Swindlers never sleep
Tuesday September 30, 2008
Categories: Economics
I just got an e-mail purporting to come from Citigroup -- it has a Citigroup address -- inviting me to ... well, take a look: Dear Citibank Customer, As you may already know, by voting down the proposed $700 billion...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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I own about 10 email addresses and normally get 5 to 10 phishing attempts per day.
Is this your first experience?
At least it wasn't written in broken English, like a lot of them are. Even some purporting to be from Americans.
Phishy, phishy, in the cyber-brook.
Usually misspellings and Third World broken/unidiomatic English give phishers away. (I'm a proofreader.)
Yes, this is low. That's what organised crime does.
Blog.
Isn't it amazing how they not only use people's current fears about the banking industry in the phishing attempt, they even refer to the problem of phishing itself in the email as way to gain the trust of the mark. Super slimy.
What scares me is that some people are so uninformed about the technology and finances behind this system that they might think a vague notion like moving their accounts to offshore servers would have any impact whatsoever on their financial security. Or, for that matter, that there is any nation on earth with no financial ties "strong or weak" to the American financial system (especially when your account is still held by Citibank).
I don't say this to slight the people who might be taken in by this. There are many subjects on which I am mostly ignorant, and the complexities of both the Internet and global financial markets are two of them. It's precisely this complexity that scares me. We've created systems so complex that we have no idea how they work and couldn't possibly recreate them if they failed, even given ideal amounts of time and resources, to say nothing of rebuilding them in the midst of a crisis.
Maybe the Benedict Option will shortly become the only possible option, nevermind the only sane one or desirable one.
Anybody besides me notice that the first two paragraphs of this miserable thing are lifted verbatim from Justin Fox' story in Time today?
Some of the letters are so funny that I've forwarded them to my friends so they can laugh at the dreadful English, but you can always tell if the letter is a fake.
A real mailing will have your account name as the salutation. Everything else is a scam.
Some of the letters are so funny that I've forwarded them to my friends so they can laugh at the dreadful English, but you can always tell if the letter is a fake.
This is absolutely wrong. I have had to analyze emails that were so amazingly well done... The graphics totally professional, all the language flawless, and wording very precise.
The only proof of it being a phishing scam was a link on the WEBSITE it pointed to (a website equally professional and attractive ) that had an interception proxy within the URL.
I can determine what is phishing and what is not with 100% accuracy, that's one of my jobs, and there is only ONE rule that will keep you out of trouble...
A real mailing will have your account name as the salutation. Everything else is a scam.
This, too, is incorrect.
Ok, the ONE rule that will keep you out of trouble... it has three parts.
1. NEVER follow a link in email.
2. If you are familiar with the institution, go there directly from typing in it's url in your browser.
3. If you are not familiar with the institution, be it a bank, store, online retailer or other concern, treat it as though it were a door to door life insurance saleman - a con artist.
If you really do not understand the technology, that 3 part rule will save you from phishing.
It will inconvenience you, cause you to waste time. But it will save you.
Makes you glad to have no money for them to steal.
NO BODY LEGITIMATE makes an offer like this over the internet. No one - not any one. So anytime you see an offer like this you are looking at the handiwork of a thief preying on the innocent, foolish, and naive.
NO ONE LEGITIMATE does business this way. NO ONE.
This cannot be any more clear.
And not only do swindlers never sleep, they prod Americans to be sure that government can't tax any of that money -- since, after all, it's 'not in the U.S.'
Kind of like Carlyle Group money (see Bush, GWH and Bush, GW), and ExxonMobil and Halliburton (who moved its world headquarters to Dubai or thereabouts).
Swindlers never sleep, indeed.
Too bad for most of us that so many of them hold influential positions.
Hope that ends in November.
My local credit union is currently fighting off one phishing attempt after the other. No sooner do members contact them about one scam than a new one, with a new faux website, is up and running.
Just think of the money to be made if you have no conscience - like sub-prime mortgage brokers who forged borrower signatures, or lenders who knowingly lent money to people without adequate means or the ability to understand loan documents. Our local Sunday paper featured a story about two vulnerable adults about to lose their home due to a skanky loan they had no way of comprehending.
Oy.
I had a citibank scam email, that linked to a site that looked EXACTLY like the citibank site. Of course, the site asked me to login just like the citibank site. I happened to glance at the URL and notice that it was different and not secure. I bet this would fool a huge % of customers.
Scary stuff. I pretty much ignore all emails now. If I want to do something, I go to the company's website.
If your bank is in FDIC and you have less than $100K in your account you have nothing to worry about. If you use a bank that isn't FDIC you're an idiot.
Uh, oh. I hope my Aunt Mary didn't get this...
She's been sending the tax money to those who say she needs to remit it up front in order to claim her lottery winnings...
Speaking of swindlers, now that "global warming" has proven to be hoax, where are the trials of the con artists who pushed this scam?
I am so sick of con-artist and greedy predators and swindlers,I think hanging a few of them would be a good idea,use piano wire and do it so their feet are just a few inches off the ground,just out of reach of saving themselves,it will make it more fun for them. No pity or mercy for rats who prey on the vulnerable people,like the elderly.
Oh Crap.
Are you sure it's a scam?
Welcome to free market competition.
Isn't it wonderful when markets are freed of regulation?
Won't this be so good for competition and for individual consumers?
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