This blog is rapidly turning into a ’small time’ attempt to ridicule the tactics used by spammers and unethical SEOs; a case in point being an email which arrived in one of my boxes earlier today…
“Fill out your registration form. Please!!” (pertaining to a supposed mortgage application form)
Now, let’s for a moment assume I was actually looking for a mortgage or had filled in an application form with some lender or another… how would I assess the sender’s credibility?
For starters, the message originated from cosmology@punkass.com (my apologies about the return spam, and if it’s not your fault – sorry lads; you’ve been hacked ;-)… This would of course be that reputable lender ‘Punkass, Bitch and Associates of Philadelphia Ltd.‘, who are, as we all know, a universally trusted financial institution.
Then we have the message content:
“Hello your request was received yesterday. We need you to edit your information. After your edit the information we will contact you as soon as it possible.“
http://I’m-not-going-to-dignify-the-damn-thing-by-giving-away-its-url.com/
Ooooooo… A veritable tirade of high-quality linguistic prowess… ‘Me speak bad English? That Unpossible!’
So, now that everyone apart from the mysterious ‘Moss Lifeform‘ and the ‘Man from YourAnus‘ (sorry, that should be Uranus of course) have discarded the message as utter and complete twaddle (a British expression meaning ‘Baloney’), what’s left? Who would actually be insane enough to click the link and submit personal information?
Evidently there are more Moss People and Men from YourAnus (Political Correctness Alert!!) than even the most ardent cynic would credit, otherwise spam would have died out some time ago.
However, if spammers would take a moment to carry out even the most basic speelink and gammer checks, just imagine what would happen to their ‘take-up rates’. For the most part however, they currently seem to rely on recipients who are even dumber than they are.
Food for thought?
Thank heavens for educational standards, eh?
