# Best Scam Emails



## Pudge (Feb 20, 2019)

Had a great one the other day which caught me off guard.

The email description contained one of my passwords! Upon opening it the email mentioned my real name too...

Then proceeded to read as my PC had been hacked, key stroke logger installed and they have watched me jerk off on camera. (Unfortuntly I don't have a camera, was looking forward to being on pornhub).

They then provide you with a BITCOIN wallet code you must send £800 to. If you don't do so they'll email a video of you to everyone!

Good job its an old password, they would have got it from a website that's had a data breach. 

Cleaver scam. But not so cleaver because you can check BT wallets directly and see how much money / transactions the account had made and get it taken down.

So FYI be careful and use a password checker to see if any of your passwords been leaked by a website anywhere.


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## Polkasound (Feb 20, 2019)

I started getting those, too, about a year ago. The password they had looked vaguely familiar, so I looked through my list of passwords and found that it was the one I used for MySpace a long time ago. I did a quick search for any news about MySpace security breaches. Sure enough. That's what happened.

--

The unrelated scam below is not through email, but regular mail. I received it just the other day. It's technically legal, but it's so dirty that it really is a scam by definition. These scammers harvest website ownership information and send out business solicitations designed to look exactly like bills. A senior citizen friend of mine was fooled by one these mailings about 12 years ago shortly after I built him a website, and he sent in a check.


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## Pudge (Feb 20, 2019)

Polkasound said:


> I started getting those, too, about a year ago. The password they had looked vaguely familiar, so I looked through my list of passwords and found that it was the one I used for MySpace a long time ago. I did a quick search for any news about MySpace security breaches. Sure enough. That's what happened.
> 
> --
> 
> The unrelated scam below is not through email, but regular mail. I received it just the other day. It's technically legal, but it's so dirty that it really is a scam by definition. These scammers harvest website ownership information and send out business solicitations designed to look exactly like bills. A senior citizen friend of mine was fooled by one these mailings about 12 years ago shortly after I built him a website, and he sent in a check.



Crikey... at first glance that actually looks legitimate! It amazes me how far scammers go.

What's interesting is the amount of money they ask for, you would think they would charge a large sum. But a smaller amount looks more genuine, less likely to raise suspicions.

Older citizens are most at risk because the majority are not tech savvy. It disgusts me people would steal in such a way.


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## TGV (Feb 20, 2019)

Got a similar one, which was a good translation from an English version I found online, but with a few dumb errors. My laptop does have a webcam, but since it is almost always the living room, I was quite sure there would not be such a video. It's pretty low to play on people's fears like this.

But it did confirm: BitCoin is only for criminals.


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## Pietro (Feb 20, 2019)

I received at least 3 of those since November. One just yesterday. There was no password as far as I recall but they were supposedly sent from my account (quick check of outbox on the server and they were not there).

They all look the same. Often just use different hacker name and that's all.

- Piotr


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## MartinH. (Feb 20, 2019)

The daughter of a friend fell for one of those "pay 5$ to remove this virus from your computer" popups, and he gave her his credit card... They actually only charged 5$, probably assuming its small enough of a sum that no one would bother to do anything about it.

The webcam-porn-blackmail-scam-mails are fairly well crafted imho, but not having a webcam makes them easy to ignore for me. I wonder if their "conversion rate" would rise if they made more specific claims like "I have that same Kallax shelf from Ikea by the way, good choice!". 



TGV said:


> But it did confirm: BitCoin is only for criminals.


Slow your horses there, it's for perfectly legitimate gambling too! x]


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## Pudge (Feb 20, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> The daughter of a friend fell for one of those "pay 5$ to remove this virus from your computer" popups, and he gave her his credit card... They actually only charged 5$, probably assuming its small enough of a sum that no one would bother to do anything about it.
> 
> The webcam-porn-blackmail-scam-mails are fairly well crafted imho, but not having a webcam makes them easy to ignore for me. I wonder if their "conversion rate" would rise if they made more specific claims like "I have that same Kallax shelf from Ikea by the way, good choice!".
> 
> ...



The BC account I checked had roughly £5K of BC from extortion transactions. Feel sorry for those who fell for it...


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## Pudge (Feb 20, 2019)

My favourite scams are the cold calls that use automated messages, saying "I heard you have been in a car crash" if you say "yes" it puts you through to a real person.

One guy (called Mali) asked me for personal info and card details before asking about the "accident". So I gave him a load of B.S then proceeded to tell him about my accident.

I told him that 18 years ago i tripped over my trousers in car park and accidentally found my gentlmens sausage inside something.

He said "What?" 

So I said "Your mum" (he was just silent) so I followed it up with "Son, I know I've been a terrible father. But I regret not pulling out"

Was extremely childish of me, but it was great fun to hear him fumble his words before putting the phone down.


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## mikeh-375 (Feb 20, 2019)

Not email but a scam anyhow.
I had a call from India (or at least an Indian lady) telling me there was a problem with my windows computer. "Oh dear" I said, "what can I do about it?" The lady was very helpful, asked if I was at the computer and gave me some keystrokes. I complied but kept getting it all wrong and got more and more flustered. After about 10 mins of this I casually mentioned I was on Mac, not Windows, asked her if she had a family (she was non-plussed but answered yes) then I asked her how she can go home at night knowing she might have ruined an elderly persons life that day. I told her I was glad to have wasted her time and if I'd stopped one person from being scammed it was all worth it. I then called her a callous bitch and hung up.... highly recommended behaviour for scumbag phone calls.
@Pudge, I'm gonna nick that one if I may....


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## Michel Simons (Feb 20, 2019)

Pudge said:


> My favourite scams are the cold calls that use automated messages, saying "I heard you have been in a car crash" if you say "yes" it puts you through to a real person.
> 
> One guy (called Mali) asked me for personal info and card details before asking about the "accident". So I gave him a load of B.S then proceeded to tell him about my accident.
> 
> ...





I too had a couple of those webcam e-mails. They referred to an old password that I had probably used some 15 odd years ago, but never for my e-mail account (which was what they were implying). I was complemented for my good taste.


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## MartinH. (Feb 20, 2019)

Pudge said:


> My favourite scams are the cold calls that use automated messages, saying "I heard you have been in a car crash" if you say "yes" it puts you through to a real person.
> 
> One guy (called Mali) asked me for personal info and card details before asking about the "accident". So I gave him a load of B.S then proceeded to tell him about my accident.
> 
> ...



Nice one! 




Pudge said:


> The BC account I checked had roughly £5K of BC from extortion transactions. Feel sorry for those who fell for it...





That's... very sad indeed :(. I only checked one from a mail I got once, and that one was empty.




mikeh-375 said:


> Not email but a scam anyhow.
> I had a call from India (or at least an Indian lady) telling me there was a problem with my windows computer. "Oh dear" I said, "what can I do about it?" The lady was very helpful, asked if I was at the computer and gave me some keystrokes. I complied but kept getting it all wrong and got more and more flustered. After about 10 mins of this I casually mentioned I was on Mac, not Windows, asked her if she had a family (she was non-plussed but answered yes) then I asked her how she can go home at night knowing she might have ruined an elderly persons life that day. I told her I was glad to have wasted her time and if I'd stopped one person from being scammed it was all worth it. I then called her a callous bitch and hung up.... highly recommended behaviour for scumbag phone calls.
> @Pudge, I'm gonna nick that one if I may....



Iirc I've read a blog post about someone having a really long call with one of those scammers from india and asking him why he's doing it. He said he's a programmer but it's the only kind of work he's getting where he lives. It's still a shitty paid-by-the-hour job and all the big money goes to the people organizing the scam. So, the people making the calls certainly aren't without blame, but on another level they're victims too and I'm sure none of them are proud of what they're doing. So tying them up as long as possible in an ultimately pointless call is probably the second best thing you can do. The best thing is educating all the people that are at risk of falling for these scams. My parents luckily aren't very gullible, but I've given them a warning about "people from Microsoft calling" etc. so that they don't fall for any such scams. 
Sadly these things won't stop till they can no longer turn a profit on them.


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## Pudge (Feb 20, 2019)

Theres another scam going around where you get a prank call from an 0800 number. If you answer it'll hang up. But if you don't answer and you call it back, you get put in an que (that is never ending) and they charge you like £10 per minuet to be on hold and pretend to be a genuin utility provider.


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## Fredeke (Feb 20, 2019)

I am now recieving those scams several times a day, on all my email addresses.
I only regret I can't answer them, because I would love poking fun at the authors.
Like: really ? You've got pictures of me jerking off ? Would you send copies please, I'd like to print and frame one... 

Anyway, I'm no network expert, but I know enough technical stuff to know at first glance that the description of their claimed hacking techniques doesn't make any sense. So I was never worried.


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## kgdrum (Feb 20, 2019)

Fredeke said:


> I am now recieving those scams several times a day, on all my email addresses.
> I only regret I can't answer them, because I would love poking fun at the authors.
> Like: really ? You've got pictures of me jerking off ? Would you send copies please, I'd like to print and frame one...
> 
> Anyway, I'm no network expert, but I know enough technical stuff to know at first glance that the description of their claimed hacking techniques doesn't make any sense. So I was never worried.





I actually saw one of the pictures,quite impressive!!

Now I understand why it says "Active Member" under your name


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## MA-Simon (Feb 20, 2019)

Pudge said:


> Theres another scam going around where you get a prank call from an 0800 number. If you answer it'll hang up. But if you don't answer and you call it back, you get put in an que (that is never ending) and they charge you like £10 per minuet to be on hold and pretend to be a genuin utility provider.


I am ashamed to say that I fell for that one once.
Was not expecting something like this at all, who would? Became a call during the day on my mobile phone, only rung like 2 times. I do have my number online for work purposes, so I called back without checking the number. Immediately got hung up after 2-3 seconds. But then got charged about 2-3€ for that call. I reported that number online, but it took the lazy agency about 3 month to reply to my support ticket, they took that number down, but I still had to pay. 

I now don't answer calls unless they are in my contacts.


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## Pudge (Feb 20, 2019)

MA-Simon said:


> I am ashamed to say that I fell for that one once.
> Was not expecting something like this at all, who would? Became a call during the day on my mobile phone, only rung like 2 times. I do have my number online for work purposes, so I called back without checking the number. Immediately got hung up after 2-3 seconds. But then got charged about 2-3€ for that call. I reported that number online, but it took the lazy agency about 3 month to reply to my support ticket, they took that number down, but I still had to pay.
> 
> I now don't answer calls unless they are in my contacts.



This is one of the many reasons I do NOT have LAN line. As for mobile phones, service providers are getting better now (thankfully), my phone will flag it, if its a recognised spam number, or tell me the location where the call is coming from. Strangely amusing seeing an inbound call from North Korea. Had one from the Galapagos Islands the other day! Even the bloody Cormorents are at it, setting up call centres. Flightless fools. Be the penguins next, squarking down the phone...


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## timprebble (Feb 20, 2019)

For a while I kept getting emails from someone called Kandi, who wanted me to buy bulk carbide tips... Got to say I was intrigued... even googled what carbide tips were used for, thought it might be welding but its for circular saws... why Kandi? why? is it some form of code?
Anyway, I now have 1,000 carbide tips if anyone needs one


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## Pudge (Feb 21, 2019)

timprebble said:


> For a while I kept getting emails from someone called Kandi, who wanted me to buy bulk carbide tips... Got to say I was intrigued... even googled what carbide tips were used for, thought it might be welding but its for circular saws... why Kandi? why? is it some form of code?
> Anyway, I now have 1,000 carbide tips if anyone needs one



Haha! Those type of emails and the ones where they pretend to be a high ranking government agent, looking to safely store large amounts of money in your account, because they are doing some sort of secret operation are so fun to read! Some of these scammers are more creative than TV writers.


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## Fredeke (Feb 21, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> I actually saw one of the pictures,quite impressive!!
> 
> Now I understand why it says "Active Member" under your name



I should have seen this one coming (oh wait... Isn't that just what she said ?)


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2019)

I got a bunch of the “we have vids of you jerking off and we’re going to send them to everyone you know” scam letters. I tried to write back to see if I could score the vids...


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## Pudge (Apr 9, 2019)

Finally got some Spam email that broke the molde of the usual trends..The individual thought it'd be great to send an email every-day for a 4 days. Possibly the most stupid, yet most worked-on fishing scam emails I've seen.

The first day was a huge email on how to "cook meth" and how to get away with it, but you'd need to use spesific equipment supplied by the emailer. "shopping" links for all the equipment were provided, and discount on bulk orders. LOL. (They must be watching too much Breaking Bad)

Second day was how to make a bomb out of toiletpaper (real crappy read) and again, they provided discounted toiletpaper in bulk buy. lmao!

Third day, WOW litterally sent a 5,000 word essay on pharmasutical drugs which caused liver damage in paitents they tested. They even provided the dosage to use for optomim liver damage. Criky!

Fourth Day was links on buying liver damaging drugs.

Had me in stitches. I almost feel like giving them money for being so creative. They're in the wrong job.


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## Fredeke (Apr 9, 2019)

Pudge said:


> Finally got some Spam email that broke the molde of the usual trends..The individual thought it'd be great to send an email every-day for a 4 days. Possibly the most stupid, yet most worked-on fishing scam emails I've seen.
> 
> The first day was a huge email on how to "cook meth" and how to get away with it, but you'd need to use spesific equipment supplied by the emailer. "shopping" links for all the equipment were provided, and discount on bulk orders. LOL. (They must be watching too much Breaking Bad)
> 
> ...



Or maybe it's some gov agency, phishing for potential (aka wannabe) terrorists. Woooooh...


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## Manaberry (Apr 9, 2019)

It seems I'm into weird fetichist videos and they will tell my friends and family if I don't pay them because they obviously got access to my camera and have footage of me. Even if I don't have... a camera.

I assume it does work with some people


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## rudi (Apr 9, 2019)

A TED video: This is what happens when you reply to spam email, by James Veitch


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## Fredeke (Apr 9, 2019)

Manaberry said:


> I assume it does work with some people



Scam and spam both work with an infinitesimal fraction of people, but since the volume is huge to start with (it takes no more effort to send 10,000,000 copies of the same email than it takes to send 10), even a small fraction of that is still enough to earn worthy money.

I'd say they must get as many hits per day as a door-to-door salesman, but with a million times worse hit-to-miss ratio.


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