Tuesday 23 August 2011

Spam and more spam

I probably get 5 or 6 of these things a day. Some offer me great riches for working at home, some offer me a chance to buy shares in a company that I have never heard of (and neither has the stock market), some want me to claim the fortune that someone bearing the same name left unclaimed and some just want be be a nice friendly bank and help me sort out a problem with my account.

You would think (some of the spammers obviously do not) that if you were going to try to catch out the average man in the street then you would at least construct a letter/email that had a level of credibility and looked like it was put together by someone who had got a passing grade at nursery school.

The following little extract is probably the worst I have seen in a while.

"The Technical Service of H****** online banking are upgrading
programmed the software to improve the quality 'of services
bank. We ask you to start the confirmation process data
Customer. For this purpose, and must download and unpack the form attached to this email and
open it in a web browser."

Anybody who falls for a scam as badly presented as this one probably does not have any money in a bank. Well, other than the cheques they pay in for some export/import company which has a minor problem with their bank account and has chosen them from a carefully vetted list to represent their company whilst they sort it out. Strangely enough these seem to be the same people that want to send you a cheque to buy a car, hire a photographer and anything else you can think of and then accidentally make the cheque out for a few thousand more than they should. After generously insisting you keep a few hundred for your trouble they then ask that you send the balance back using a wire transfer office before the cheque has cleared. Hmmm, lets think about it for a second. Someone sent you a piece of paper and you then send them your life savings.

I'm not saying I am above getting caught out by one of these as some of them are quite convincing. I really do hope that if I do fall for one of these that it is at least written and presented in a manner which would make most of us think it may be genuine.

Anyhow, got to dash, off to collect my winnings for a lottery I didn't even know I had entered.

Thursday 4 August 2011

EVS4 - Update

A general release of EVS4 has been delayed whilst a further option for the manner of release is considered. A decision will be made shortly (within the next few weeks).