Stupid spammer tricks: Do people actually fall for this stuff?

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Face. Palm. FAIL. (Photo © 2009 Alex Proimos/Flickr) (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Do people actually fall for this stuff?

Here’s an actual email I found in my spam folder today:

From: FAX <fax@billyslight.com>
To: administrator, ebay, helpdesk, me, pp6stxghz0e3qvb, scans, uysr8ns6erq7vly
Sent: Fri, July 31, 2014 at 8:35 AM

Subject: You have received a new fax message

You have received fax from EPS19447572 at billysuratt.com
Scan date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 20:35:05 +0700
Number of page(s): 5
Resolution: 400×400 DPI

Download file at google disk drive service – dropbox.

https://goo.gl/r7CNCl

_________________________________
File is scanned image in PDF format.
Adobe(A) Reader(R) can be downloaded from the following URL: https://www.adobe.com/

Dropbox is not now and has never been a Google service.

“Adobe(A) Reader(R) can be downloaded from the following URL?”

Pretty sure they meant “Adobe® Reader®.” (If you can figure out how to send spam, you should be able to figure out how to insert a registered trademark symbol into text.)

Perhaps the dumbest thing about this spam message, however, is the sender used Google’s Goo.gl URL shortener for its target link. I disabled the link for this post, but trying to visit the spammer’s shortened URL less than eight hours after the message was originally sent returned this error message: “Clicking this goo.gl shortlink has been disabled. It was found to be violating our Terms of Service.”

Google don’t play when it comes to spammers using its services, as I guess this one found out. (Gotta love stupid criminals.)

What’s the dumbest spam message you’ve ever received?

Tags: Advertising, FAIL, Online Marketing, Scams & Ripoffs, Technology

Category: Reality Bytes