Scams – Why Spelling Counts

Remember when you were in school? Ever ask if spelling counts? It does.

Yes, I judge the writer of emails received by sentence structure and spelling. Who knew the Internet would make ‘written skills’ so much more necessary?

Of course, if you’re in business, proper usage can make you look professional… or not.

This email just came from “PayPal”… not! I’ll turn off the spell checker for a moment. The subject was: “IMPORTANT NOTICE: Dear Paypal Member Last 72 Hours For Uptade Your Billing Information.”

Security Center

Military Grade Encryption is Only Start

At PayPal, we want to increase your security and comfort level with every transaction. From our Buyer and Seller Protection Policies to out Verification and Reputation systems, we`ll help to keep you safe.

* We Recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your PayPal account from foreign IP adress and we have reasons to believe that your account was hijacked by a third party without your authorization

* If you recently noticed one or more attempts your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if your are rightful holder of the account, click on the link below to log into your account and fallow the intrusctions.

* If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but not temporaly suspend account.

* We ask that you fallow at least 72 hours for the case to be investigated and we strongly recomanded to verify your account in that time.

* If you recived this notice and you are not the authorized account holder, please be aware that it is in violation of PayPal policy to represent oneself as another PayPal user.Such action may also be in violation of local, national, and/or international law. Paypal is misappropriate at the request of law enforment agencies to ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

* Thanks for your patiance as we work togheter to protect your account.

* Sincerly,

* PayPal Account Review Department

* PayPal, an ebay Company

* Please do not respond to this e-mail adress as your reply will not be recived

* Paypal E-mail ID – #98754

I’ve reread it a few times. Forget the obvious misspellings. Look at what else is wrong. The sentences are missing articles, like ‘the’.

Using your best Boris Badinov imitation, say “Military Grade Encryption is Only Start.” It works. Russia is a perfect candidate for the native language of this sender, though others work too.

Some sad sack is going to believe this and sign on, giving up their username and password. You can’t thwart stupidity!

What I don’t understand is why these phishing expeditions aren’t combated by PayPal, or whomever the attack targets, seeding the phisher with identifiable usernames and passwords? They can then immediately tag who is using this info and where they are.

It seems so simple. I must be missing something?

How many highly publicized arrests need there be before this would stop? As it is now, have you ever heard of anyone being caught for doing this?

3 thoughts on “Scams – Why Spelling Counts”

  1. Paypal does go after these guys, but they need to be made aware of them first. If you do read paypals security advisory , they ask that suspicious emails be fowarded to spoof@paypal.com . I have fowarded several that came to me and within hours the ” url’s ” were shut down.

  2. Paypal does go after these guys, but they need to be made aware of them first. If you do read paypals security advisory , they ask that suspicious emails be fowarded to spoof@paypal.com . I have fowarded several that came to me and within hours the ” url’s ” were shut down.

  3. Ditto to what phuzzy said. Forward to spoof@paypal.com and they will take care of it. I have received many of these false e-mails, and they’ll send you an e-mail telling you what you already know, that it was a fake. But I, like you, wonder how many idiots fall for this.

Leave a Reply to phuzzy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *