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PayPal scam


Jamboat

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"Dear Customer" = anyone who is a bit naive.

The one which tells me I am due a refund  of £256.33 from HMRC is rather more tempting.

I also got one from a friend who was stuck in Istanbul having had all cash and cc stolen, it looked fairly genuine, good English, there were several dozens of us asked to wire cash via Western Union.

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14 minutes ago, Athy said:

Apart from anything else, the awkward English is a giveaway - akin to an e-mail I recently received from some company's "Customer Suport".

I read somewhere that poor spelling and grammar is put in intentionally.  If you don't spot the mistakes you are more likely to fall for the scam.

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26 minutes ago, LadyG said:

"Dear Customer" = anyone who is a bit naive.

The one which tells me I am due a refund  of £256.33 from HMRC is rather more tempting.

I also got one from a friend who was stuck in Istanbul having had all cash and cc stolen, it looked fairly genuine, good English, there were several dozens of us asked to wire cash via Western Union.

Are they still in Istanbul then, or was it just a Constuntinpaypal.

Edited by rusty69
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22 minutes ago, Athy said:

Apart from anything else, the awkward English is a giveaway - akin to an e-mail I recently received from some company's "Customer Suport".

That's probably Natwest as they couldn't give a p about customers.

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18 minutes ago, dor said:

I read somewhere that poor spelling and grammar is put in intentionally.  If you don't spot the mistakes you are more likely to fall for the scam.

 

I don't see the advantage. A gullible person is just as likely to fall for a correctly spelled scam email.

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20 minutes ago, dor said:

I read somewhere that poor spelling and grammar is put in intentionally.  If you don't spot the mistakes you are more likely to fall for the scam.

Perhaps, but when our daughter was working in Poland teaching English as a foreign language one of the companies she was giving lessons to was a "email spam" company.  So they certainly wanted to improve the quality of English in their dodgy emails.

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4 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I don't see the advantage. A gullible person is just as likely to fall for a correctly spelled scam email.

Someone who spots the errors will just dismiss it as spam.  If someone does still follow it up, they are more likely to miss other signs and maybe fall for the scam more easily.   It's just a numbers game so anything that moves the odds in the right direction is a plus for them.

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2 minutes ago, dor said:

Someone who spots the errors will just dismiss it as spam.  If someone does still follow it up, they are more likely to miss other signs and maybe fall for the scam more easily.   It's just a numbers game so anything that moves the odds in the right direction is a plus for them.

 

Indeed, but surely the more response the better the income. I still don't see why peeling out a proportion of your possible victims helps you get more of them.

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2 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

That is so annoying, I have only just paid my Paypal membership and it cost me £50, I could have saved myself £25!!!!!!!!

 

Yes I've had other emails wanting 50(£) so was very keen to pay this one instead.

Trouble is, when I click on the link in the OP, nothing happens. Can anyone HELP please?

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3 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I don't see the advantage. A gullible person is just as likely to fall for a correctly spelled scam email.

No it is done on purpose.  It is used to  specifically limit the number of responses to those that are more likely to be suckered in. The less vulnerable are more likely spot the grammatical errors and not respond. The scammers would rather only deal with the vulnerable as they have a greater chance of obtaining a result. Basically it is a way of reducing the scammers work load. 

Known and unfortunately proven  technique. 

Edited by reg
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7 minutes ago, reg said:

No it is done on purpose.  It is used to  specifically limit the number of responses to those that are more likely to be suckered in. The less vulnerable are more likely spot the grammatical errors and not respond. The scammers would rather only deal with the vulnerable as they have a greater chance of obtaining a result. Basically it is a way of reducing the scammers work load. 

Known and unfortunately proven  technique. 

That's a peach of a theory, which you have explained plausibly. I suspect, however, that the spelling mistakes occur because these e-mails are sent from abroad, and the senders' first language is not English. I would struggle to compose an accurately-written e-mail, or an accurately-written anything for that matter, in Russian for example.

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Is there a paypal e-mail address that scam e-mails should be forwarded to? Mrs Rusty just got one, they seem be on the increase.

2 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Is there a paypal e-mail address that scam e-mails should be forwarded to? Mrs Rusty just got one, they seem be on the increase.

Answered my own question

 

spoof@paypal.com

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18 minutes ago, Athy said:

That's a peach of a theory, which you have explained plausibly. I suspect, however, that the spelling mistakes occur because these e-mails are sent from abroad, and the senders' first language is not English. I would struggle to compose an accurately-written e-mail, or an accurately-written anything for that matter, in Russian for example.

It's to do with data analysis and filtering. The introduction of errors greatly reduces the response level but greatly increases the 'quality' of the responses I. E those that do respond are more likely to be gullible. 

After all why waste time on intelligent people when your success rate is dependent on finding gullible people. This technique allows the non gullible to filter themselves out of the response data, which is a result for the phishers and scammers.

As I said it is a known technique, here's a link to just one security forum discussion on the subject. 

Microsoft did a detailed report on this technique  some years ago

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/96121/why-do-phishing-emails-have-spelling-and-grammar-mistakes

Edited by reg
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So they reduce the size of their potential clientele on purpose? My, that's sound business practice. Unlikely, I think! The more convincing the e-mail which claims to be from one's bank/utility provider/taxman, the more likely one is to act upon it. For example, I have had e-mails which purported to come from a well-known bank, and they had managed to reproduce the bank's logo at the top of the page. If they had, instead, put a picture of Donald Duck, or even Donald Trump, there, I would have suspected that the post was not genuine.

I've had a look at your link and it's inconclusive. Some contributors think you may be right, others are adamant that you're not.

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13 minutes ago, Athy said:

So they reduce the size of their potential clientele on purpose? My, that's sound business practice. Unlikely, I think! The more convincing the e-mail which claims to be from one's bank/utility provider/taxman, the more likely one is to act upon it. For example, I have had e-mails which purported to come from a well-known bank, and they had managed to reproduce the bank's logo at the top of the page. If they had, instead, put a picture of Donald Duck, or even Donald Trump, there, I would have suspected that the post was not genuine.

I've had a look at your link and it's inconclusive. Some contributors think you may be right, others are adamant that you're not.

There are multiple techniques of which the one I described is only one albeit a popular one. It objective is elicit responses from the more gullible I. E obtain a quality response as apposed to a quantity response 

There are many other techniques, including the emulation one you describe,  that are seeking a different response Base. 

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