English in Switzerland, ESOL Site

Christmas is here: for those of us with any sense of ethics, this typically means good food, good friends, good music, lots of awe-inspiring lights. But for the greedy, unethical, opportunistic folks—those who behave malevolently year round—it means coming up with more ways to phish, to look for and rip off unsuspecting consumers or Internet users. Be the big fish they don’t catch….

SPAM IN YOUR HOME

You have seen the layers of possibility in your spam (or bulk) mail box, even if you have never used a credit card online or visited (out of curiosity, of course) an x-rated site:

Enlarge something (even if you don’t own that particular piece of genital equipment)

Fall for something (I’m sure all of us have invested in offshore illnesses, so we could get that billion-dollar checque)

Buy something (pills, hair, housing developments, clinics, dead animals, cow patties)

NEW LURES

And the spammers are getting more advanced, though not smarter—as they clearly can’t spell or use grammar with much facility, for starters. They started pulling fast ones by using as return addresses those names you had recently used in your online activities. Then they screwed with the subject line, with your name and intimate queries/comments such as “How are you?” or “I miss you!” so you’d think the email originated with a friend.

Then they cranked up their efforts: emails with your name as the sender (? Who in the hell would email themselves a notification for a bounced email?); mailer daemon pseudonyms; officious looking account # or order # subjects flooded your box—as if you had spent a lot of money and time signing up for and ordering massive amounts of product, you rich and busy thing, you!

They started getting coo-coo with the sender names (IPFreely, Biteme, Flossibel and Spot--names I will do an article on later) and lazy (or stupid) with the subject lines: defraud finders. What in hell does this mean? Are the spammers ESOL (English speakers of other languages), bastardizing word usage—verbs, nouns, etc., insulting our sensibilities to the point where we would not buy from such an unprofessional company even if it were legit? Are they selling us a defrauding kit that will be useful for only one type of villain, the type they are but pretend not to be?

PROFESSIONAL PHISHERMEN and -WOMEN

The most obvious (but hard to catch and easy to be fooled by) spammers are called phishers, greedy, felonious pigs who simulate a legitimate company, writing you with a threat--under the guise that your privacy, money, and/or identity are at stake…when in fact they are the predators about whom they warn us. In just a few hours, you might receive each of the following variations (scams), each more conspicuous and more tendentious (to suck you in if they missed ripping you off with an earlier version):

SUBJECT: Your Account #xyz442344 While the number does not match any in your records, you open it to find a PayPal message reading how you must adjust your records, account info., private information…or you will be cut off.

SUBJECT: The Status of Your Account

Also a PayPal message admonishing you with how you must adjust your records, account info., private information…or you will be in danger of re-opening fees, blahblahblah.

SUBJECT: Notice of Limited Access

Also a PayPal message reading how you must adjust your records, account info., private information…or your activity will be limited.

SUBJECT: Please Restore Your Account Access

Another PayPal message (! Four in the same day!) reading how you must adjust your records, account info., private information…or you will be cut off.

SUBJECT: Capital One [or other major c.c.] Online Alert

The latest evil hybrid, a joint effort on the part of two (!) conglomerates…who care enough about little old you to send you a specified email.

Each of the above contains a link for you to click and follow, a link which will lead you to another PayPal header/logo page with application info blanks for you to fill in.

One of the required fields is the password to your PayPal account. This is the only way I caught the fraudulence, the first time I [almost] got sucked in: I thought, hey, if I shop at Joe Blow’s country store and I use my credit card to pay, I am not asked by the pimply-faced clerk or any nosy store associate for the pw to the card I am using! Uh, yeah. You want my mother’s maiden name and my ss#, too?

If you hop online, anywhere online, you are NEVER asked for a password to personal money accounts. If you are, do NOT comply.

DON'T BITE

So here’s the real deal: DO NOT click on the link inside any email that involves a monetary transaction. Instead, if you think the sender legit, open a new window and enter the url (the web address) of the company with whom you have the account. And as is most likely, you will find that the company has no problems with you or your account. Or, you will find an alert if you truly need to update your account or address the problem of someone attempting to log in with your info, use your credit card in Afghanistan, or access your account without authorization, wearing a plastic Groucho Marx mask.

All of the above is a suggestion if you open the email. If you want to try to catch it and mark it as spam before opening it (which alerts the spammers that your email account is active and inspires them to send twenty more of the same g-damned thing), note the following:

What is the name of the sender? Is it ConnieWantSome? Is it a bank or mortgage lender with whom you have NO account? Mark it as SPAM and delete it.

What is the subject line? Is it in any way topically relevant to the activities and subjects you have shared with your few friends, newsletters, or business associates? Is it specific to you and yours, and not general or vague? (All my contacts use not my name, which I already know, and make not an offer for Viagra, which as a woman I don’t use for any of my sexual organs, but a short header that indicates it is a playful email, a writing assignment, or a very specific topic I will take interest in—and I know their real names, so I check that, too)? If not, SPAM-mark and delete.

Is it 2k? Most spam mail is 2k, empty when you open it, or huge (as in a size you would never receive from a loved one or colleague or client) and is also empty.

Does it have an attachment? For God’s sake (and yours), do NOT open the email OR the attachment. That’s just malicious intent on their part to really wreck you with worms, viruses, etc..

And before all this, did you lock into your address book every person who would likely send you email? This will ensure the spam goes to the bulk and then to the trash, and the good, ethical, wanted material goes to your inbox.

The real (and superbly useful) PayPal has a great way of dealing with these freaks who imitate them: you forward the spam to spoof@paypal.com, so they can be made privy to what they call the latest “phishing” attempts.

But I have received (and unwittingly opened) notifications from Chase Manhattan and Bank of America, when I do not have accounts with either. I have received offers on re-mortgaging a home I do not own (rub it in, why don’t they). And, like you, I have received thousands of offers to indulge in wet, spread, young, eager, horny, gaping, tight, hard, juicy, and new and improved….

If only we had a company like PayPal we could forward and therefore report all of this crap to. I mean, how many dying uncles with a stash of gold bullion can we, in our humble littel fishbowls, afford?

N.H.-born prize-winning poet, creative nonfiction writer, memoirist, and award-winning Assoc. Prof. of English, Roxanne is also web content and freelance writer/founder of http://www.roxannewrites.com, a support site for academic, memoir, mental disability, and creative writers who need a nudge, a nod, or just ideas…of which Roxanne has 1,000s, so do stop in for a visit, as this sentence can’t possibly get any longer….

*You may reproduce this article in its entirety, provided you keep intact the source box and bio…and provided you have NEVER spammed anyone in your life.