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The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

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Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#41

Post by thehappypm »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #26
danielodievich wrote: post #19

Close to 20 years ago I got an email that in it's entirety said "I have a powful tool. I suspect youd like it", exactly as written. No links, no attachments, just plain text. I showed it to my then girlfriend and now wife and since then we have adopted "powful tool" as a term we apply to really great devices or machinery of impressive heritage or even some good software. Warms my heart.

I’ve also gotten mysterious scam emails that contain no information. What’s their purpose?

Laying the groundwork to beat a spam filter, probably. If a series of emails are read and not deleted, that does not seem like spam.

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#42

Post by medellin »

734129837261 wrote: post #27

The same trick is applied to trick potential customers into going through a sales funnel and convert to a paying customer. "There are 42 people watching this hotel right now! Only 3 rooms available for your dates! We'll murder ANOTHER puppy if you don't book right now!" Yes, I worked for Booking.com. They don't do it everywhere, in some places it's illegal, and sometimes they simply change the words slightly to make…

Yeah i never knew but figured their is no other reason to do this than to make you feel pressured to buy

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#43

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #29
RajT88 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people writing the playbook I am sure are clever. The scammers I've talked to are often dumb as rocks. And probably are not the primary beneficiaries of the grift.

Some of them are slaves too.

I started asking scam callers if they're slaves. Nobody has responded yet, they just hang up

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#44

Post by hobbitstan »

GycDH6mb wrote: post #35
734129837261 wrote: post #27

The same trick is applied to trick potential customers into going through a sales funnel and convert to a paying customer. "There are 42 people watching this hotel right now! Only 3 rooms available for your dates! We'll murder ANOTHER puppy if you don't book right now!" Yes, I worked for Booking.com. They don't do it everywhere, in some places it's illegal, and sometimes they simply change the words slightly to make…

Is this why when I'm on Etsy, some obscure, niche item that I'm looking at will always say "13 people have this in their carts right now"? Etsy doesn't seem like the type to me, or maybe that code is just flawed

I’ve been suspicious of Etsy for years for this very reason. Either Etsy is scamming or the sellers are playing games.

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#45

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

danielodievich wrote: post #19

Close to 20 years ago I got an email that in it's entirety said "I have a powful tool. I suspect youd like it", exactly as written. No links, no attachments, just plain text. I showed it to my then girlfriend and now wife and since then we have adopted "powful tool" as a term we apply to really great devices or machinery of impressive heritage or even some good software. Warms my heart.

Mine is "Only Spicy food gives me an Explosive Gain.", from https://thedailywtf.com/articles/Only-Spicy-Food-Gives-Me-an..., from back when TDWTF wasn't made up.

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#46

Post by maxfurman »

GycDH6mb wrote: post #35
734129837261 wrote: post #27

The same trick is applied to trick potential customers into going through a sales funnel and convert to a paying customer. "There are 42 people watching this hotel right now! Only 3 rooms available for your dates! We'll murder ANOTHER puppy if you don't book right now!" Yes, I worked for Booking.com. They don't do it everywhere, in some places it's illegal, and sometimes they simply change the words slightly to make…

Is this why when I'm on Etsy, some obscure, niche item that I'm looking at will always say "13 people have this in their carts right now"? Etsy doesn't seem like the type to me, or maybe that code is just flawed

I think they just include abandoned shopping carts in this number

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#47

Post by heavyset_go »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #21
anon_cow1111 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true but also... In my experience[1] a large majority of facebook-level romance scammers use the same copypasta messages when possible, because they actually are from (e.g.)Nigeria and really do have poor English. This is especially relevant to your point because facebook could EASILY be flagging people based on known pasta messages, for review or shadowbanning etc. They presumably don't do this because "not…

> They presumably don't do this because "not my problem". They don’t care. It’s that simple. I’ve (on Facebook/Instagram) reported scams, and they always say it doesn’t violate their community guidelines. But it turns out the computer “reviewed” my report, so I appeal it, and it’s always “sorry, but we don’t have enough people, so we’re ignoring this appeal. Here’s the report ID for the ‘review’ board.” On the rare c…

I've reported scams where people were selling "spells" to make ex-partners come back to the buyer, or to fall in love with them, and got the same automated responses from Facebook.

I shit you not, there are people on Instagram who are scamming mentally ill people by telling them that they can train them to do psychokinesis and psychic levitation. I've been following them for months since someone I care about fell for it, and they're amassing really large followings while running blatantly obvious scams. Facebook does nothing about it despite multiple reports.

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#48

Post by robocat »

AlbertCory wrote: post #17

There's actually a building in Lagos where the Nigerian Prince scammers all work. Hugh Sinclair has seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhdZ2RfmiXo&list=PL4ugKP-T4L... I would think they do know exactly what they're doing. There's no reason to think it's just to get past email filters or just to skip the smart people. It's probably both, plus other reasons we haven't even thought of.

> skip the smart people

I am not sure smart people are scammed less often than the average person. Perhaps smart people get sucked in by different scams (like buying altcoins, or complex speculation)?

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#49

Post by amatecha »

thehappypm wrote: post #41
colejohnson66 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also gotten mysterious scam emails that contain no information. What’s their purpose?

Laying the groundwork to beat a spam filter, probably. If a series of emails are read and not deleted, that does not seem like spam.

huh, that's an interesting point! Seems like a good idea to mark those as spam even if they are "harmless", in that case...

Re: The clever reason scammers can’t spell (2019)

#50

Post by Lammy »

bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #38
danielodievich wrote: post #19

Close to 20 years ago I got an email that in it's entirety said "I have a powful tool. I suspect youd like it", exactly as written. No links, no attachments, just plain text. I showed it to my then girlfriend and now wife and since then we have adopted "powful tool" as a term we apply to really great devices or machinery of impressive heritage or even some good software. Warms my heart.

> From: "Neateye" > Subject: Gouranga > Call out Gouranga be happy!!! > Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga .... > That which brings the highest happiness!! It’s been, fuck , two decades and this is still in my mbox. My wife and I still shout Gouranga at each other some days and, hell, who am I to argue that it doesn’t bring the highest happiness!!

Grand Theft Auto 1 taught me that one :) https://gta.fandom.com/wiki/Hare_Krishna

> In GTA, the player received a 'GOURANGA' bonus for running over an entire procession of Hare Krishna. 'GOURANGA' is actually a term that was popularized as use by the Hare Krishna movement during the 1970s. It is often used to describe happiness. This is also a cheat code in the PC version of GTA 2.

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