Thursday, November 11, 2010

How I Unearthed A Scam


It was not that hard. Really.

I focused on the sender's email address. If she is talking on behalf of major brand name like CafePress, why is she not using a CafePress email address?

Then I looked even closer. The email username was tmiy12345. I zeroed in on the numbers 12345. To me that struck as a username that would get picked by someone who is used to creating fake email account after fake email account after fake email account.

You could argue there are major grammatical errors in the body of the email. And the grammar gets worse towards the end. It felt like the email was not even composed by the same person. It was a team. One person wrote the first paragraph, some third person wrote the final paragraph.

It made no sense that they would want to send you money to pay the studio. Why would they not directly pay the studio?

I also received some help from my sister in Boston. She helped me out with whatever little time she had.

Moral of the story: beware, don't believe everything you read. The Nigerian dictator comes in many guises.

Parting note: while the FourSquare guys get to do actual modeling, I am stuck with one spam offer after another. ("Life is unfair." -JFK)

Model Job Offer Scam
Models Naveen, Dennis
Paramendra Bhagat: Model

Lastly, please buy this book.

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