I don’t think I’m worthy a scammer’s time as I never seem to be getting any phishing scam, received this screenshot of a new SARS eFiling Scam doing the rounds, tried following the link, but it seems the phishing site is already closed down. What a pity, still wanted to click on “Why is my PIN required” to see what brilliant excuse they came up with.
Back in October 2008 when I was still doing some work for Audio Auditing on the sideline, I received this email from a Nigerian (I assume it’s a Nigerian as most of the scam related mails I get are from Nigerians) offering me SEM and SERP services for the Audio Auditing website, what can I say, it was the funniest mail I’ve received in ages, it really made my day!
Hi
We are World’s leading and biggest Search Engine Marketing company. We can get your website on first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN. Please find some results below that we achieved recently:
Keyword: Fancy Dress
First Page: GoogleKeyword: Scanner Rental
First Page: GoogleKeyword: Barrel Saunas
First Page: GoogleWith our services, your site can get huge amount of visitors.
Please reply to this email so we can get back to you.
Warm Regards
Satish
Head – Marketing & Sales Deptt.
Unsubscribe: You can unsubscribe or opt out from mailing list by replying to this email.
Today I’m in the mood to have a little bit of fun with this n00b and brag with my results on 419eater.com, the site where scammers are taken for a ride, made fun of and exposed for what they really are, idiots!
Take a look at the trophy room for example:
If anyone is interested in playing with Satish, you can mail him at aaron.hinton2@gmail.com, maybe we can work out a special deal where if he sends us a picture where he stands with a fish on his head, we will consider doing business with him, bwahahahahaa!
How many times have you seen these ads saying work from home and earn this much a month, or ads saying something like typist needed, all training supplied while giving unrealistic salary figures?
As usual, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, not to be pessimistic or anything, but getting the type of salary an engineer would earn for doing a typist’s work without any prior experience does sound a bit dodge.
Well, most of these (if not all) are scams, the idea is simple, you advertise a data entry or work from home job through whatever method you can, Google Ads, Social Networks, Newspapers, etc. (The people signing up are usually desperate for the income and are soft targets) When the person sign up for the program / job and pay the whatever amount is requested (already a red flag, no legitimate company will ask you to pay in order to work for them), they get an email or nicely typed out letter welcoming the applicant and asking the applicant to go do exactly the same (that’s the training), in other words, go scam more people in buying into this scam. In order for the applicant to regain his lost money (refunds does not exist with these scams), he advertise and advertise until he scams a couple of people (or in most cases fail in getting more people to join the program). In the former, the referrer gets a certain percentage of commission on the the person he scammed and a certain percentage of commission on all the people below the applicant. If the applicant fails, it’s not the problem of the referrer, he got his money and is already busy scamming more people in the hopes of building a downline of passive income.
People will use all kinds of fancy terms to make the data entry jobs sound viable, the best one is usually MLM or multilevel marketing which is short for legal pyramid scheme. What makes pyramid schemes illegal is the fact that you take money from people for nothing or the service of giving away your money itself, in MLM they add some type of product which is usually the “training” or some other stupid excuse for a product nobody would buy under normal circumstances.
These types of schemes are not sustainable, a couple of people get super rich from it while more than 88% of the people lose their money long before the whole system collapses.
You might as well go gamble with that money, the ods will still be against you, but at least you wont waste that much time trying to take other people’s money for something they never really wanted.
“CONGRATULATIONS you won a 19 Piece Knife Set from HOMEMARK. To Claim your prize call 011 430 6000. Quote ref:#####. Prizes excl P&P. T&C apply. Reply NO 2b removed” is an SMS I received somewhere last week, not very excited about the prize, I delayed calling them until yesterday, after going through the press one for this, two for that etc, I reached somebody saying “Congratulations on winning this 19 Piece Knife set” and he went on about the features and what is included, but in such an unexcited tone that I thought he was having a burial somewhere in the background.
After he went through the details of the knife set, I asked: “How do I claim my prize?” on which he replied, I’m going to need your credit card number on which I replied, “Can’t I pick it up at a local Homemark store?” on which he replied, “We’re a mail order company and only deliver, but I’m going to need your credit card number so we can deduct for handling and shipping fees”. If I remember correctly, he said the amount would be something like R9.40 for shipping and handling which apparently is from somewhere in Jo’burg to Cape Town.
Skeptical about the whole giving my credit card number over the phone, I said I don’t have a credit card, on which he just said “OK”, he didn’t offer an alternative way of paying and then a dead silence after which I said, “Thank you, but I’m not interested in this offer, have a fantastic day”
The whole thing smells like a scam to me, especially since I can’t remember entering such a competition and the fact that they are willing to give away a knife set worth “hundreds” but not willing to pay the shipping of “R9.40″, almost the same as those schemes saying you’ve won the jackpot, please send us your details so we can send you the money on which they request a handling fee or something similar.
I’m not going to leave it there, if they tried to scam me, they will probably try it with a million other South Africans, the whole thing sounded so legit on the phone until he asked for my credit card number :(