We'll see how it holds up long term.
Almost two weeks now and no spam comments. :banana:
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So far, so good. We'll see how it holds up long term.
Almost two weeks now and no spam comments. :banana:
Almost three weeks and still no spam comments. :banana:
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Silly phone spammers.
Spammer: "Can I speak to the owner?"
Me: "He's not in. Can I take a message?"
Spammer: "That's okay. I can speak to a manager. Are you the manager?"
Me: "No. He's not in either. Can I take a message?"
Spammer: "Can I speak to whoever is in charge of the business when they're not in? I can hold."
The last line was a mistake.
Me: "Sure." *Click to put on hold.*
There was no one else here at the time.
They waited on hold for maybe two minutes before hanging up and calling again.
I didn't answer the second time.
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Silly phone spammers.
Spammer: "Can I speak to the owner?"
Me: "He's not in. Can I take a message?"
Spammer: "That's okay. I can speak to a manager. Are you the manager?"
Me: "No. He's not in either. Can I take a message?"
Spammer: "Can I speak to whoever is in charge of the business when they're not in? I can hold."
The last line was a mistake.
Me: "Sure." *Click to put on hold.*
There was no one else here at the time.
They waited on hold for maybe two minutes before hanging up and calling again.
I didn't answer the second time.
You can simply say: "Hold on, I'll call him." Yell: "Harry, it's for you." Then leave the phone off the hook.
If they are looking for a female say, "She's upstairs with a client. Do you want to wait?" Grin
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So far, so good. We'll see how it holds up long term.
Almost two weeks now and no spam comments. :banana:
Almost three weeks and still no spam comments. :banana:
About two and a half months now and still no spam comments. :banana:
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So far, so good. We'll see how it holds up long term.
Almost two weeks now and no spam comments. :banana:
Almost three weeks and still no spam comments. :banana:
About two and a half months now and still no spam comments. :banana:
Two days shy of eight months and still no spam comments. :banana:
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Oh, silly spammers, you are so, so dumb.
Received today, which is Monday, December 11, 2023.
We noticed that [My eMail Address] has not accepted our new terms and will be disconnected from [My Mail Server] today 13th of February 2023,
Tap below and sign-in to get an updated mailbox to avoid being disconnected from our service.
They could at least try to get today's date right. :shrug
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Oh, silly spammers, you are so, so dumb.
Received today, which is Monday, December 11, 2023.
We noticed that [My eMail Address] has not accepted our new terms and will be disconnected from [My Mail Server] today 13th of February 2023,
Tap below and sign-in to get an updated mailbox to avoid being disconnected from our service.
They could at least try to get today's date right. :shrug
:icon_rolleyes: :hehe
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Part of a spam received today:
Dear member, We have noticed that you signed up an account in our system one year ago. However, it appears that you haven't logged into your personal cabinet for an extended period. We would like to inform you of the significance of using the platform on the platform.
Personal cabinet? I'm guessing their spam thesaurus software went wild and substituted "cabinet" for "wallet."
I especially like the part about "the significance of using the platform on the platform." LOL.
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I especially like the part about "the significance of using the platform on the platform." LOL.
Yo, dawg... I heard you like to log in to platforms, so I put a platform in your platform so you can log in while you log in. :cool:
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I especially like the part about "the significance of using the platform on the platform." LOL.
Yo, dawg... I heard you like to log in to platforms, so I put a platform in your platform so you can log in while you log in. :cool:
Isn't that called phishing?
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This wasn't spam: A major credit card company said it saw suspicious activity on a dormant account. I went to the website the smart way, found the issue, and discovered that the credit card company is monitoring my relationship with a small department store. Probably the bank is the true issuer of the store card. Or else it's just nosy. And no, the activity wasn't suspicious, nor was the account dormant. Just dormant-ish.
Some email did show up recently claiming my email would be shut down, but I just deleted that piece of nonsense.
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Not spam but a dumb ad:
Heart Surgeon Begs Americans: "Stop Doing This To Your Blueberries"
The ad is illustrated with an animated GIF of a doctor pointing at a bowl of raspberries.
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Just got an eMail from my credit card company (not really) . . .
Subject: Hight Security Alert!
Wow, not a high security alert but a hight one. Must be pretty important to earn that t.
Dear Value Customer,
Your request was not granted
High Security Alert!
We recieved a rush call to reset your account User ID, Password, To us this call look suspicious and fradulent.
For your protection, your account has been flagged as numerous that needs to be reviewed
We strongly suggest, that you try to do the following
Review your account Now
Complete all verification process
Once you've done this your account will be removed from the flagged accounts automatically
Your account security is important to us. We are sorry for any inconviniences.
Well, to me, this eMail looks "suspicious and fradulent." :icon_rofl:
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Got a new one today. It appears to be a fake order from Zappos. It looks like a receipt and all the products listed have links to Zappos. I didn't click any links but they all appear to be legit links.
The receipt has my name (my legal name and not my "common" name) along with my home address as the ship-to address. Says it was paid via PayPal.
However, it was sent to an eMail address that is not associated with my PayPal address. I'm going to log into my PayPal account later just to double check but I am sure this is fake as I haven't received any confirmation eMail from PayPal itself.
No suspicious links or attachments.
There is a customer service phone number, which is not Zappos' customer service number listed on their website. So, I am guessing the scam here is that it's meant to look legit and you're supposed to think, whoa! I didn't order any of this! and then call them where they scam you somehow.
Not sure how they would do it with PayPal. A credit card, sure. Well, maybe they'll say it was paid via PayPal with a credit card. And then want your credit card number to issue a refund. Still, you'd think a regular PayPal user would know that's not how it works. Be easier just to claim it was paid via credit card in the first place, but even then you would think you would realize they didn't know the last four digits of the card used.
I don't know. But, I'm not calling the number to try to figure out exactly how they plan to try to scam you.
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I got one saying my QuickBooks account had been frozen. I don't have a QuickBooks account. Good thing it's frozen, huh?
I got one saying they found my password online and have infiltrated all my computers and the usual bs. If you believe a computer without a camera can take a photo of you anyway, you're ripe for this scam.
Meanwhile, people/bots keep trying to break into my Facebook account by changing my password. I changed it a while ago to a very long and randomly generated password. Even as stupid a company as Facebook should notice if a million attempts to log in to one account happened in a short amount of time. Or are FB's computers oblivious? As far as I understand it, a password hack attempt has to be tested by accessing the site. How else would an evil computer know it had found the real password? The site under attack has to let it keep trying, but most sites lock you out after X number of tries--usually three. So, maybe in 50 years a very patient bot might be able to hack my FB password?
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Got spam today.
Apparently, I've won the Ontario UK lottery.
:icon_think:
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The forum is getting a lot of spammers at the moment as well.
Somehow, after not getting any for ages, we suddenly seem to be back on their radar again.
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The forum is getting a lot of spammers at the moment as well.
Somehow, after not getting any for ages, we suddenly seem to be back on their radar again.
The lottery spam was eMail.
On the comment forms on my website, I have not received any spam since March or so of last year. They may still be trying and probably are--I haven't checked--but the changes I made that I mentioned earlier in the thread appear to be effectively blocking any spam attempts from going through and reaching me.
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Got spam today.
Apparently, I've won the Ontario UK lottery.
:icon_think:
Grand prize is a set of Sheffield steak knives and a lifetime supply of maple syrup. :icon_mrgreen:
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The favorite tactic I'm seeing at the moment is requests to update my profile, usually from a site or company I don't have any connection to. I also still get the security alerts that aren't real. It's so easy to see through all of these, but I guess some people get taken in, or it wouldn't be so common.
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The favorite tactic I'm seeing at the moment is requests to update my profile, usually from a site or company I don't have any connection to. I also still get the security alerts that aren't real. It's so easy to see through all of these, but I guess some people get taken in, or it wouldn't be so common.
I get those too, but some have been from ones with which I do have accounts, so you always have to double-check. But, typically, they're easy to see because the eMail address will be with either a suspicious looking domain name (like writersanctuum.com or writer-sanctum.com*) or be entirely different. Or, they will address you as "Valued Customer" or something generic when companies you have accounts with have your name on file. I received one the other day that listed "Account Ending XXXX" with the actual Xs not the last four digits of your account number. I suppose some people fall for that one but it's like why bother including "Account Ending" when you can't include the actual digits (because spammers don't have them)? Better to just leave it off, in my opinion.
But, on the other hand, there are a couple suppliers I have that will send eMail invoices or other account notices and actually open the message with "Dear Customer." :HB I have to always double-check those to make sure they are legitimate. But, it's like, ugh, don't do that!
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It's very true that one has to look carefully. Some time back, I did fall for an update notice for AOL that looked genuine. I think it was right after the last ownership change, and the request was supposedly related to that. I forget what the exact wording was. Fortunately, I realized right after I'd responded that the message was fake. I immediately changed my user name and password. Evidently, I was fast enough to beat them to the punch. But after that, I became even more careful
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As a minor update, submissions from the comment form on my website remains mostly spam-free. The one exception is the occasional submission from some janitorial service. Either they have a real person submitting spam or their bot is able to figure out the obstacles on my form. I need to edit the code to block them too regardless of whether they pass the challenges.
Also, I am tempted (again) to put up a fake WordPress login page on my site (which does not use WordPress) just to keep the less sophisticated would-be hackers busy trying to login to a page that wouldn't actually log them into anything.
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Also, I am tempted (again) to put up a fake WordPress login page on my site (which does not use WordPress) just to keep the less sophisticated would-be hackers busy trying to login to a page that wouldn't actually log them into anything.
Why not let them log in, and redirect them to a porn site.
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Also, I am tempted (again) to put up a fake WordPress login page on my site (which does not use WordPress) just to keep the less sophisticated would-be hackers busy trying to login to a page that wouldn't actually log them into anything.
Why not let them log in, and redirect them to a porn site.
They might enjoy that?
Maybe I could redirect them to a phishing site. :icon_rofl: Let the scammers scam each other for a bit.
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Also, I am tempted (again) to put up a fake WordPress login page on my site (which does not use WordPress) just to keep the less sophisticated would-be hackers busy trying to login to a page that wouldn't actually log them into anything.
Why not let them log in, and redirect them to a porn site.
They might enjoy that?
Maybe I could redirect them to a phishing site. :icon_rofl: Let the scammers scam each other for a bit.
:tup3b :clap: :banana:
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Well, this is a new spam.
Would have been better if they hadn't reversed first and last names. So, if your name was Johnny A. Smith, it opened by saying, "Hi, Smith!"
It purports to be a medical report for my relative, "B. Johnny A."
I can view his discharge summary by clicking a link. Of course, I'm not clicking that link.
But, it's like, well, first they screwed up by mixing up first and last names. Second, it would be a violation of privacy rights to send me someone else's medical report.
Then it gives me "your" medical test number. So, who had the test? Me or the supposed relative?
Then I should not delay getting medical assistance for my family. So, we're back to my supposed relative again?
So many screw-ups in one spam message.
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Just got a spam ad for an AI blog creation tool. You just give it a few keywords and it will write blog posts for you.
As if there aren't enough bot-generated junk sites already . . .
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Today's spam was . . .
"Order ASAP for Price Month!"
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This week I got a request from somebody in Estonia (I think that's the "es" ending) through PayPal for some big dollar amount. Then another email saying it had been canceled--although the body of the email said I had paid them.
I went to the real PayPal and changed my password. PayPal said there had been "unusual activity" and wanted a little more verification than usual, which I gave. No money was paid out.
I did not know one could request money from someone via PayPal. I assume I have to okay a payment request after it is made. It does seem like a dangerous possibility if the hackers figure out a way to bypass my manually okaying the payment.
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You can request money or send an invoice to someone via PayPal. I don't know what happens if you decline to pay. Maybe there's an option to decline or report it as an error or fake? I think I might have gotten one once, but I'm not sure. The ones I do remember getting are all fake. They get sent by eMail and they hope you click their links because if you go to PayPal directly and login, you will find no invoice there.
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Today's spam was . . .
"Order ASAP for Price Month!"
(https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/005/574/takemymoney.jpg)
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Bots be stupid.
Had a spam comment on my blog today. On an older post. This spam message said how useful they found the post on gaming to be and so on.
Except the post had nothing to do with gaming.
Neither does the blog.
:doh:
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I guess I shouldn't laugh, but those blackmail emails saying the extremely talented hacker has taken control of my computer's camera and microphone always make me chortle. That computer doesn't have a camera or a microphone.
But I know there are some confused people out there whose computers also don't have cameras who imagine that this "extremely talented hacker" can install a camera, anyway. Angled at their--ahem--private parts.
It would indeed take extreme talent to get a nonexistent camera to do that. :dizzy
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I guess I shouldn't laugh, but those blackmail emails saying the extremely talented hacker has taken control of my computer's camera and microphone always make me chortle. That computer doesn't have a camera or a microphone.
But I know there are some confused people out there whose computers also don't have cameras who imagine that this "extremely talented hacker" can install a camera, anyway. Angled at their--ahem--private parts.
It would indeed take extreme talent to get a nonexistent camera to do that. :dizzy
It's always tempting to reply back and offer double what they are asking if they send proof they have the video. :hehe
I did do that with a customer once who had returned an order unopened and demanded a full refund to their credit card immediately. I responded and told them I'd pay them double if they would send a copy of their credit card statement or other proof of the charge. I wonder if they frantically went searching through their credit card statements? The item was free so they were never charged anything.
:shrug
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Gotta love dumb spammers/scammers.
Got one today from "American Express" warning of a suspicious charge on my "Capital One" card.
Or, maybe it's nice that the credit card companies are looking out for each other. :hehe
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Honestly, my favorite is the "I have taken control of your computer camera" extortion, since this computer has no camera.
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Love this one :icon_mrgreen:
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Honestly, my favorite is the "I have taken control of your computer camera" extortion, since this computer has no camera.
Same here. I try to be like Kaiser Soze in that regard: "One cannot be betrayed if one has no people." :cool:
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Silly spammers . . . promising me new "clients" for my blog.
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I've been getting the one for the toll road fees. Apparently I am in severe violation and about to be arrested, or worse.
Also, I have been removed from the group. Wow. That's so sad.
In my state, we get something in the mail if we get on a toll road, with the fine to be paid. The state doesn't have my email, nor my cell phone number, so there's no way for them to contact me that way. I've reported it as spam, but it keeps coming.
I used to get texts about some property near me, if I still wanted to sell it. Always using some random name for me, and for them. I've driven by that property, and if it's actually listed to someone, they'll never sell it. It's full of rock, goes straight up about sixty feet, and in no way, shape or form would ever be sold. I'm actually pretty sure the state owns it.
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I send my book orders via a courier service (our postal service is just about non existent :icon_rolleyes:) I now get regular emails letting me know there is a parcel waiting for me to collect. I get them almost daily. I keep blocking them but they pop up from another bogus address. :evil2:
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I've been getting the one for the toll road fees. Apparently I am in severe violation and about to be arrested, or worse.
No eMails on that, but I did receive two different text messages claiming I owed tolls. Seems unlikely since I've never driven on a toll road and I don't even know of any close. There certainly aren't any where I regularly drive.
I just hit the button to report both as junk and haven't received any new ones since.
Plus, I'm at the local police department fairly regularly and also interact with the county sheriff's office with some frequency, so if there was a warrant out for my arrest, I think they would have gotten me by now.
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You "interact with the county sheriff's office with some frequency?" Pardon but I couldn't resist the :hehe
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I just was reading the latest edition of the AARP Bulletin with its roundup of scam after scam that people STILL fall for. I do understand that people of a certain age tend to isolate themselves from new information, so maybe that's their excuse for thinking that they have to pay some angry government agency in gift cards or bitcoin (!). But there's no excuse for buying into a Ponzi scheme that promises to return 20% interest on your investments. Or for giving $800,000 to some fake love you've never even met.
I know people simply want to believe, but spammers mostly aren't silly at all. Their dupes are.
The AI impersonations of close family members is a tougher one. Verify, verify, verify.
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You "interact with the county sheriff's office with some frequency?" Pardon but I couldn't resist the :hehe
He doesn't mean any harm. He's just making his way the only way he knows how and fighting the system like a true modern-day Robin Hood. :cool:
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Now there is a free piano scam.
I received one a while back and thought it odd. I kind of thought it was a scam but, as I don't need a piano, I ignored it as it didn't matter either way.
Now I am getting more and more of these eMails, so it seems logical to conclude it's a scam because there can't be this many people with pianos to give away that are eMailing random strangers to see if they want them.
But what's the scam?
Well, they will ask you to pay for the moving company to move it except, reportedly, the moving company is fake so they'll take your money and you'll never get a piano.
I wonder what happens if you offer to pick it up? grint (Yeah, I know, you'll never hear from them again . . .)
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You do realize that no one wants pianos these days and mostly one has to pay to have them hauled away to the dump? The innards of a piano that is old have to be completely replaced, so the value of an antique piano is usually in its case only. Nice wood, special wood, interesting design, etc. We have one in the family: a grand piano, although thank god not a concert grand, which runs even larger nearly 100 years old. It takes up a lot of space in a modest living room in the kind of modest house that doesn't have a "great room" or a "family room." The problem is, the person it was willed to has such serious tinnitus that it is never played anymore. So it is rotting from the inside, and meanwhile there's too much sentimental value attached to it to let it go. We know someone who ended up chopping up a piano to get rid of it economically. It may come to that.
So, no, you do not want a piano. It is the modern equivalent of a white elephant--the original white elephant, that is.
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You do realize that no one wants pianos these days and mostly one has to pay to have them hauled away to the dump?
I was prepared to say that people not wanting a piano was another sign of the decline of Western civilization, but then I realized, if that were true, this scam probably would have ended by now.
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You do realize that no one wants pianos these days and mostly one has to pay to have them hauled away to the dump? The innards of a piano that is old have to be completely replaced, so the value of an antique piano is usually in its case only. Nice wood, special wood, interesting design, etc. We have one in the family: a grand piano, although thank god not a concert grand, which runs even larger nearly 100 years old. It takes up a lot of space in a modest living room in the kind of modest house that doesn't have a "great room" or a "family room." The problem is, the person it was willed to has such serious tinnitus that it is never played anymore. So it is rotting from the inside, and meanwhile there's too much sentimental value attached to it to let it go. We know someone who ended up chopping up a piano to get rid of it economically. It may come to that.
So, no, you do not want a piano. It is the modern equivalent of a white elephant--the original white elephant, that is.
They've been targeting retirement homes in SA. My friend's retirement home was scammed. They thought a piano would be a lovely addition to their entertainment. The committee even discussed where it would go. :icon_rolleyes:
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The latest scam is a nebulous court order from the Chief of Police in New Delhi, India. Apparently, I have "juvenile porn" on my computer featuring "women and minor children." And, if I don't respond within 12 hours, they'll have no choice but to have the court do whatever they're going to do that I won't find out for 12 hours, I guess.
And their sophisticated computer systems make it impossible for people to "consciously or unconsciously" visit "juvenile porn" sites without them knowing. Also, they are hard at work "24 hours a day, 5 days a week."
First, obviously, none of it's true.
Second, the first scam message came about two days ago, so the 12 hours has expired (unless the second eMail resets the clock?) and police from India have not come to America to arrest me.
Third, if the porn involves "women", um, wouldn't that indicate they are 18 or older? :icon_think:
Fourth, if the porn involves "woman and minor children," are they looking for these women? Because, you know, an adult doing porn stuff with minor children would be illegal.
Fifth, do a lot of people unconsciously visit child porn sites? How does that happen? You fall asleep and your fingers automatically know the URLs to such sites? How did your fingers learn that?
Sixth, I mean, how serious are they if they work 24/5? What's with that? So, is it okay to watch child porn on the weekends because the Internet police in India take weekends off? :icon_think:
Seventh, you have to respond in order to find out what the court order entails. What kind of system is that? I guess if the court order is to have you executed or castrated, you probably won't show up. Then again, it's kind of like those ads that promise a price so low you have to show up to see it, which usually means it's more expensive than you want to pay and they want to be able to pressure you into buying. So, one can assume the absence of information means bad things which would make people less likely to respond.
Seems like maybe they didn't think this scam through.
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I guess if you don't hear from me again after Monday, it's because of this eMail I just received:
I know you don't know me, but believe me, your life is in grave danger. I'm writing this at considerable personal risk. Professionally, I shouldn't be doing this at all. You see, a contract has been put out on your life. I've been paid to kill you.
I'm contacting you because, from what I've observed, you seem like a decent, unsuspecting woman. Someone close to you ? someone you likely trust ? is behind this. They've paid for your murder. If you think this is some kind of sick joke, I urge you to reconsider. Keep looking over your shoulder.
You have 72 hours. Seventy-two hours to say goodbye to everything you know. Seventy-two hours left to live.
I have critical information about the plan to end your life. Information that could save you. If you dismiss this as a prank, if you decide to be stubborn and ignore me, then you'll see what happens when the clock runs out.
If you value your life, do not ? I repeat, DO NOT ? involve the police. Doing so will only make things far, far worse. Trust me on this. It will escalate the situation and ensure your demise.
Consider this your only warning. The choice is yours.
Nicholas.
Also, I'm apparently a woman now. So, maybe if I wear a fake beard for the next couple days, he'll never find me.
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That's a new one. Kind of spooky.
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That's a new one. Kind of spooky.
It's actually an old one. Goes back to at least 2010 and that was reportedly a resurgence so it's even older than that.
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Well, the assassin apparently missed me.
But now the international arm of the FBI is after me for the "juvenile porn" on my computer featuring "women and minor children." Apparently, the police in New Delhi gave up on chasing me down which isn't surprising since they only work 24/5 so how serious could they be about catching people?
But, also, the international arm of the FBI only works 24/5 too so I guess they aren't that serious either.
Still, it's the inconsistencies that bug me. Like "juvenile porn" involving "women." And you have to respond in order to find out what the court has ordered against you. That's not how things work.
If I were a scammer, my inclination would be to make it more believable as you'd think that would trick more people into falling for it. But, I guess I don't have a criminal mind because, from what I've read, the inconsistencies are more or less intentional. That is, that if you fall for the scam despite the inconsistencies, you're a more gullible mark for them. If you think the New Delhi Police are going to come after you in America or if you think you have to respond to an eMail to find out the details of a court order against you, they've already gotten a hook in you whereas the rest of us are going, now wait a minute here . . . Also, if you do have child porn on your computer involving women and minor children, well, you may get panicky the first time you receive such an eMail.
Actually, if you were the unscrupulous type, that might be a pretty good scam. Set up a child porn website, wait a few months, and then send these blackmail eMails to people that accessed the site months earlier. They'll have forgotten where they downloaded by then and they will have such material on their computers so they'd be prime targets. Naturally, I am not suggesting anyone do this. I am just saying that could be a lucrative scam for the unsavory types. Feel free to use the idea in your next novel though.