Going through my Spam Email Folder today, one of them anyway, I got to wondering if there is some kind of spammer code book they all use. Next time you check your email take a look your Spam Folder before deleting the whole kit and kaboodle.
Notice the headlines with the misspelled, run together words that are strangely capitalised without any rhyme or reason. It’s like a pattern, when one of those types of Spam emails makes it to your Inbox it jumps right out at you as if to say, “I don’t belong here but I snuck in any way.”
Look at the ‘from’ field, do you see your own name and/or your own email address? Granted some times you’ll send yourself an email so you don’t lose important information, but when was the last time you tried to trick yourself into buying Viagra from yourself? Never? Me neither.
I was scanning my Spam Folder the other day and saw a semi-familiar name, ‘Peter Lauer’, so I clicked and got the usual Spam junk, you know the stuff, to undisclosed recipients, no unsubscribe link, and a lot of empty promises. Why was that name so vaguely familiar, I couldn’t place it and it bugged me.
Then I saw a news byte with Matt Lauer and the dots connected themselves, Peter Jennings is another well-known news anchor, combine the two and you get a name you think you should remember so you click on it, sucker.
Seems to be a new trick to the Spammer scam, find two well-known people in a given field, mix and match the names and some tired people might click on a barely recognisable name.
So if Mike Sieg or Ann Dillard sends you an offer that sounds too good to be true, it’s way too good to be true, they aren’t real people, or at least not the ones you’re thinking about.
Mike
What spammer games amuse or annoy you? Leave a comment
