Country Living Series

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Writing this "with tears in my eyes"

Here's your chuckle du jour.

As I mentioned before, I get a lot of spam emails. Most of them I delete without reading, but this one caught my attention:

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes, my family and I came down here to Dubai - United Arab Emirates for a short vacation, unfortunately we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed all cash,credit card and mobile phone were stolen from us but luckily we still have our passports with us.

We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all the bad news is our flight will be leaving in less than 8-hrs from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills.

I'll need your help (LOAN) financially of $2,500 USD.I promise to make the refund once we get back home. Please let me know if i can count on you and i need you to keep checking your email because it's the only way i can reach you.
Sincerely,
Frederick N. Dyer, Ph.D.
8017 *** Ct.
Columbus GA 31909

It goes without saying that I don't know a Frederick N. Dyer, Ph.D., in Columbus, Georgia.

13 comments:

I have gotten an e-mail like this before. It came from a friend whose account had been hacked. I did not respond but it would have been easy to be fooled by a name that you knew. It makes sense to keep your eyes and ears open!

A friend of my husband, had his account hacked and everyone in his address book got a letter asking for money. Grammar, punctuation, everything looked good, expressed his hesitancy at asking for the money. They are military friends and support each other, but before we sent the money to the western union, we emailed him. It was a scam, but a really good one.sidetracksusie

same thing happened to me. it came from a friend and I replied with a laugh. apparently that put me on the radar as a good account and then my account was hacked and a similar email sent from it. They changed my passwords and profile enough that I lost the account and all contacts and had to create another one. With the email account integration with voice services, and a bunch of other stuff, having your account hacked carries higher risk than it used to. beware. -Old Soldier

I got one like that a week ago that used a friend's name...It was hilarious because I just saw her Sunday and on Monday I get the email about her being away on an "impromptu trip to Turkey!" And Patrice, you got a better deal--this "crying friend" wanted $2,900.

Of all the Ph.D.s I've known in academia or my profession, not one of them would write that poorly.

Scammers, take note. Your violations of normal social protocol notwithstanding, the grammar here is atrocious and the lack of proper punctuation simply unforgivable.

Take this home, rewrite it completely, and submit the revised version by midnight Friday for a regrade. I'm only giving you this chance because I know you need to this grade to keep your scholarship, and I feel sorry for you.

About five years ago I got one of these from a friend, a grandma with grown children of her own. The fact that she appealed to me, we were starving students with five children, tipped me off that this was a scam. Good grief, some people would rather steal than work.

Patrice - i've read this post a few times now and call me gullible - but i wonder and worry for days after receiving emails like this. i wonder - what if that was me and i was asking people for help and really needed it. i know that they are scams from the first second of reading the email....but still i wonder and worry. i know - gullible!